8. 8

8

Ant Decker

In my defense, I knew it was a bad idea to go to McGuire’s room. I knew it, but I was angry and fucked up from what happened, and I needed to take my frustration out on someone. I thought I’d rough him up a little, maybe a bit of pushing and shoving, maybe slap him once or twice to calm myself. You know, a medicinal slapping. Not a lot of slapping. Not hard enough to hurt him or anything. Just enough to make those pretty eyes flash and remind me I’m alive.

I had no fucking clue I’d kiss him.

Even though what happened is a complete disaster, it could’ve been worse. As bad as it is, kissing McGuire is almost certainly better than what I would have done to the guy who assaulted me if I hadn’t held back as hard as I did. The whole thing happened fast, and I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t even looking. I was walking out of the club with my friend Tommy when a group of straight, drunk assholes made a homophobic comment about us. Tommy is small, a petite guy with a big mouth, and even though life has repeatedly tried to teach him to watch it, it’s a lesson he hasn’t yet learned. The guy who swung at him was belligerent and built. A bad combination. His stance was low, weight evenly spread. I could tell before he swung that he knew how to land a punch, and I knew Tommy couldn’t take a punch like that.

So I stepped in and took it for him. The guy busted my lip and swung again. The second one barely landed because I side-stepped, but my punch…oh, it landed, all right. It put him on his ass on the sidewalk with his eyes streaming and blood pouring from his nose. It was broken, for sure. Badly.

His friends were in the wind before I looked up. Tommy held me back and so did two of his friends. Their hands on me were the only thing that brought me back from a black rage. It’d been so bad that my memory of getting back to the hotel is vague and disjointed.

It was bad, but I was wearing my cap pulled down low when it happened, so I’m not sure if those assholes who attacked us recognized me or not. I guess time will tell.

Jesus. I hate this shit. I hate that it’s always with me, this threat, this dark shroud, this waiting game because I know that no matter what I do, it’s only a matter of time before the wrong person finds out and uses it against me .

I hit Google and do a couple of searches on my name. I come up with nothing but the usual.

Vipers Gamble and Lose

Rivals as Teammates – A Recipe for Disaster

I skim through a few articles, and try as I might, I can’t disagree with what they’re saying. McGuire looks good on paper, and yeah, our front line needs a massive injection of speed and new blood—Luddy is hockey royalty, but he’s not what he was five or even two seasons ago. We need someone blinding on the other wing to carry our first line, and even though McGuire technically fits the bill, the powers-that-be forgot to take into account something important. A little thing called chemistry. A little thing called compatibility. A little thing called get-your-heads-out-of-your-ass-cause-pretty-boys-can’t-fix-jack-just-by-being-pretty.

It’s one thing when a couple of guys on a team don’t get along. We’re human, it happens. It’s another thing altogether when two people with a long, well-documented history of rivalry are purposefully thrown together. I don’t like seeing the Vipers lose, and I sure as shit don’t like playing for a losing team, but honestly, they asked for this.

How’d they think it was going to go?

One big happy family? I think not.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open. I all but walk into Coach Santos. He looks me up and down, and his mouth forms a straight line. If you were the kind of person prone to doing lifelike sketches, every line you drew to depict him would scream not happy .

“I’ll see you and McGuire after breakfast,” he says, stepping around me and taking my spot in the elevator as I alight.

I head to the buffet and then take a seat, keeping my head high as I down two cups of coffee in quick succession. There are multiple pairs of eyes on me, a slew of silent audits steadily conducted all around me, trying to work out why my face looks like it does. Gazes flit from me to McGuire, who doesn’t have a mark on him, and unasked questions hang heavy in the air.

“McGuire. Coach wants to see us,” I say when I’ve finished eating.

He looks up over his toast and swallows dryly, “Why?”

“Um”—I gesticulate a broad circle around my face—“because of this.”

His mouth opens and closes, and he looks slowly from me to Bodie, Katz, and then Luddy. Though he’s doing his best to mask it, Luddy looks annoyed. His lids are a little heavier than normal, and there’s a tiny flicker of tension around the corners .

“I—” McGuire begins his defense but catches himself. He glowers at me, furious splashes of amber and green swirling as he waits for me to set the story straight.

I don’t.

“Are you coming?” I ask, almost conversationally. “Or are you going to keep Coach waiting? ’Cause I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

His head whips from me to the others and back to me, and I see the exact moment he realizes I have no intention whatsoever of setting this story, or any others, straight.

“No talking,” I say as we ride the elevator to the fourth floor. “Not a word.”

He’s so angry I can feel him all but shaking at my side, and his breath comes in short, jagged snorts that make a tiny whistling sound as air moves through his lips.

Coach has set up an office in a small conference room and is waiting for us, leaning back in his chair with an expression that says explain yourselves .

McGuire takes the bait and attempts to defend himself. It’s a halfhearted attempt that involves more stammering than actual words, and it’s a mistake.

A big mistake.

Coach is on his feet right away, finger pointed, face flushed and growing redder by the second. I look down demurely and try to suffocate the noxious belly laugh currently swelling to disproportionate levels below my ribs. I hear McGuire’s jaw clicking once or twice from the effort it costs him to stop talking, and that makes me want to laugh more.

What’s wrong with him? What the hell is his deal? Why isn’t he telling Coach what really happened?

Is he helping me hide my secret? Or is he trying to hide his own?

When Coach finally tapers off, I deliver a quiet, suitably subdued, “Sorry, Coach.”

“Sorry, Coach,” says McGuire, tacking on, “It won’t happen again,” in a quick and seamless attempt to outdo me.

To his credit, McGuire waits until the elevator door closes to let me have it. “What the fuck was that?”

I watch his lips move as he speaks. Tiny lines form and fan out. Plush, pink flesh presses together and parts. I mean to answer but I’ve spotted a little half-moon under his bottom lip that distracts me. An angry red line. A line I left there. With my teeth.

Enamel glints as he bares his incisors at me. “You’re a massive dick, you know that, Decker? ”

Something about the way his lips move around the word dick makes me come unstuck. It loosens my tongue and makes me start talking.

“Aw, thanks, Princess,” I say in a devil-may-care voice that sounds nothing like mine, “but I wouldn’t say massive. Bigger than average, sure, but not massive .” His chest rises and falls sharply, and his eyes work their way up from my mouth and make blistering contact with mine.

I don’t know why I’m being like this. I’m not usually like this. I don’t normally talk to people like this. I have my shit together, and I never, ever let guys get under my skin, no matter how pretty they are.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be done talking yet. “Besides, you know what they say. It’s not the size that matters. It’s knowing how to use it…and I’m all over that bad boy.”

In the distance, I hear thunder. A low, angry rumble shakes the floor beneath me. There’s a strike. A crack of lightning on a clear horizon. A flame flickers in a sea of green and gold and takes hold.

It unnerves the living fuck out of me, not least because hours later, I still can’t tell if what I saw happened in his eyes or if it was my own reaction reflected back at me.