I walked back onto the pavement beside him with my stick loose in one hand and the rest of my body coldly, violently focused.
“I get it now,” Luke said under his breath as the others reset around us.
I glanced at him. “I doubt that.”
His smile was all teeth. “You think you’re special.”
“No.” I looked toward Pip, then back at him. “I think she is.”
His expression cracked. That was the hit. Not the goals. Not the steals. Not the body position or the way I’d made him look slow in front of the whole neighborhood.
That.
Because men like Luke didn’t understand wanting a woman free. They only understood ownership.
The ball dropped again and I took him apart.
18
Cade
By the time I finished taking Luke apart in the street, every man in that neighborhood knew exactly what had happened.
Not because I said it. I didn’t need to. Hockey was honest that way, even on pavement with cheap sticks, a scuffed plastic ball, and kids screaming from the curb with popsicle-stained mouths. The score didn’t matter as much as the rhythm did. The control. The humiliation. The way he kept trying to force his way through me and I kept shutting every lane down before he could build speed. The way he shoved harder every time I stripped the ball from him clean, and the way I smiled like I hadn’t even noticed him getting pissed.
But, I did notice.
Luke played like a man who needed everyone to remember he used to be something. Every swing of his stick had ego in it. Every shoulder check came late enough to be petty and sloppy enough to be stupid. He wanted me angry. Wanted me reckless. Wanted me to turn this into something obvious so he could grin at Daniel and Ryker and every other Bennett in that driveway like I was the problem.
I didn’t give him that, would never give him that. I let him burn himself down in front of the whole block instead.
“Mercer is cooking him,” Kellen announced from the curb like he was doing commentary for national television instead of holding a paper plate full of ribs.
Knox pointed his stick toward Luke. “Dempsey, you want a chair? Maybe a little orange slice? You look emotionally dehydrated.”
The kids lost their minds laughing.
Luke smiled with his mouth and murder with his eyes.
I looked past him to where Pip stood near the cooler with Aura, arms folded loosely over her stomach, her hair still down around her neck. She was trying to look amused. She was even doing a decent job of it for everyone else. But I knew her tells now. I knew the stiffness in her shoulders when Luke moved too close. I knew the way her fingers pressed into her own arm when she was forcing her body not to react. I knew that every time his eyes cut toward her, she went still in ways no one who loved her had learned to read yet.
That pissed me off worse than anything he had done on the makeshift court.
Because today had been a good fucking day.
It had started with her in my hoodie and sunlight in her apartment, trying to sell me on benefits like I didn’t already know she was scared shitless of how real this felt. It had turned into her mouth under mine, her legs around me, her body giving me every honest answer her words kept trying to hide. Then the drive over, her hand in mine, her telling me I made her feel safe, her smiling at me like maybe I could have a place in all that loud family warmth if I wanted one.
Then Glory Days showed up and dragged the light right out of her.
I wasn’t having it. Not today.
Ryker tossed the ball back into the middle of the street. “Next point wins.”
Luke rolled his shoulders, breathing hard, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. “Finally giving me a chance, Mercer?”
I let my stick rest loosely in one hand. “You’ve had chances.”
Knox made a wounded noise. “Oh, that was mean.”
