Page 102 of Risking the Pucking Defense

I haven’t had a chance to speak to him about what he saw last night. And from the way he’s studying me, I suspect he’s done waiting.

“Dinner and breakfast,” Killer muses. “Anyone would think you don’t want to spend time with us.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” I mutter as I throw my bag into my stall before dropping to the bench to change.

Movement on the other side of the dressing room catches my eye, and I find Griffin Brody, my defensive partner, watching us.

He’s a great D-man. Don’t get me wrong, I’m honored to play beside him. But I don’t gel with him like I do with Rett and Killer. On the ice, we’re great. We make a good team, but off it, we’re very different people. He’s ambitious beyond belief. He’s constantly pushing himself to be better. I mean, we all are. We religiously do that every day, but Brody takes it to the extreme. It borders on self-sabotaging, and that’s probably a very big reason as to why he hasn’t managed to build his personal relationships with the rest of us. He wants to—I can see it in the way he watches me interact. He’s jealous, but he doesn’t have a clue how to go about fixing it.

I tried at the beginning; I really fucking did. But honestly, as the months went on and each game got harder and the pressure mounted, I just didn’t have time to try and make sure he felt included. He’s old enough to deal with his own issues, should he want to.

“You need to get moving, Coach will be waiting,” Killer says, shoving his feet into his skates and beginning to do up his laces.

Rett, however, doesn’t make a single move to get ready. Instead, he turns his focus on me.

“Everything good?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah, of course, man. My parents are doing so much better. Seeing them smiling really helped.”

“Uh huh.” I glance up to see his eyebrows practically in his hairline.

“What? It did,” I argue, although I find it hard to keep the smirk off my face.

“Right, well. You’re having dinner with us tonight.” My lips part to argue, but he beats me to it. “Bea’s orders. And if I’ve learned anything these past few months, you never argue with a pregnant woman. They’re scary as shit.”

I roll my eyes as I toe my sneakers off. There isn’t a scary bone in Bea’s body, but I do get a kick out of just how much control she has over her big, bad D-man. He might be the league’s best grinder, but at home with his girl, Everett Donnelly is nothing but a teddy bear.

“I’m assuming dinner is a code word for an interrogation?”

I’m pretty sure the expression on Rett’s face is meant to be one of pure innocence; unfortunately for him, it just kinda looks like he’s trying not to shit himself.

“We just want to check in with our little bro, find out what—or who’s—going down.”

I fight like hell, I really do, but I can feel the heat from my cheeks.

“Unfortunately, no one is going down anywhere.”

Rett’s forehead wrinkles. “W-what? But…” He looks over his shoulder in the direction of the closet. “Shit, dude. She didn’t leave you high and dry after that, did she?”

Grabbing my skates, I stuff my feet into them, keeping my eyes on the task at hand.

“We’re not talking about this here. Or ever, if I get my way.”

“Fuck that,” he scoffs. “We need details, man. Details.”

30

HAYDEN

“You can sit there as long as you like, I’m not going to get bored and walk off,” Rett says, pulling my car door open after not-so-patiently waiting for me to join him.

“I was just replying to my parents.” It’s not a lie—I was replying to the message they sent hours ago, letting me know they got home safely.

“Hmm,” he mumbles as I climb out of the car and follow him to the elevator.

He doesn’t say anything about Hailee. In fact, he hasn’t mentioned anything about last night since inviting me here. But I know that the second their apartment door closes, I’m going to be hit with a million and one questions. The only issue is, how am I going to answer them?

There’s nothing going on with us. Not really. And yet, what Rett saw last night looks like the opposite of that.