We’d been down this road before, so many goddamned times.
Memories of our sophomore year crashed over me. Fighting for Cole’s keys when he got wasted at afterparties, scrubbing vomit out of the carpet at three in the morning, watching him stumble through practice, barely able to skate straight. Making excuses to Coach, to teammates, to anyone who asked why Cole looked like death warmed over.
Not that everyone didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
I can’t do this again.
But even as the thought formed, I knew I would. Because Cole was my best friend, my teammate, my?—
My what? What is he to me?
Footsteps on the stairs made me look up. Cole appeared, still pale and shaky but upright. His hair was damp from a quick wash, teeth presumably brushed, wearing university-branded workout gear.
“You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit,” he said. He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
Not,it won’t happen again. Not,I’ll get help. Justsorry—the same hollow apology I’d heard a hundred times before. Taking care of this man exhausted me, and I didn’t know if I could keep doing it.
I handed him the thermos and burrito, doing my best to keep my face blank. “I’ll drive.”
5
COLE
Hell was an ice-cold hockey rink,full of two-hundred-pound men determined to beat Tristan and me to a pulp. After the first ten minutes of free play turned into a gauntlet, landing both of us on the ice bruised and pissed, Coach blew his whistle and announced we’d be doing lightning drills. Lightning drills were like suicides, but with increasing distances—red line to goal line to blue line to goal line to center ice to goal line and then working our way all the way across the rink until we were skating goal line to goal line.
Normally, when we were waiting our turn for a drill, we cheered each other on, but today? Fucking silence.
Shame suffused me.Bad enough that Tristan knew. Bad enough that my housemates would if I didn’t do something about my vomit-covered blankets. Fuck.
After an hour, Coach blew his whistle again, the signal to gather around him at center ice. Fuck him. Fuck him and fuck the fact that Tristan and I were taking the heat forhurting Eva when all three of us had done it. The team didn’t know the half of what we’d done. Of what Coach had done.
He looked me in the eye, then Tris, then Massi, then slowly made eye contact with every member of our starting line. “Practice tonight is canceled. Get your heads on straight and come back tomorrow ready to fucking work.”
Massi stiffened. His gaze ping-ponged between me, Tris, and Coach. Fuck. Did Massi know Coach was involved?
Maybe that was for the best. Why should Tristan and I be the only ones to pay the price for Eva’s bullshit?
That perfidiousbitch.
She’d fucked with me. She’d fucked with Tristan. She’d fucked with Coach. And now, she was fucking with our team’s championship prospects. Everything in my life that mattered to me, she was fucking up.
I hated how my eyes slid over the bench between drills, looking for her,longingfor her, hated the pinch in my chest when she wasn’t there, watching with those bright green eyes as she took notes on our performance. I hated that I was grateful she wasn’t here to see me hungover and miserable, missing her.
Fuckingbitch.
As I left the ice, Massi slammed into me, shoving me into the boards. “Oops,” he said, continuing toward the locker room.
“What the fuck?”
He didn’t turn around.
Tristan wasn’t getting it quite as bad as me. Deservedly so—I was the one who’d caught him up in Eva’s manipulation. I was the one who’d dragged him into blackmailing her. I was the one who’d needed dragging out of bed thismorning so I could come to practice and get the shit beat out of me. Fuck, he’d probably already forgiven her for selling team secrets to my father.
Tristan’s fundamental goodness would have the team forgiving him too—it was just me who deserved their bullshit anyway.
After my shower, I found myself looking for that flash of red hair so I could take Eva to breakfast, make sure she ate something, before I remembered what she’d done.
