He growls. “Clover…”
“No, don’tCloverme. If you’re going to speak, you had better be telling me what was said out there that was so awful you got a five-minute major and cost your team the game.”
“I should have done more to him than just cross-check him. I should have beaten his skull in. I should have killed him. I should have…”
He closes his eyes again, working his jaw back and forth, and I wait. I’m not going anywhere with him tonight until I know what has him so mad. If I’m going to be the reason he loses a game, I want to know what was said. Then he opens his mouth, and I hold my breath.
“He said…” He opens his eyes, then sighs. “He said, ‘She must give one hell of a blow job because I wouldn’t be caught dead with a girl like that.’”
A girl like that.He doesn’t have to elaborate on what that means—I know.
A girl who is good enough for him, who fits the standard for hockey girlfriends of tall, blonde, and slim, which is the total opposite of me.
He looks sick repeating it, and I feel sick hearing it. It’s somehow exactly and not at all what I was expecting at the same time. I hate it. I hate this moment. I hate that my eyes are burning with unshed tears, and I really hate that Callum lost a game because of me.
This is all my fault. I knew I wasn’t good enough for him from the start, and now I’ve cost him a game.
“No, no,” he says, dropping his bag and taking my face in his hands. “Don’t cry, Clover. Please. I can’t stand to watch it, especially when that fuckhead isn’t worth your tears.” He swipeshis fingers under my eyes, catching the ones that have already fallen. “Especially when it’s not true. Okay? It’s not true. Don’t listen to him. Don’t listen to any of them.”
It’s the first time he’s ever acknowledged the whispers I’ve been hearing for months. I had no idea he knew about them. Why has he never said anything before? Or has he, just not to me but to them? He’s been hanging out with his teammates and roommates less and less. Is that…is that because of me?
“Come on.” He picks up his bag, grabs my hand, and pulls me toward his car.
“Callum…” I tug on his hand, but he doesn’t stop. “I know you were excited for tonight, but I really don’t feel like going to dinner right now.”
“We’re not going to dinner.”
“Then where are we going?”
He doesn’t answer, just opens the car door, and because I feel so wrung out right now, I climb in without question. We don’t talk as he drives to I don’t even know where. I don’t have a car, so I haven’t explored Denver much since moving here, and I’m surprised when he pulls into a hotel parking lot and backs into a spot.
“What are we doing here?” I ask as I unclick my seat belt.
“I’m proving to you just how much it’s not true.”
He helps me out of the car and leads me into the hotel lobby, and in a daze, I let him. He checks us in—he apparently already had a room reserved—and we make our way to the elevators. We stand inside the car in silence, our hands linked together, a soft jazz song playing overhead. I want to ask him so many questions, but I don’t even know where to start.
When we arrive on our floor, I let Callum pull me out and into the hall, which feels so small as we make our way down it. He stops in front of room 1010 and holds his keycard up to thescanner. It turns green, and I expect him to rush inside, but he doesn’t.
He pauses, exhaling a long breath before he turns and looks at me—reallylooks at me—for the first time since he finished his game.
“We were supposed to come here after dinner, our bellies full of pasta and dessert. I was supposed to hold your hand on the drive over, and I was going to kiss the hell out of you in the elevator, Diet Coke breath be dammed.” He smiles softly. “But I ruined that.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but he shakes his head.
“I did. It was my fault.” He points at his chest, then takes a step toward me. “I shouldn’t have taken that penalty. I shouldn’t have let him get to me. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have listened to him.”
He closes the last of the distance, one hand landing on my hip, the other cupping my face as he turns my eyes up to his. I blink back the tears that haven’t let me alone.
“What that prick said…ignore him, Clover. You’re perfect. Fucking gorgeous. Your curves”—he squeezes my hips that have always been a bit too big for my liking, like he’s trying to make a point—“they’re one of my favorite things about you. They have never bothered me, and they never will. My other favorite things? One, you’re smart.”
I’m not, though. He knows how hard I have to work to get the grades I do.
“You’re smart,” he repeats, as if he knows I need to hear it again. “You’re kind, even when you really don’t fucking need to be. You’re funny but never on purpose. And you’re…you’re…” He laughs. “Fuck, you’reyou. Do you have any idea how special that is? How specialyouare?”
You’re special to me, Clover. In a big damn way.
I remember his words from before. Hell, I’ve stamped them onto my heart, clung to them whenever I needed a reminder that he chose me and not one of those other girls.
