I ignore him and get to my feet. I’m definitely wobbly, but I skate toward Sebastian. “Hey!”
He sees me and struggles to break free of the ref, but he can’t. Another linesman and Ty start grabbing at my jersey to hold me back. Around me, there are several shoving matches happening because an ice-clearing brawl is always the next logical step when a player sucker punches the captain of the other team on puck drop.
“Hey!” I yell again, even though I can’t get any closer to him due to my human restraints, and he’s still being skated backward, away from me, against his will.
“Where is she?” I yell at him, knowing full well that every player on both teams can hear me, the coaches and probably even Chance Echolls, too, who’s reporting from between the benches. Luckily, when this type of crap goes down, they cut his mic so it’s not broadcasting our potty mouths to the nation.
“Fuck you!”
I break free of Ty and the linesman and move to skate toward him, but I’m dizzy. The trainer is suddenly in front of me again, holding me by both shoulders. “Avery, you gotta get off the ice,” he explains.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“League protocol, buddy,” he tells me, and I let him skate me toward the tunnel. “Quiet room time.”
Right. When we suffer a hit to the head now, we have to spend time in the medical room while they check for concussion symptoms. I don’t have a choice, and maybe if I take ten minutes I’ll stop seeing three of everything. And sure enough, ten minutes later I’m feeling a lot better. I’ve got a bit of a headache and my jaw is going to turn black where Seb’s fist connected with it, but my brain isn’t foggy. Still, the trainer says, “Let’s give it the rest of the period and reassess.” I start to argue, but then he reminds me that it’s better I sit twenty minutes than through the play-offs. I don’t have a choice but to agree.
“What happened to Deveau?” I ask, because I didn’t stick around to hear the penalty called.
“Game misconduct,” the trainer says with a hard smile. “And that asshole will be getting a call from the league. No way he’s not getting suspended.”
The guy is probably right. You can’t sucker punch anyone in this league, but you especially can’t sucker punch me. I know how fucking egotistical that sounds, but it’s true. As soon as he leaves me alone in the room again, I jump off the table I’m sitting on and head to the door. I glance into the hall. It’s empty, so I leave and march down the familiar hallway to the home team side. I pass one guy—a janitor with a cart who must have been cleaning the VIP restrooms by the family lounge. He doesn’t even look up as I slip into the Winterhawks’ locker room.
It’s all too familiar and yet feels overwhelmingly foreign at the same time. Sebastian is sitting alone in nothing but some sweatpants, a towel around his neck, his head hanging down, eyes closed. I stand just inside the door, teetering on my skates, and clear my throat. He looks up, expressionless, but when he sees me, every feature of his face turns hard with rage. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“I love her,” I tell him calmly.
He stands up. “Yeah, well, you’re doing it wrong, asshole.”
“I know that,” I admit, and fight not to take a step back as he moves menacingly toward me. “I fucked up. I was blindsided and panicked. She should have told me.”
“Yeah, she should have,” he agrees gruffly. “So you could have been a spineless asshole and disowned her before she fell in love with you.”
I blink. “She’s in love with me?”
“She was.”
The word “was” stings worse than his punch.
“Where is she?”
“I’m going to punch you again. I don’t care if it gets me kicked out of the fucking league,” he warns, and takes another step toward me.
I open my arms. “Do it. At least one of us will feel better. And it won’t hurt as much as I’ve already hurt myself, so go for it, bro.”
Sebastian doesn’t move. His hands are in fists, but he doesn’t raise them from his sides. His eyes, so similar to his sister’s, scan my face, like he’s reading a book. And then he lets out a heavy breath, swears in French and sits back down on the bench in front of his stall.
“Why do you want to see her again?”
“So I can tell her what I’ve been trying to show her and everyone else,” I explain, a desperate hitch in my voice. “That I know she’s not that person. That I don’t care that she was that person. That I love her.”
“She is a good person and she’s worked her ass off to beat her demons,” Sebastian says in a gravelly voice directed at the floor. “And you asking her to hide the fact that she’s with you made it seem like she had something to be ashamed of. She doesn’t. You do.”
“I know that,” I confess, and rub a hand across my forehead. “I will spend the rest of my life making it up to her if someone would just fucking tell me where she is so I can do it.”
“She’s on vacation,” he mumbles.
“Yeah. Ty said that, but Maddie won’t tell him where,” I reply, and lean against the wall. “You’re going to get fucking suspended and miss the first couple of games of the play-offs, Seb.”
