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I know what I am. I know what I’ve done.
I’m just tired of having it thrown in my face.
Bastian rises to the bait. He snarls at me like a wild animal and clocks me in the mouth. His knuckles crack against my cheek, sending my head snapping back. For some reason, the sting of it makes me laugh.
“That as hard as you got?”
I shove him back, forcing him to topple over the bench behind us. I’m on him, towering over him as I whale on him. Tonight sucked, and I can’t do shit about it. I can’t go out there to the Torque locker room and lay a fat fist right on pretty boy Fabian’s face.
But I can beat the shit out of Bastian, who’s been asking for an ass whooping since the day I met him.
We’re a ball of alpha anger and pure cynical hatred for each other. Everyone around us shouts, but I don’t pay attention to if they’re egging us on or trying to tear us apart. It doesn’t really matter, anyway—I’m gonna do what I wanna do regardless.
I get in four or five good jabs before hands pull me away. Bastian catches me hard in the chin as our teammates finally separate us.
“Hey, hey! Break this shit up!”
I’ve got five or six guys between me and the dude I want to pummel into a bloodstain on the concrete floor, but I’m still snarling, spit flying. Somewhere in the back of my head, I register that it’s Coach Driscoll talking.
Across from me, pinned back by half a dozen other guys, Bastian’s face is a bloody mess. I can feel the hot trickle of my own flowing from my nose. The look that Bastian gives me is pure venom. He lunges for me when he’s on his feet, but Marcus puts himself between us, keeping Bastian from making contact.
“Come on, dude. Give it a rest. It’s over.”
Bastian’s nostrils flare. He looks to Marcus and then to me, like he’s contemplating whether or not to take us both on.
In the end, he decides against it. “Fuck both of you.” He shoves away from everyone holding him and disappears through the door.
I’m tempted to charge after him to finish what I started when Coach grabs me. “You’re coming with me, Dalton. Now.”
For a change, he doesn’t raise his voice. Maybe that’s why I listen. That icy, acidic snarl is worse than his top-of-the-lungs yelling.
He marches away toward the office. Part of me wants to say fuck it and leave. I just want my woman and my daughter. It used to be that the world only made sense when I was on the ice. Now, it only makes sense when I’m with them.
When did that change?
What does it mean?
Fuck if I know.
Sighing, I follow in Coach’s footsteps. I close the door behind me more as a courtesy to him than being embarrassed of someone overhearing. “Bastian deserved it,” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
It’s definitely not what that Coach wants to hear. He leans over the desk, hands propped on it as he looks at me. If he could kill me, I think he’d take a skate to my throat right this minute.
“You’re a real piece of work, Dalton.” Spittle flies out of his angry slash of a mouth. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, huh? And what the fuck was tonight?”
I shrug. “The Torque really wanted to win,” I say. “And frankly, the whole team was playing like they’d never picked up a hockey stick before?—”
“Yeah, and did you do anything to help that?” he presses. “I swear, it’s like your head is a hundred miles away. You’re supposed to be the leading force when you’re out there. You’re supposed to be who they look to when things are looking bad!”
“I thought you didn’t like it when I started to tell people how to play the game. You know, ‘cause that’s your job.”
This is it. The moment that I get totally dropped or put six feet under. Coach’s eyes bulge. A vein at his temple throbs, like he’s trying to figure out which order of operations he needs to do those in. Kill me first, or fire me first? Which one will have him looking the least suspicious?
Some grace of patience takes over before Coach can bust a gasket. He draws in a breath, closes his eyes. When he opens them, he looks directly at me.
“You’ve got some shit going on, Reese. And I would like to know what the fuck it is.”
I just stare at him. No way am I going to tell him “what’s going on.” But it also has nothing to do with tonight, either. It was just a shit game. It happens.
