“Are you jealous?”
“Of Knox Mulligan? Please. He’s nothing but a flashy showboat who doesn’t have one working brain cell in that big head of his.”
Poor Hassie can’t keep up, her neck practically on a permanent swivel. “Hang on, you’re dating Knox Mulligan?!”
I bare my teeth at him, my lips pulled back in a snarl as I ignore the well-intentioned blonde by my side. “Don’t be an ass, Leif.”
A growl is lured from his throat—one that’s been newly awakened in the black hole of his belly. It vibrates through his muscular stature and pulls his tendons tight, the imposing size of his body eclipsing my line of sight. “Don’t be stupid, Staten.”
All etiquette flies out the goddamn window as I rise to a stance. “Excuse me?”
I’m expecting the commencement of an all-out war on what was once neutral territory—even loading the chamber of my figurative machine gun with a slew of fighting words in case things turn south—but then Leif and his irksome peace-keeping ploy have to throw another wrench in my plans with a ceasefire.
The frustration in his expression dies, as does the erected distance between us. His voice softens to a near-whisper, and it slips through the unguarded cracks of my defense like a shadow-run blitz. “I just…I just mean that you’re an intellect, and he’s a meathead. You two aren’t compatible. You two aren’t even from the same universe. He could never give you what you truly want.”
What I truly want? You’re what I want, Leif! It’s always been you! You’ve just been too blind to see it, and I…I don’t know how much longer I can take being your invisible sidekick.
Knox is a lot of things, but at least he notices me.
The cold wicks away my unshed tears, my small, unimportant voice tremoring while sadness coils around my body in the same way mangrove roots catch on bloated carrion floating through a dense swamp.
The first step in decomposition; the first step in beingforgotten.
With my mouth thinning into a line, no words fly airborne before the floodlights wink to life, and the Mustangs’ anthem rocks the entire arena, reminding me that my fake boyfriend—the one who saved my ass when I didn’t ask him to—is seconds away from taking the ice.
Knox and I couldn’t be farther apart from each other, but Leif is the one whom I don’t recognize.
10
SPRINKLES AND SIDE QUESTS
KNOX
Irarely take five-minute showers, but I’m sprinting out of the locker room like the fucking place is on fire. I need to know what Staten and Leif were talking about. I’m thankful that my teammates had my back tonight, otherwise we wouldn’t have scored that final goal in the last period. The Mustangs’ winning streak sees another day.
I’ve never been distracted on the ice before. I’ve been conditioned to always leave my personal baggage at the rink’s entrance. Tonight, though, I let my already-complicated feelings jeopardize my one goal in life: to make a name for myself in the hockey world. I should’ve seen that defenseman coming, and I’m going to pay for my mistake tomorrow when my muscles protest every little movement.
I texted Staten—her phone number acquired after our tutoring session—to meet me outside the locker room. I think she’s starting to regret giving me phone privileges, and that girl has been as skittish as a stray ever since I trusted her and opened my big, fat mouth in the library.
Panic burbling in my gut and further scaffolded by thecomplementary nerves that always appear following a Staten sighting, I nearly ram right into her when I swing the door open and come pinwheeling out.
I’m used to her personality lighting up every room she steps in, but strangely, everything about her tonight seems…dim. Small. So translucent that she’s bordering on invisible. She looks like a mirage wobbling up from hot asphalt, or the fuzzy silhouette of a quickly forgotten dream wandering the purlieus of a sleep-deprived subconscious.
“Hey, hi,” I greet, trying to suppress the unruly excitement in my voice.
Read the room, Knox.
Staten’s mouth is carved into a frown, and her arms are wrapped around her midsection, offering herself comfort that I’m more than ready to extend.
Fear strangles my throat in its icy clutch, as if it has a debt to fulfill.
Granted, she’s never usuallyhappyto see me, but she looks like she just got the news that her childhood puppy didn’t really run away to Aunt Rosie’s cattle ranch. Her eyes fixate on the toes of my worn sneakers, and she refuses to even hazard a glance at me.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a particularly protective person, but something inside me, in this very moment, turbocharges and launches me into guard dog mode. “Staten, are you okay?”
Maybe this will go down in my history of bad ideas, but I breach literally all the rules of our contract by sweeping her into my arms, more than prepared for the chastising that threatens to cudgel me.
To my utter surprise—and relief—her small arms squeeze me back, confirming that some part of her, is, in fact, still alive. She feels so delicate in my embrace; I just want to wrap myarms around her and sink through the earth’s crust like it’s nothing but molasses.
