“Avery doesn’t know anything,” I reply, and sigh.
She shakes her head, her eyes clouded with concern. “He saw you. Last night. He showed up at Ty’s at like seven this morning and he was completely screwed up. Kind of like a quiet rage thing. Ty took him out to breakfast to talk.”
Oh, my God, Avery came over last night? He saw Alex in my bed? With me? No. It can’t be. No. No. No. I grab my tangled hair in my hands, pressing my palms against my temples, trying to quell the pounding and the horrible thoughts running through my head.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I murmur, confused and still dealing with the throbbing in my head. “How does this keep going from bad to worse?”
“You should call him,” Maddie suggests.
I stand up and start walking toward the front hall and stairs.
Upstairs I grab my phone and turn it on. It takes a second to boot up and then a bunch of alerts start to beep and buzz. I’m instantly overwhelmed, so I ignore them all and dial his number. It goes straight to voice mail.
“Avery. Call me. I did NOT sleep with Alex. I know what it seems like, but just ask him.”
I hang up and feel a little spark of anger start to catch inside me. Does he really think I would sleep with his teammate? Honestly? Shouldn’t he know I wouldn’t? If he thinks I would cheat on him, we have much bigger problems than my past.
Chapter 34
Avery
About three-quarters of the way through the practice, my curiosity starts to outweigh my rage. Now when I look at Larue I don’t wonder about how good it would feel to put his face through the glass and instead wonder how the fuck he’s just standing there looking innocent. He must know I know what they did. The fact that we drove right by him as he walked toward Ty’s house this morning, ignoring him as he waved and yelled, probably tipped him off. But he’s been acting like his normal self all practice. He’s joking with Furry, yakking about baseball with Drew. He’s even talking to Ty. The fucking asshole even had the nerve to talk to me. Said something like “Great shot, Westie!” when I scored in a drill. I promptly skated away and focused my rage on my next shot, which broke my stick.
Coach Meisner calls an end to practice and tells us to head home and rest up. Warns us no one is to have a late night. He wants us rested and focused for our game tomorrow night. I watch my teammates filter off the ice, but I don’t join them. I start taking shots on net until Coach comes up and insists I head out.
“Your scoring touch isn’t going anywhere. At least not on the ice. Relax. Go home and rest,” Coach jokes, and chuckles to himself. Normally the humor would make me chuckle, too, but it makes me feel sick today.
Even after getting kicked off the ice, I don’t head to the locker room. I go into the equipment room and fake some issue with my left skate to buy time. I don’t want to see Larue when I finally go in there. Without the distractions of practice or the watchful eyes of the coaches I will, without a doubt, beat the living shit out of him. When I finally make it back to the locker room it’s empty.
I strip and take a long shower. I have no one to go home and see, so I’m not in a rush. Eventually I’ll have to talk to Stephanie. I just don’t have the energy to do it now. I need to focus on hockey and only hockey. This game—winning—is all I can control in my life right now. It’s all I’ve ever been able to control.
I take my time drying off and changing. When I wander outside to the parking lot, even the small gaggle of autograph seekers that usually gathers there is gone. I walk along the edge of the building scrolling through my emails on my phone. My father has sent me three, but I only open the one titled “Motion is pulling out.” Motion is the name of the fitness company backing my clothing line. Don doesn’t add anything; he just forwards the email from the company president. Apparently they’ve decided that we have creative differences on the direction of the line and they’ve decided it’s not a good time to move forward with my line. They wish me well if I decide to pursue it elsewhere.
The whole thing is complete bullshit. Sure, I changed the women’s line to be less…slutty from what they originally proposed, but they hadn’t balked about that. Not until now…now that I’m making headlines for my love life.
I take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. I’m more mad at myself than anyone else in this situation when I really think about it. I’m mad that I’d let my feelings cloud my judgment and influence my decisions. My life might have been lonely and isolated when I stuck to Don’s rules—no parties, no public drunkenness, no girlfriends—but at least I felt like I was in control. This…this thing with Stephanie was completely out of control. Even before she slept with Alex.
I am mad at myself for wanting more than a soaring career. For wanting a relationship—and not with a safe, predictable bet like Lizzie. I wanted these things with Stephanie. I couldn’t not want them with Stephanie. I complicated everything myself. I shove my phone back in my pocket and glance up. Ty is leaning against the back of his SUV.
“Hey. Sorry I took so long.”
“It’s fine,” he says, and pushes himself off the SUV. As I get closer, I realize he’s not moving from his position leaning against the trunk. So I stop a foot away from him.
“Are we going or…?”
“He didn’t sleep with her,” Ty says flatly. “Says she was drunk and throwing up so he was taking care of her. Then they fell asleep.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“But isn’t that kind of exactly what she said to you this morning?” Ty counters, lifting his baseball cap to scratch his head. “You think they’d both lie to you?”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I reply quietly. “I saw them.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “Did you see them doing it? Were they naked?”
“Parsons, if I’d walked in on it, he’d be dead,” I blurt, then take a calming breath. “They were all curled up together. If he was just keeping an eye on her, why wasn’t he asleep on the floor or the guest room or the…”
“Because she was crying, dude.”
