“Did he come inside you?” The sharp knife lodges in my throat, and I don’t recognize the way I speak anymore.
Neve takes a breath through her nose.
Another.
Her complexion is pale.
“Did you do it?” she presses. “Jackson and Will and?—”
“Don’t say their fucking names.”Who am I now? My cover is blown. This is not the version of me she is supposed to see.
I’ll scare her off now.
I’ll make her run.
But the thought makes me laugh out loud, her brows knitting together as I do.Where can she go?She’s stuck here. She has a car, sure, but her entire world isherenow. She has a brother, but what is he going to do? Whisk her away to Manhattan? Yeah, I know all about him too, and he’s not going to take her.
Not in the middle of the semester of her last year. Not when she’s so close to graduating, one step closer to dealing with psychopaths like me every single day of her working life.
She had a business over the summer, coaching. I found the website. But she shut it down, and I wonder why. I like to believe she wanted more danger. More complication. More of someone likeme.
I slap my hand to the table, making her flinch.
I hate myself for that.
“Don’t be scared of me,” I whisper, beg her, plead with her. “Please, Neve.”
“What did you do?” she asks quietly, but there is a horrible fascination rolled into the words.
Has anyone ever stood up for her like this? Been obsessed with her like this?I don’t fucking think so.
“Tell me, Sylvan.” She grits her teeth as she leans closer now. If this table wasn’t between us, I might eat her alive. “Tell me what exactly you did.”
“Did you fuck him?” I have to know. I remember how she saidhisname when she should have been screaming mine.
I love Faust. Respect him. I want to fuck him, too. But in this competition, there’s only one winner, and it has to be me, unless he’s shattered it.
What will I do to him tonight, if he has? Would it be unprecedented, a freshman going after his own captain on the ice?
I don’t mind being the first.
But it would ruin my career. Ruin my education.
It would send me… back.
For her, I’d fight to stay. For her, I could make hurting Faust look like an accident.
“No,” she whispers, and for all my time with Tim, I can tell she isn’t lying.
The relief barrels through me.
I don’t have to hurt Faust.
I don’t have to do something that I might regret.
I don’t have to.
And I can still win this. Or maybe we could do it together. One of us—me or Faust—would have to give this sport up, but for her, would I?
