Chapter 6

“So, are you ever going to tell me what’s wrong, MB?” Cade asked with such sincerity that it surprised me. Sitting next to me on the couch in his team’s common room, Cade was watching me, waiting for my answer expectantly. This was weird. He’d never attempted a heart-to-heart before, and was that what he was doing right now? Didn’t showing up at his practice give him enough reassurance that I was alive?

I shuffled in my seat, trying to ease the tension because I must have been acting shifty. “What are you talking about?” I feigned ignorance, thinking that was the best course of action.

He dipped his chin, glaring at me with narrowed eyes. “Come on, MB. I know you. You’re not normally this jittery.” He pointed to my leg, and it was then I noticed it was bouncing. I immediately forced it to a halt.

“I’m fine.”

“Then why aren’t you outrageously flirting with every hockey player here?” His gaze dragged over to Brooks, the very personification of a Disney prince with the personality to match. Brooks was the heartthrob of the team, and when Scotty’s hockey dynasty didn’t cut it, Brooks’s good looks did. He wasn’t for me, though. I had only ever been interested in the grumpy, particularly bendy, introverted goalie who liked to keep his net to himself.

“I don’t flirt.” That was a lie. The entire college knew I flirted, but for Cade to have the audacity to come out and say it was just rude. Cade’s lips quirked. “Okay, fine. I flirt, but not outrageously.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

I answered his question with an eye roll and took another swig of my beer.

“Something’s up, and if I don’t know, I can’t help you.”

“I think your form of helping might be the thing stopping me from telling you,” I said pointedly as I tried to subtly look around the room for Dash. He’d been talking to a few people for an hour or so, and I was just waiting for him to go to his room so I could follow behind.

The place was starting to calm down, but for some weird reason, Cade was clinging to me like a bad smell tonight. I guessed it would be understandable if he thought I was upset, but it would be really helpful for him to leave for just a few minutes so I could sneak away and talk to Dash.

Cade stood a little straighter and cracked his knuckles. “That sounds like you’re confirming something’s wrong. Who is it? Which guy do I need to give a nose job to?”

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “Why is your immediate response to every problem a punch in the nose?”

He shrugged. “It’s the fastest way of letting people know you’re upset with their behavior.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. No wonder I hadn’t told him about Dash yet—I liked his nose placement.

“But seriously. If someone has hurt you, I’m more than willing to hurt them back.”

“Cade, I’m nineteen. I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”

He raised his hands and laughed. “Hey, it’s only an offer, and I can’t remember ever fighting a battle for you before.”

“Henry.” That was all I needed to say. One name, and my brother let out an uncertain chuckle as he looked to the side.

“I mean, I did nothing there. That was all Dash’s doing.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m not gonna deny that I would have helped if I was present, but Dash had it covered. Where is the big guy, anyway? He’ll corroborate my version of events.” He looked over his shoulder, but I knew he wouldn’t find him because I just saw Dash go into his room. Now all I had to do was sneak in there myself with no one noticing.

“I think I saw him go to bed,” I replied, half-heartedly pointing to his door, which had half a pizza box stuck to the middle of it with silver duct tape holding it up.

Cade dragged his gaze to the door, and a smile drew on his lips. “Bet he’s in there thinking about Little Miss Pop My Cherry.”

There he was, mentioning the girl Dash apparently kissed a few weeks ago, or me. I still hadn’t completely figured it out yet. God, Cade would hate himself if he knew he was referring to me as that. “Who?” I once again feigned ignorance because I was getting so good at it.

Cade shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, but I have a theory that our goaltender has a girlfriend.”

“Oh, really?” My heart beat a little faster, and my self-doubt got the better of me. What if Dash had started dating someone before The Draft, and I mauled him at it? What if he was already happily in love with someone else and that was why he hadn’t told Cade about the kiss? What if he didn’t want it getting out because he was trying to impress someone else?

It was like my little heart had just been trampled on and there was no way I could come back from it. Dash with another girl. The last time I saw it was in high school before I really considered Dash my knight in shining armor. Was the reason I’d never seen it because he was hiding her?

“Yup. He kissed some girl a couple of weeks ago, and he hasn’t been acting the same since. You know, he’s being shifty. He doesn’t want to talk to me or get any advice, which makes me wonder what the hell he’s doing on those dates.”

The timeline immediately sent red alerts through my brain because that surely had to be me, right? I so badly wanted it to be me, but there was something irking in the back of my mind, stopping me from being so confident in the assumption. My stomach churned, and I felt like I might throw up. I wanted to speak to Dash and get this entire conversation over with, but I needed to get Cade to leave me alone first. So I did the thing that usually worked.

“Dash is being shifty. What about you?” Talk about him. Cade hated telling me anything private because he knew I had a hard time keeping things to myself. He’d clam up any minute now, and I’d be able to sneak into his best friend’s room with no one suspecting a thing.

“What about me?” he replied defensively. “I’ve been acting perfectly normal.”

“Exactly. You’re anything but normal. You haven’t had a girlfriend for a while, which is new for you. What’s stopping you?” Granted, I didn’t want to know about his sex life, but Cade was the kind of guy who always had his eye on someone, and I hadn’t been introduced to anyone since I got here, which now that I thought about it, was almost as odd as me kissing his best friend in a parking lot.

Cade’s hard features immediately softened, and that was when I knew I’d made the right move on changing the subject. I loved my brother, but concentration wasn’t his best asset, especially if his love life was involved.

