Chapter 24

24

BEN

I’m in a foul mood.

After what happened the other night on the way home from the fundraiser, I haven’t seen or talked to Mabel.

I don’t know what happened. We were having so much fun. It was a great night. Things got sexy on the dance floor and horny in the back of the car on the way home. Until I showed her that poem.

I fucked up and I’m pretty sure it’s not because she’s offended by bad poetry.

No. I told her I love her. That was what did it. I should have known better! I can’t fucking believe I was that stupid again. I came on too strong, too soon, and probably scared her.

I send her one text message telling her I’m sorry and to take whatever time she needs. I don’t want to harass her. I know how important boundaries are, especially for her. I’ll give her the time she needs. I just hope that she’ll talk to me again one day. I hope I haven’t fucked everything up totally.

This is probably exactly what Smitty was afraid of and I kind of hate myself.

I drove to the arena by myself for practice today since I’m shit for company right now. There I try to set aside my grumpiness and pay attention to the guys. I’m learning that practices aren’t just for me. Yeah, I want to work hard and do better, and set a good example, but they’re also a great chance for me to connect with the guys. I’ve always noticed what other players are doing, but now I make it a point to comment or help if I can. The other day, Skinny came and asked me to work on stick handling with him.

And it’s all paying off. We’re playing a lot more cohesively. The vibe in the room is better too. Even though we’re all devastated about Alfie’s accident, we’re winning games. It’s almost like this devastating tragedy has made us stronger. Brought us together.

We’re heading into the home stretch of the season. We’re three points out of wildcard spot. We’re actually feeling like we can do this.

But when I leave the arena, my gloom returns. I get to go home to my empty condo. Yay.

All I wanted for months was to go home to my empty condo all by myself. It’s so fucking weird that now I feel kind of lonely when Mabel’s not around. She brings so much brightness and energy. I could probably handle going home alone if I knew it was for a few hours and I was going to see her later. But I’m not. And I’m pissed. And depressed.

Today I walk through the empty concourse of the hockey complex to leave through the front doors. There are a few people hanging around the lobby area and as I stride toward the doors, I hear my name.

“Ben Antonov.”

I turn my head to look. A guy about my age is standing there. He’s average height, lean, sandy haired, and wearing a double- breasted overcoat in an ugly brown plaid. I give him an inquiring look, not really in the mood for fan bullshit.

He walks toward me. “Ben Antonov?” This time it’s a question.

“Yeah.” I stop. “That’s me.”

“Where’s Mabel?”

My chin jerks down and my eyebrows pull together. “What?”

He glares at me. “My girlfriend. Mabel Smits. I saw pictures of you two together at some party, so don’t try to pretend you don’t know her or where she is. I need to know.”

Ooookay. In the space of two seconds, a thousand thoughts wheel through my head. I know what he’s talking about and I know who he is.

Julian motherfucking Clark.

And he’s looking for Mabel.

“I don’t think so, pal,” I snarl. And I turn to leave.

He grabs my arm.

I’m aware of the attention we’re attracting from the other people in the lobby. Christ on a cracker.

I’m also salty for a variety of reasons other than him, and this definitely doesn’t help.

“Tell me where she is,” he demands.

I look down at his hand holding my jacket sleeve. I look back at his face. This bastard hurt Mabel.

Heat burns through me and my muscles tense.

In the very back of my mind, I’m cognizant of the fact that what I’m about to do is not sportsmanlike. It’s not exemplary, captain-like behavior.

I don’t give a shit. He hurt Mabel.

Just to be completely fair, I say, “I’m gonna hit you.”

My right foot drops back, my right hand curls into a fist, and I lift my arm and drive my knuckles into his face.

He lets go of my arm and yells. Light on my feet, I raise both arms so my left is guarding my face, and prepare to jab my fist into his face again.

He doesn’t hit me back, just yells again. “What the fuck!”

An intense bloodthirsty urge to pummel him rises up inside me.

People converge around us, but I ignore them, focused on Julian. I grab his jacket in both hands and give him a rough shake. Then I shove him away from me, hard. Oh fuck, his nose is bleeding. “You leave her the fuck alone,” I bark. “Don’t call her. Don’t text her. Don’t even think about her, asshole.”

“Jesus.” His hands go to his face and he yawps at me.

“I mean it.” I narrow my eyes and take a step closer, hands up in case he’s not getting the message. “I will fuck you up if you ever try to talk to her again.”

Julian glances at the people watching us, all with shocked looks on their faces. “You hit me,” he says incredulously. “I’m bleeding.”

“Yeah, you are.” I lift my chin contemptuously.

