“It’s not a trick question, Tori. I’m concerned about him. He’s pushing himself a lot.” His voice hangs at the end of the sentence like he’s unsure about something.
“You know we just started dating, right?”
Ares nods. “Bet you’d notice a behavior shift, if he was having more headaches or whatever.”
Can’t argue with that. “I’m worried about him. I’m not going to lie—it’s scary. I had to leave the game last time. Waiting for him to take a hit…” A lump grows in my throat.
A warm hand covers mine as I cradle my camera. “I get it. It can be a dangerous sport. But odds are in his favor generally. Most games we all come out fine, or no one would play.”
That’s debatable. Sometimes it seems like Raffi would play it even if his skates were on fire.
Pushing the lump down with a hard swallow, I lean closer to him. “He won’t step down from playing.”
Ares doesn’t flinch or react, he doesn’t gasp, or smack me—if someone suggested I step down from doing something I love, I’d want to hit them. Instead, his face shifts, sympathy filling his eyes. “It’s hard when it’s something you love, even when it’s hurting you. It’s like a drug.”
The youngest of the de la Peña brothers has a relationship with drugs and alcohol that is no secret.
“You can’t force him to leave.” Ares’s face is stern.
“He has to play.” I nibble on my lip, already having said too much.
He tilts his head in question, but before words come out of his mouth, a warm hand meets my lower back, and Raffi kisses my temple. “You ready?”
I give a last lingering look to a curious Ares before nodding. “Absolutely. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 28
Raffi
“Iforgot my book.” Jackson Gilbert drops onto a chair next to me in Apollo’s apartment. Jackson always forgets his freakin’ book.
“I didn’t.” Scott waves his like it’s the most precious thing he owns. “For a change.” His copy has multi-colored tabs sticking out of it. He likes to annotate his books. Each tab means something different, quotes he likes, I dunno what else. There are a bunch of colors and damn near every page has a tab.
Justin and August show up to our monthly Get Lit meetings even though they graduated already. When they can at least. Making a book club meeting in their hometown isn’t always top of their list of post-grad priorities, but it keeps them connected to the team. No matter what goes on in our lives, we all make time for book club.
I make time for the snacks, but book club happens while I eat.
All three de la Peña brothers are here too, so’s Tate and a couple of the rookies. They’re here to suss out what we do. Either that or they think it’s all about the porn.
For the first time ever, we’ve opened our ranks, and there are outsiders staring back at me around the table. Austin Morgan, a friend of the de la Peña twins, is in town from Minnesota. He used to play for one of our opponents, the Minnesota Snow Pirates. He’s here with two of his former teammates, Lincoln Scott and Finn O’Brien.
They’re good guys—hard workers, not assholes during games, and always ready to put their hands in their pockets for a good cause. We may be enemies on the ice, but outside the rink, they’re actually not that bad.
Though I’m not sure they can be trusted to take Get Lit as seriously as it should be. We don’t fuck around with our romance. But the guys say it’s just a one off. Maybe they’ll take it back to their own team.
When a knock sounds on the door, everyone looks at each other. Aren’t we all already here? Another quick headcount tells me we’re full. Plus, the snack table’s buckling under all the food, and there are no more seats, or space, around this table.
Apollo swings the door open and three Flint Flames—two former, one current—stand staring back at him. All the way from Michigan, huh? I smell a rat.
“I brought snacks.” Jeremy Lewis lifts two grocery bags and grins. He walks past Apollo like he owns the place and heads straight to the food table.
“Who invited them?” Tate’s voice is low but carries because everyone else is silent as fuck. It’s common knowledge that AJ Williams’s hit on me in my rookie year didn’t help my concussion problems. He’s standing with Jake Talbot, who we’re playing on the ice tomorrow night.
“No one.” Jeremy turns to face the room. “I saw it on the socials.” He points at one of the rookies, who slinks down in his chair.
Fucking idiot. If anyone else shows up, that kid’s going to be doing the worst chores for a month. And then some.
Jeremy surveys the table we’re all sitting around. “Thought it was a party, not a book club though.” He jerks his head to his buddies, standing like spare tires in the doorway. They’re both red in the face. AJ’s holding a crate of beer, and Jake’s eyeballing the hall leading back to the elevator like he might take off and leave his friends.
