I staggered at the sound of my name on his lips. He’d never called me that before. Combined with the sincerity etched into his face, it was almost too much to bear.
But I beared it just long enough to repeat myself.
“Out. I mean it, Bouchard.”
He backed toward the door reluctantly, like each step cost him. He didn’t look away until the very last second, then slipped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him.
My apartment felt way too quiet after that.
I stormed back toward the bathroom, heart hammering, skin prickling with anger I had nowhere to put, and the residual heat from him lingering in the air like a curse I couldn’t break.
I was about to restart the shower when my phone rang, slicing through the adrenaline. I stomped back to the living room where I’d left it and snatched it up.
“What?”
“Uh, Hopper?” McAvoy’s gruff voice sounded over the line, and I cringed hard. He cleared his throat, although it didn’t help the rough edges to his tone. “It’s, uh, it’s Coach McAvoy. Sorry to call out of the blue like this.”
I reeled myself in with a deep breath. “Yea— Yes. Is everything okay?”
“I need to know what’s going on with Theo. No bullshit.” He certainly wasted no time after that hesitant start. Granted, I was the reason for that, barking into the phone the way I had.
I opened my mouth, started to back into the story I’d built with Holly, but he cut me off before I could say anything.
“And think carefully about what you’re gonna say now,” he said, and my stomach fell ten feet. “I just got out of a meeting with management. They want to protect our Cup dream, and they think the best way to do that is to trade Bouchard.”
13
Theo
“Since when do you nurse a beer?” I tipped my bottle toward Hunter’s. The bar’s neon sign flickered against the glass, giving his face that washed-out glow he always got when he pretended he wasn’t worried about me.
He clinked his bottle against mine. “Since you started acting suspicious as hell.”
“Suspicious?” I leaned on the bar, letting the wood dig into my ribs. “Pretty sure I’m just sitting here, drinking with you.”
“Yeah.” He sipped. “Wild concept. You disappearing after practice? That’s suspicious.”
“That was one time.”
He snorted and flagged the bartender for another round. “And then there was the press conference.”
I lifted the fresh bottle he slid my way. “Thought the whole point of tonight was the calm before we stomp Dallas in Game 5.”
“It was,” he said. “But then you started doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
He pointed at me. “Your ‘everything’s fine’ face. Not the face you have when everything is actually fine. It’s the one you pull out when everything’s, well, not fine.”
I tried a smirk. It sat wrong on my mouth, but it was the best I had. “Stop studying my face. We’re here to drink.”
The easy buzz of the bar dulled around us. Not silent. Just… closer. Hunter turned his bottle on the counter, thumb moving along the label like he was talking to it instead of me.
“It messed me up a little,” he said. “That presser. You looked… off. And look, man, you shouldn’t be playing if you’re hurt.”
I kept my gaze on the bottle, the way his finger kept glazing over that label. The condensation cut a thin line down the glass, tapping the wood beneath it. “I’m not looking to repeat last season.”
It was the most honest I’d been to anyone who wasn’t Reese, and it felt good.