“I’m calling the cops!”

“Phhht. Go right ahead.” Fuck. That might not be so good.

“And I’ll sue your ass,” he whines.

“Oh, fuck off.” I shake my head, push past him, and walk out.

Okay. Adrenaline buzzes through my veins, making my arms and legs tingle. My breath comes quicker as I stride onto the plaza outside the building, my hands still in fists.

That fucking asswipe. How dare he come here and try to find her? How fucking dare he?

Also, goddammit, he found her because of me. Because of the pictures from the Keeping Kids Safe fundraiser. I shouldn’t have taken her to such a public event, knowing she’s trying to hide from him. Fuck . I berate myself all the way to my car.

As I open the door, I glance behind me to make sure dickface isn’t following me. The last thing we want is him following me home, which is the same building Mabel’s staying in.

Nope. No sign of him. Good.

No sign of the cops, either. He legit could get me in trouble for assault. Fuck.

I climb in, grip the steering wheel, and take a few breaths.

He better have gotten the message.

My phone is blowing up before I even get home. Mostly texts. But then a call comes from Coach. I’d rather staple my scrotum to the ceiling than answer it. But I accept the call. “Hello.”

“Benjamin.”

Fuck me. I’m in trouble. “Yes, sir.”

“What the fuck happened?” he bellows.

I grit my teeth and stare at the road. I haven’t had time to prepare myself for what to say. What not to say. As always, my default is to say as little as possible. In this case – nothing.

Coach has no patience for the time I need to respond. “Apparently there was an altercation in the lobby at the arena. And you were involved.”

“Yes, sir.” I can’t deny it. “That’s right. There was a guy there looking for me. He hurt… someone I care about.” I probably shouldn’t be having this conversation while driving. I grip the steering wheel and swallow.

“So you decided to chuck some knucks?” he yells incredulously.

I wince. “Yeah.”

He sighs heavily enough to blow my eardrum out. “We’ve been watching you develop this year. Your hockey skills. Your leaderships skills. You know we hoped to make you team captain.”

“I know.” I’ve fucked that up. I know it. “I’m sorry.”

“We can’t have players going around assaulting people off the ice!” He gets worked up again.

I can only nod slowly with grim acceptance as I listen. This is not unexpected. I knew before I even hit Julian what this could mean. And I did it anyway.

Because… Mabel.

“I know, sir.”

“Communications is working on this to try to kill it but there were people there who took pictures.”

“Yeah.” My throat tightens.

“We especially can’t have our captain assaulting people off the ice. Jesus Christ.” He exhales again. “We’ll meet tomorrow and talk more about this.”

“Yes, sir.”

I end the call and take a few breaths, replaying everything he said as I finish my drive home.

When I’m holed up in my condo, I check my messages. Wow, it’s impressive how fast this news travels. I have texts from a bunch of guys. Now I can send a message to the group chat.

A hammering on my door startles me.

It has to be one of the guys. I haul ass to the door and fling it open. “What?”

Okay, it’s not one of the guys. It’s Smitty, Crusher, Dilly, and Archie.

Smitty rolls his eyes and stalks in, followed by the others. “What the hell happened?”

“Come in,” I say sarcastically, and let the door fall shut behind them. “I punched a guy, okay?”

“I heard that.” Smitty looks askance at me. “Why?”

“It was Julian.”

His jaw goes loose. “Julian? Mabel’s Julian?”

The other guys look at us with perplexed expressions.

“He’s not her Julian,” I grit out. “And she’s not his. I made that clear to him.”

“I don’t… how…”

“What the hell is going on?” Archie asks.

I walk over to the couch and drop my butt back onto it. I rest my elbows on my knees. “Julian Clark. He’s Mabel’s ex-boyfriend. She broke up with him just after New Year’s. He’s been trying to find her because he’s an abusive asshole.”

“What?” They all look shocked and file in to take seats.

Smitty slowly sits on a chair facing me, staring.

“What’s with the dead roses?” Archie waves a hand at the wilting bouquet on the counter that Mabel never got to enjoy.

“Never mind. Julian saw pictures of me with Mabel at the fundraiser,” I continue. “He wanted to know where she is.”

Smitty’s eyes narrow. “That’s… creepy.”

“No shit.” I exhale a long gust of air. “I’m sorry. I know Mabel hasn’t told you what was happening with them. She plans to. But at this point, you need to know. She doesn’t want you to tell him where she is for a reason.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“He abused her.” I meet his eyes, my jaw set. “It hadn’t gotten to physical abuse, but I’d bet my Stanley Cup ring that it would have, if she hadn’t left him. He’s a narcissistic asshole who manipulated her and destroyed her confidence. He made her feel like… like she’d lost herself.”

