“What’s wrong?” I ask, my eyes flicking to his phone screen. His eyes are fixated on it, so my question should probably bewhat’s on the phoneinstead of what’s wrong. Donovan frowns and swipes out of a message, tossing it to the side.
“I’m always getting weird messages from fans, but sometimes they’rereallyweird.” There’s something about the way he says it that tells me there’s more to what he’s saying… and I have to bite the inside of my cheek until I taste copper to keep myself from asking him.
Iwantto know who makes him frown. I want to know who is bothering him…
But I want to begoodfor him more than that. I want to be the Shiloh he sees when he looks at me, the one he wants to move in with, wants to have a life with. I want to be that Shiloh, and I’m pretty sure if I got the name of someone who was upsetting him, I’d end up breaking my promise before I’d ever even had a chance to start.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
DONOVAN
My mask isn’tin my locker stall.
I noticed its spot was empty when I arrived at the arena, but set about doing my workout in the gym, figuring it hadn’t been unpacked yet from the road trip we returned from last night. But it’s still not there. Everyone else’s gear is in its place, and the rest of my stuff is hung where it should be. It’s all here except for the empty shelf my helmet should be on.
“Hey?” I call out, wandering down the hallway toward the equipment manager’s office.
Blake’s head pops out around the corner, the sound of skates being sharpened meeting my ears the closer I get. “What’s up, Donny?”
“Where’s my mask? You have it?”
Blake meets me with confusion. “No? It was unpacked into your locker last night.”
“It’s not there.”
His confusion deepens and he steps out from the small room his office is in. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s not there. The shelf is empty.”
He gives me a strange look, like he thinks I’m either lying or I’ve lost my mind, before heading for the locker room, and I trail behind, knowing that he’s gonna find exactly what I discovered earlier.
“It’s not here,” he says, as I pull up behind him in the locker room.
“Yeah, like I said.”
“No, it was here. I swear. Ronnie set up your stall himself, and the helmet was right there on the shelf. Where’d it go?”
I stare at the empty shelf before turning to see the same confusion written in Blake’s eyes. “Well, it didn’t just grow legs and walk away. Someone has it.”
“Fuck, man. I’m sorry. I’ll see if I can track it down.”
I nod as he rushes from the room, pulling his phone from his pocket and sending a frantic text as he goes. Alone in the silence of the dressing room, darker thoughts flit through my mind.
If it can’t be found here but was here yesterday, and Ronnie, a long time employee of the equipment staff, unpacked it himself, then the only conclusion I can come up with is that someone took it on purpose.
Someone who wanted it.
Or someone who wanted to unsettle me.
I groan under my breath as Kyle Penton’s face crosses my mind. Grabbing my phone, I open Instagram and find a new message sitting there for me to read. I open it, anticipating some kind of gloating comment about having my helmet, but what I see isn’t exactly what I expect.
You should have listened. I’m done asking nicely, Myers.
Frowning, I close out of the message and shoot off a text to Oakley, letting him know that I’ve received another threat and my helmet is missing. He doesn’t respond right away, probablybecause he’s on the ice or in the gym, which is fine, but it doesn’t do anything to ease the tension rising inside me.
So I call Shiloh.
Hearing his voice will help, I’m sure.
