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Well, maybe a couple were.
Case in point? The idiot I was sleeping with.
I made it to the center of the crowd. Kingston had Glass pinned up against the plexiglass with an unbreakable grip on his sweater. Glass had a similar hold on Kingston, but with a lot less anger.
“Take off your fucking gloves, Glass,” Kingston shouted into his face. The expression on Kingston’s face startled me for a second. I knew that he never smiled on the ice, but I hadn’t realized that he never got mad on the ice either.
Even when he got into fights, he was famous for being ruthless and unemotional. He was “The King” after all. The competitive nature of the game always caused people’s emotions to rise but never Kingston’s. At least not until today. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this pissed, in person or on game tape. His teeth were bared, and spit was flying from his mouth with every shout.
I only paused for a millisecond before I got in there to break this bullshit up. I shoved my arms between theirs and pushed against their padded chests. “That’s enough, Kingston. It was anaccident.”
They barely looked at me. I pushed again, knowing I wouldn’t move them an inch; Glass was already against a wall, and Kingston was pushing against him with all his body weightand anger.
I caught Sebastian by the strap of his helmet, forced his head to turn toward me, and growled, “It was an accident. Let him go, Sebastian.”
I held his fiery gaze. We were in a mental, and slightly physical, arm-wrestling match. I raised my eyebrows at him in challenge, notflinching.
Kingston held.
I held.
Kingston’s grip loosened from Glass, and he let me push him a few inches away. I got in between them and faced Glass.
“Sorry,” I said to Glass, a smile tight on my face.
His gaze flicked over my shoulder to Kingston for a second before returning to me. “No, I’m sorry.”
I stopped him before he could go on. “It was an accident, Glass. I saw you trip, and I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. Sorry about my teammates. They get a little overprotective.”
A smile flickered over his face. “I get it. If someone ran into my daughter, I would be all over them.” His eyes widened and he quickly backtracked, hands held up as if I was about to attack him myself. “Not that you’re fragile and need protecting. You’re a hockey player who can handleherself.”
My smile turned genuine at his babbling, and an ounce of anger drained from me. He was cute. Although his reference to Kingston as my father figure was a little off-putting.
Glass and I apologized to each other one more time. Thankfully, he didn’t point out that Kingston didn’t say sorry for overreacting and returned to his bench. His team followed him, and the scufflewas over.
I didn’t look at Kingston as he was thrown into the sin bin by an iratelinesman.
“Good game, guys,” Coach said. “Frey, Garza, nice teamwork. Berg, you were a wall. Even I wouldn’t have wanted to go against you in my prime.” Coach’s voice hardened a little. “Kingston, you need to get yourself together. It’s your job to set an example for this team.”
After the Kingston and Glass scuffle, it took me a while to settle down and get back into the groove of the game. The Tigers overtook us almost immediately, but after the break, I came back and stood firm in the third, not letting another puck past me.
Although, I don’t think anyone noticed how off I was after the fight. Not with how erratic Kingston was playing. He was one of the most consistent and emotionless players in the league, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he broke the record for the number of errors in a single hockey game tonight. He missed easy shots, and more than a couple pucks escaped from underneath the blade of his stick. They were rookie mistakes that Kingston hadn’t even made in his first year. Thank God everyone else was on fire. It saved me and Kingston from dragging theteam down.
Hansson didn’t shout at Kingston like he did when the younger player fucked up. There was no need to. Kingston was fully aware of his fuck ups. Well, at least some of hisfuck ups.
For the millionth time in the past forty-five minutes, Sebastian shot me a tight look, and I almost snorted like an angry bull. He had some nerve being mad at me for forcing him to back down from Glass. I was mad at him!
Unfortunately, I didn’t think he knew why I was so mad. And that made him even more irritated. He was sitting in his locker, not saying a word. I doubted he even could, with how hard his teeth were fusedtogether.
Coach finished his talk and sent us off. I passed Kingston on my way to the showers, feeling his eyes boring into the sideof my face
I didn’t have time for him right now. I had something else I needed todeal with.
“That was a rough collision, Riley. Areyou okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine. I’ve gotten more bruises from falling off a swing set.”
Maybe I should be grateful for Sebastian’s drama on the ice. It took away some of the attention from me. I didn’t have nearly as many reporters surrounding me as I usually did. They were busy questioning Sebastian about his behavior and getting few satisfying answers.
