Page 97 of Play Dirty

I pulled back hard, and Ares stilled immediately. His grip tightening just slightly, like he didn’t understand the game.

“I—” I started, already prying myself away. “I can’t…”

Grayson’s shirt glared up at me, like a silent witness to some unspeakable crime. I snatched it up and dragged it back on with shaking hands.

“This is a bad idea,” I said quickly, not meeting his eyes. “I just— I shouldn’t have…”

I didn’t finish. I couldn’t.

Instead, I turned and bolted. Out the door, down the hall, and up the stairs. I fled back into the cold of my bedroom, only it wasn’t cold anymore. My room was warm.

Almost too warm.

I stood there in the middle of it, chest heaving, skin still buzzing from his touch. My radiator hummed quietly against the wall, looking happy to be here. Working perfectly.

I dragged a hand through my tangled hair, and let it fall back over my face.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered.

Because somehow, I was still cold.

And still burning.

~ 32 ~

HAVEN

The next ten days didn’t feel like days. They felt like work.

Early mornings. Late nights. Film until my eyes burned, and numbers blurred together. Practice until the sound of skates cutting ice felt carved into my skull.

Routine. Structure. Control.

It was the only way I knew how to keep everything else from unraveling.

“Again!” Mercer barked from the boards.

Groans echoed across the ice, but the guys reset anyway.

No Ares.

That part still felt… wrong.

Two games. That’s what the league handed him.

Deliberate hit, game misconduct. Automatic review.

Two games without our enforcer.

I’d been the one who told him to do it. And he had. The guilt sat heavy, but neither Ares nor Mercer had uttered a single word of blame.

It wasn’t just the physical presence we missed. It wasn’t just the hits, or the way he could shift momentum with a single play. It was something heavier. Something harder to define. We were missing a piece; not skill, not structure.

Something else.

“Angles!” I called out, tapping the tablet against the boards. “You’re giving him the inside lane again, Caleb.”

“I’m not—”