Page 3 of Risking the Pucking Defense

I was wrong earlier.

Hiding behind a plant at my friends’ wedding wasn’t my lowest point.

This is.

Falling apart in the arms of my PR Director, a woman I’ve been low-key obsessed with since the very first time I walked into the front office at the Vipers’ arena.

But that is exactly what happens.

I fight to get myself together, for the tears to dry up and the sobs to subside. But despite having done this every day for the past four weeks, it doesn’t stop. Just like the pain.

It never fucking stops.

Time, however…that seems to cease as we stand there in the stairwell, me broken beyond repair and her attempting to hold all my jagged pieces in place.

It’s an impossible feat. I’m never going to be whole again.

I’ve lost my other half. The best part of me. The one person I lived for.

Literally, I have worked so fucking hard and done all this for her.

She never had a shot at achieving her dreams, and she made me promise when we were only kids that I would push as hard as I could, do everything in my power to make mine come true. She wanted to live vicariously through me. She told me that watching me succeed would make her happier than anything else in the world.

So I did.

I worked harder than anyone else. I put in more hours than everyone else, and it paid off. I made it to the top. All for her. All with her by my side.

But now…now she’s gone. Eventually, other voices join us, and I panic, twisting out of Hailee’s arms. I turn my back on her and drag my palms across my cheeks, frantically trying to wipe away the evidence of my meltdown.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble as I dart forward and race up the next set of stairs.

The second I hit the top, I fly through the door and rush toward the elevator as if I’ve got the hounds of hell snapping at my ankles. But the person chasing after me isn’t from hell. I mean, Rett might try to claim that she is, but to me, she’s a fucking angel, and way too good for the darkness that swarms around me these days.

“Hayden, wait,” she calls.

Her voice flows through me, commanding me to do as I’m told, but I can’t. Not this time.

I jab my finger against the call button relentlessly in the hope it makes the elevator move faster, but it’s hopeless.

Finally, it arrives, and I jump inside as Hailee approaches.

I try to get the doors closed, so I can escape her, but she’s too fast. She throws her body in the way, forcing them to open again before joining me.

No words are said as the doors slide together this time. The air turns thick, but even as we begin to climb through the building, she stays quiet.

The only thing I can hear is the rapid beat of my heart, and it annoys the hell out of me.

I hesitate once the doors open on my floor. If I walk out, is she going to follow me? She sure isn’t giving vibes that she wants to talk to me. Maybe she just didn’t want to wait for the next elevator.

I take a step forward, then another, and as I cross the threshold into the hallway, I make the colossal mistake of glancing back over my shoulder.

It’s the first time I’ve looked at her since she raced up the stairs toward me, but this time, my breath catches for an entirely different reason. Her eyes are flooded with tears, and the tracks on her cheeks hint that I wasn’t the only one crying back there.

“I’m sorry,” I say again before forcing myself forward.

I don’t look back this time. Instead, I pull my keycard from my pocket, tap it against the panel, and push into my room.

It takes a few seconds to register that I don’t hear the door fall closed behind me.