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“Yeah.”
“He’s not worth it, you know.”
“Come on, Dumfries. The guy’s a fucking liability.”
“I don’t disagree, but he’s still on the team. He’s still one of us.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I slung my pads on the bench and sat down, dragging a hand through my hair.
I was pissed. And it had nothing to do with Abel Adams and everything to do with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed pain in my fucking ass.
“You need to get laid.” Connor slumped down beside me. “Get rid of some of that tension you’re carrying around with you.”
“Is that what you do?” I deflected.
“Damn right. Ella is like my own personal physio.” His brows waggled suggestively. “You should have taken my advice at the party.”
“Nah, she’s Coach D’s daughter.” The lie soured on my tongue. “You never shit where you eat.”
“Unless your name’s Holden.” He held out his hand, and I slapped my palm down on it. “I think a few of us are heading to Millers after here if you want to tag along.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to start migrating there.”
“What’s wrong with Millers? The girls like that there are no bunnies, and Harper is working again, so it’s a two-birds-one-stone situation.”
“I think I’m going to head home and cram in some reading. I can’t afford to fall behind.”
Connor studied me, his heavy stare digging a little too deeply. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. Why?” My brows pinched.
I didn’t like outwardly lying to my friends, but it wasn’t like I was the care-and-share type, either. I told people things on a strictly need-to-know basis only. And none of my friends needed to know that sometimes I felt like I was fucking drowning. School. The team. Mom. Scottie. Harper.
I shoved that last thought away. She wasn’t a part of this. She couldn’t be.
If I told them how I really felt, it would make it real, and if it was real, I’d lose another inch of air to the crushing weight of responsibility I felt every second of every day.
“It’s okay to let us in, you know,” he said quietly, making sure the noise in the locker room drowned out his words. “It doesn’t have to be me, Austin, Aiden, or even Noah. But any one of us would gladly listen.”
“Do me a favor, Morgan. Save the heart-to-hearts for Noah.” I tapped him on the cheek as I got up and grabbed my shower bag.
“One day, Mase.” His voice followed me. “One day, you’ll understand.”
As I stepped under the shower and let the warm water wash away sixty minutes of intense drills, I closed my eyes and let myself pretend.
Pretend that I was more like Connor or Noah or Aiden.
Of course, they all had their own shit to deal with. Who didn’t? But they didn’t have someone depending on them the way I did—another life in their hands.
Scottie would always need some level of support. Sure, it could have been worse.
Life always could. But I didn’t care about what was happening to other people; I cared about my brother, about my mom, and what was happening to them.
But for those few minutes under the spray, I pretended I was just a guy with the whole world ahead of him: a successful hockey career, an understanding girlfriend, and an unconditionally supportive family.
It wasn’t my life though.
The likelihood was it never would be.