His face collapses.

Shit. I shouldn’t be telling him this. Mabel made me promise not to tell her brother. She didn’t mention the other guys, but somehow I don’t think she’d appreciate them knowing either.

She also made me promise not to rough up Julian. Ah, well. I’m already fucked.

Smitty shakes his head. “Are you serious?”

“Fuck, yeah. As serious as a penalty shot for the other team in game seven.”

“She… what did he do?”

I sigh. “You should talk to her about it. There were lots of things.” I tell him some of the stuff she told me, about criticizing her clothes, her career, her friends, how he’d blow up at her and blame her for upsetting him, then apologize and promise it would never happen again.

“I… why didn’t she tell us that?”

“Because… well, lots of reasons.” I explain it to him, like Mabel told me. “It’s easy for us to say she should have left sooner, or she should have done this or that. But she was living in that situation. She was scared. She was convinced it was all her fault because of his gaslighting.”

Smitty rubs his face. The other guys all sit slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

“She was ashamed,” I add quietly. “That she got into a situation like that, even though it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want you and your parents to think less of her because she screwed up.”

“Let’s go.” Crusher stands.

We all look at him.

“Go where?” I ask.

“Let’s go find that guy. We’ll get the rest of the team, too. How many times did you hit him? Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough.”

Dilly and Archie stand, too, clearly ready to rumble.

“Guys, guys.” I pat the air in a settle-down gesture. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Dilly folds his arms and scowls. “I’m ready.”

“Much as I’d like to destroy him, I’m already in trouble.” I tell them about my phone call with Coach without being specific about what I’ve just fucked up.

“Oh, shit.” Smitty grimaces. He knows what this means.

“Yeah. Whatever. Also, we need Mabel to be okay. We don’t need to get ourselves arrested. She just wants to be done with him.”

Smitty groans.

The guys reluctantly sit again.

“Just say the word and I’m there,” Crusher says. “Mabel’s too sweet to put up with that bullshit.”

“That guy deserves to hurt,” Dilly adds.

Smitty looks around at them and their hardened expressions. He drops his head forward. “I wish I’d known.”

“I know.” I hesitate. “She wanted to get her life back together before she told you and your folks, so you wouldn’t think less of her.”

He lifts his head and meets my eyes. He exhales sharply. “We all thought Julian was a good guy. But I did notice that she was different with him. More subdued. You know what she was like as a kid. Off the wall. Impulsive.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Fun-loving. Energetic. Genuine.”

Smitty frowns.

“Unpredictable,” I add. “Exciting.” I pause. “Irresistible.”

“Jesus.” Smitty holds up his hands. “Okay, okay.”

“I’ve already apologized for not telling you about us,” I say. “But we are adults and don’t really owe you an explanation. The fact is, I’m in love with Mabel.”

The guys all nod.

Crusher looks at Smitty. “Sorry, man. We gave him advice to help him.”

“Help him what?” Smitty frowns.

“Help him romance Mabel.”

“Yeah, well, the advice didn’t exactly work how I hoped,” I say glumly. “She freaked out.”

“Huh? Over what?” Archie tilts his head.

“I guess I came on too strong.”

“What happened?” Smitty asks.

I shift uncomfortably. “She said she needs some time.”

“Ohhhh.” Smitty’s eyes widen, then close, his head falling back. “Is that why she went to Philadelphia?”

My head snaps up. “She went to Philadelphia?”

“Yeah. To visit her friend, Bellamy.”

“Fuck.” My stomach plunges to my toes. I squeeze my eyes shut. What if she doesn’t come back? She already said she might go to California. “When did she leave?”

“The day after the fundraiser.” Smitty pauses. “She didn’t take all her stuff, for what that’s worth.”

He apparently knows what I’m thinking.

“Okay.” I squeeze my forehead between thumb and fingers. “I guess she doesn’t know about Julian being here.”

“No.”

“If she’s on social media, she will,” Crusher says. “People took pictures of her ex with a bloody nose.”

Smitty bites back a grin. “Darn.”

Our eyes meet.

He lifts his shoulders. “I think she really likes you, man. From what she was saying to me. I think she’ll be back. And…” He gives a wry smile. “I forgive you both for lying to me.”

“Gee, thanks.” I smile back, just as sardonically. We share a moment of understanding.

“I’m okay with you two dating,” he says. “I guess. You’re a good guy. She deserves that.”

“She does.” She definitely deserves a good guy. I don’t know if I’m that guy. But if I have the chance, I’ll do everything I possibly can to be good enough for her.