"I won't tell her," I said, the words feeling like ash in my mouth. "On one condition. You promise me, right now, that the sneaking out stops. No more parties, no more lies that don’tmake any sense, no more midnight runs. You stay in that room until she gets home. Period."
Gabe unscrewed the cap, the hiss of carbonation punctuating the deal. He took a long, slow draw of the soda, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at me with a terrifyingly sharp grin.
"How about I promise to not get caught again?"
He didn't wait for my reaction. He tucked the chips under his arm, gave me a two-finger salute, and started walking toward the exit. "See you at the game. Great practice, by the way. Your backhand is looking a little slow, though."
I stood by the vending machine, the drone of the cooling unit the only sound in the hallway. I felt like I’d just lost a game I didn't even know I was playing. He was blase, he was arrogant, he was a kid… And he had me exactly where he wanted me.
I didn't go to the locker room. I didn't go to the bus. I headed straight for the facility’s gym.
I hit the treadmill and cranked the incline, then moved to the rack and started stacking plates on the bar. I needed the burn. I needed the physical strain to drown out the voice in my head telling me that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. Every rep was a question:Who am I protecting? The kid’s dream, or my own chance with his mother?
The iron of the squat rack was cold and slick with my own sweat, but I didn't stop. I added another forty-five to each side, the plates clanking with a heavy, final sound that echoed through the deserted facility gym. Everyone else had long since boarded the bus back to the hotel or headed out for dinner, leaving me alone with the hum of the air conditioning and the suffocating weight of the secret Gabe had just handed me.
I stepped under the bar, the steel digging into my traps. I dropped into a deep squat, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning for air that felt too thin to breathe.One more. Focus on the drive. Focus on the game.But the game felt a thousand miles away. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Kayla’s face—not the laughing version from the Jeep, but the one she’d wear when she realized I’d chosen a fifteen-year-old’s lie over her trust.
I racked the bar with a violent shove, my chest heaving as I doubled over, hands on my knees. Water dripped from my chin onto the rubber mats. I needed to be the leader. I needed to be the okay guy. But as I stared at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, all I saw was a man who had just traded his integrity for a bag of barbecue chips and a teenager's approval. A fraud.
The heavy pressurized door at the end of the gym hissed open, the sound cutting through the silence like a gunshot.
I straightened up, wiping my face with a towel, expecting to see a late-night janitor or maybe Landon coming back for a forgotten foam roller.
Instead, the door slammed against the interior wall with a violent bang.
Kayla was standing in the frame. Her hair was windblown, her chest was heaving, and her eyes were a storm of cold, jagged lightning. She didn’t move toward the equipment; she just stood there, clutching her phone so tight her knuckles were ghostly white, her face twisted into a mask of fury more terrifying than anything I’d ever faced on the ice.
24
Kayla
The gym felt like a tomb, heavy with the scent of rubber and the dying echo of Michael’s workout, but the air between us was suddenly screaming. I stood in the doorway, my lungs burning as if I’d been the one running wind sprints for an hour. My phone was a dead weight in my hand, the screen still glowing with the missed call from Gabe’s principal and the stuttering text from a friend of Gabe’s who had finally cracked.
Michael stood by the squat rack, frozen. Sweat tracked through the chalk dust on his skin, and for a second, he just stared at me like I was a ghost.
"Kayla?" His voice was raspy, cautious.
"Don't," I snapped, the word sharp enough to draw blood. I took three predatory steps into the room, the door hissing shut behind me, sealing us in. "Don't you dare act surprised. Don't you dare ask me what’s wrong."
He reached for a towel, his movements slow, eyes never leaving mine. "Kayla, talk to me. What happened?"
"Gabe happened, Michael! Or should I say, the police report happened? The mistaken identity that he’s been feeding the school because he thought he had the captain of the Surge in hisback pocket?" I was shaking now, the fury vibrating in my bones. "He was at that party. He was drinking. He’s been sneaking out for weeks. And you knew."
Michael’s jaw tightened. He didn't look away, but I saw the shadow fall over his face. The guilt of a man caught in a crossfire he hadn't asked for. He didn't try to lie. There wasn't time, and I think he knew I’d see right through it.
"I saw him once, Kayla," he said, his voice dropping into that low, steady register he used to calm a bench during a blowout. "The night at the bar. I saw him in the alley."
"And you didn't tell me?" I stepped into his space, my chest nearly brushing his damp shirt. The heat coming off him was immense, a physical wall. "You sat in my car, you slept in my room, you looked me in the eye while I told you he was my entire world and that I was terrified of failing him, and youliedto me by omission? You let him think he could play us against each other?"
"I was trying to handle it!" Michael roared back, the sudden volume making me flinch. He dropped the towel, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "I was trying to be the guy he could trust so he wouldn't go off the deep end! I thought if I could get through to him, if I could mentor him—"
"You’re not his father, Michael! You’re a hockey player I let into our lives because I was stupid enough to think you actually cared about the stakes!"
"You think I don't care?" He took a step toward me, forcing me to tilt my head back to look at him. His eyes were dark, turbulent, and filled with a raw desperation I’d never seen before. "You think I’m doing this for the 'mentor' credit? I’ve been losing sleep for weeks, Kayla. I’ve been walking a goddamntightrope between being the man you need and the guy Gabe won't shut out."
"You betrayed me," I whispered, the anger suddenly giving way to a hollow, aching hurt. "I trusted you. I let you in. That’s my biggest fear—letting someone in only for them to help my son ruin his life."
"I am trying to save his life!" Michael grabbed my upper arms, not roughly, but with a grip that felt like an anchor. "I want him to have the career. I want him to stay in school. But more than that, Kayla... I wantthis."
