PROLOGUE
BREAKAWAY: LONE ATTACKER VS GOALIE
“Ican’t believe you would do something like this.”
A masculine shout is the only warning before my dorm room door is slammed open hard enough to send the whiteboard attached to the back crashing to the floor. I’m about to lose my shit on the person on the other side for being an inconsiderate ass when I realize the person deserving of my seething fury is my boyfriend, Brennan McCallister.
His cheeks are flushed, like he sprinted the entire way from the hockey arena—which is where he was supposed to be wrapping up practice. But his eyes? They’re like the ice he skates on—cold and harsh.
My stomach churns. “Bren? What?—”
“Don’t. Just, don’t say a word.” He storms into my room, making no effort to close the door behind him.
I’m paralyzed by the fury on his face as he approaches me. Carefully, I probe, “Did something happen?”
His laugh comes out slightly unhinged. “She asks if something happened.”
I step forward and reach out to touch his arm, but he rears back as if my touch may be toxic. Jaw clenched, he unlocks his phone before holding it out, far away from a body I’ve touched more times than I can recall in the last three plus years we’ve dated. “You want to play games, Amy? Fine. Here. This happened. It’s everywhere!” He holds his phone steady so I can view what’s on the screen.
I feel the blood drain from my face even as I stutter, “W-where d-did y-you g-get that?”
He sneers, “Everyone has it by now, but Mark’s the one who showed me.”
“Mark? Bren, it isn’t m-me.”
“Oh, come on. You think I don’t know your body by now?”
My anger rises at my boyfriend’s presumptions. “You know me better than this!”
“I sure as hell thought I did!”
“You honestly believe I would take photo of myself and put them on…what the hell is DormLust.com anyway?”
“That’s your defense? That you don’t know the website?” He whips the phone in his direction. “It’s you. I recognize the constellation on your shoulder, Amy. I wastherewhen you gotthat tattoo. Do you think I don’t recognize my girlfriend’s body?” He flips the phone back around toward me defiantly.
He’s right. It is my body, but there’s something off about the photo. He doesn’t give me enough time to study it before he yanks the phone down. “I swear to you, Bren, I have never seen that photo before in my life.”
His voice cracks. “People are sharing it around.”
Fury cracks the ice that had been invading my veins. “Who? Tell me. Who is doing this? How?—”
“Mark showed it to me in the locker room before practice. Then Coach called me in because he was concerned.”
Confusion makes my head pound even as my stomach churns at the idea of his teammates seeing “me” in such a way. “Even if it were me,which it’s not, why would your coach care?”
“Optics. Because pro scouts are coming to games and the last thing I need is to be the punchline for some attention-seeking thirst trap.”
His defamation of my character hits harder than the picture. “We’ve been together for over three years, and you’re standing here telling me you believe I could do this?”
“You’re standing here expecting me to believe that a near-naked picture of you magically made its way online—plus half the student body has a hold of it—and you have no idea how it happened?”
“Yes!” I shout, fury and despair leeching into my voice. “Because it isn’t me, Bren!”
His eyes are full of disgust—whether at me or self-directed, I can’t tell. “Do you know how this makes me look?”
“I can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about,” I whisper.
“You can’t believeme?”The disgust in his voice lodges next to my heart in a way I know I’ll never forget.