“There’s a girl, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at me and then waved me off. “There’s someone, but she’s made it pretty clear that she’s not interested, despite smiling every time she sees me at the bar.” His lips were tight, and he clenched his teeth in what looked like an attempt to stop showing any emotion. Oh, Cadey, I knew that face. He had a crush but wasn’t willing to tell me or anyone else about her because…well, the great Cade Bright didn’t do crushes or love interests, or anything romantic for that matter. “However, this isn’t something I should be talking to my little sister about.”

“But you’re perfectly okay to talk about my love life?”

“Madison.” The fact that he used my full name meant he was serious and wanted to make a point. “I’m not interested in your love life, but you don’t make things easy on your big brother.” He blew out a breath, and my heart was beating wildly because I could almost feel the tension building between us. Cade knew something, and he was going to confront me about it. Buckle up. “Look, I didn’t want to say anything, but I heard something.”

I heard something.

Those three words were just that. Words. But they cut through me like a knife because what the fuck had he heard?

“You did?” My voice was squeaky again, and I was looking around the room, taking names, wondering who ratted me and Dash out.

He pushed my shoulder to the side. “I heard a little rumor that you were flirting with some of the guys from the football team.”

My eyes bugged out, and I was rendered speechless for the first time in my life. So, he’d heard about my conversations at The Draft, but not the way it ended? With his best friend essentially dragging me out of the place? Weird.

“I flirted with them, yes, but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at an event like that?”

“Madison,” he drawled out with pointed annoyance as he looked at me in warning.

“Cadence.”

He balked. “You know that’s not my full name.”

“Yeah, but what am I supposed to do when you’re about to give me some overbearing lecture about how I should never date again?”

“Good. So we’ve agreed on your correct course of action,” Cade replied with a chuckle.

“I was just talking to them. There’s nothing going on.”

“Okay, and you’re right, it’s not for me to decide who or how you date.”

“Really? Because that’s not what you said in high school. Didn’t you put a team-wide ban on me after Henry? Bet you did the same thing here, too.”

“Team-wide ban?” He thought about it for a minute then shook his head. “That’s not where I was going with this. You didn’t let me finish.”

“Oh.”

“ But dating an athlete will do absolutely nothing for you. Especially one on the football team, or one of my teammates, for that matter. I know what these guys talk about in the locker room, and none of them would be right for you.”

That felt a lot like he was trying to control who I was dating, but when it came to the hockey team, I got it. That was his team, and last time I messed with it, their flow was screwed up for the rest of the season. Really, I should have respected that his teammates were a hard boundary for my brother, but I had a hard time with rules, and Henry was persistent. As for Dash, well, he was just too tempting. Brooding, older, and my brother’s best friend. Yeah, he never had a chance when it came to my advances.

Narrowing his eyes, Cade gave me a hooded glare. “I also know for a fact that the football team is even worse when it comes to women. Especially Aiden Matthews. If you go anywhere near him…” He drawled out the warning but didn’t finish his sentence.

“I only spoke to Aiden for a few minutes. I barely got to know the guy.” I raised my hands in defense, and he looked at me in disbelief. “Trust me, I’m just friends with Adam and Devin.”

“You know guys can’t just be friends with girls, right?”

“You know that’s an outdated thought, right?” I said, sassing him right back. I checked my phone, noting that I hadn’t received anything from Dash. He’d been in his room for ten minutes now, and I was still stuck out here talking to my bro, so I needed to do something. “Anyway…I should probably go.” And by go, I meant that I needed to pretend I was leaving so I could sneak into Dash’s room.

“Let me drive you home. I’ve got some things to do, anyway. I can drop you off on the way.”

Well, that didn’t work. “Cade, I’m only a block away. I don’t need to be chauffeur driven home. I’ll be fine.”

He lifted one eyebrow and stared me down.

“No. It’s late.”

“And I’m on campus. There’s security.”

“Hard no.”

“Would you feel better if I called Todd?” Todd was the nearly seven-foot, gentle giant that acted as a security guard for our dorms when he wasn’t in class. He was quiet, and kept himself to himself, and had that kind of looming presence that meant no one would mess with him.

I took my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket, and wrote out a text, showing Cade. “See. I’ll be fine. Todd said he’ll come and pick me up in a minute.” I put my phone back in my pocket, happy that Cade didn’t look close enough at the text that he’d realize I was showing him a conversation from a few weeks ago.

“Fine,” he sighed out. “At least let me walk you to the door.”

“You mean the one that’s right there.” I pointed to the exit, which was behind their living room, and held back a laugh. “Relax, there’s no need to worry about me. I’m fine.”

“I’ll always worry about you. You’re my baby sister.”

I stood from my seat, grabbed my bag, scuffed my brother’s short, light brown hair, and pursed my lips. “And you’re my slightly unhinged big brother that I’ll always love.”

“Unhinged?”

I shrugged. “You chose hockey over football because you wanted to break Graham Fischel’s nose and fight without getting in trouble. The wrestling team wouldn’t even have you. That’s unhinged if you ask me.”

He flashed me a wry smile. “Yeah…all right. Well, message me when you get home, MB.”

“Sure thing, C. Night. Night.” I saluted Cade as he got up and headed to his dorm room.

“Night.”

When I was at the elevator, I pressed the call button and subtly watched Cade open his door. As he took a step into his room, the elevator dinged open, and I pretended to take a step in. When Cade’s door was firmly shut, I jumped out of the elevator and snuck behind a column so he couldn’t see me. Even when I heard the click of the lock, it took a few minutes for me to gain enough courage to poke my head around the column because I wasn’t sure who was still out there. Luckily for me, the coast was clear. Everyone was gone, giving me the perfect opportunity to sneak over to Dash’s room.