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The team knew I was their new coach’s daughter, and Noah and his friends had picked up on the frosty vibes when they asked me about him. But that was all they were getting.
“God, Harper, I wish you’d have told me sooner,” she sighed.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” I picked at a beer mat, barely able to meet her gaze. The pity I knew would glisten there.
“No, but you’re my best friend, Harper. Your pain is my pain. Your anger is my anger. I don’t know. Maybe I could have asked Noah to trip him on the ice or something.”
“Aurora Hart,” I fake-gasped. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Our laughter filled the booth, soothing some of the jagged edges inside me.
“Thank you. I needed this.”
She looked at me and gave me a big smile full of understanding and support. “That’s what friends are for.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, feeling a little lighter than I had ten minutes ago. “I’m starting to get that.”
* * *
Friday, I did something stupid—I promised Aurora I’d attend the Lakers home games against the Bulldogs.
She’d already gotten me a ticket, assuming I would want to go. Since nobody knew about what I was now referring to as ‘the incident,’ that was how I found myself in front-row seats at Ellet Arena, watching the team warm up on the ice as the visiting team filed into the rink.
“Go Lakers,” Dayna yelled, clapping her hands loudly. “Let’s go, guys.”
“Okay, you. Let’s try and rein it in a little. They haven’t even faced off yet.”
But when Aiden skated right past us, giving her a cocky wink, she turned feral.
I got it. It was hard not to be swept up in the atmosphere, the ripple of anticipation in the air. The announcers led the crowd in a rendition of the Lakers fight song while my heart fluttered wildly in my chest as I watched Mason zip laps around the rink, fooling around with Noah and Ward.
I’d managed to avoid him since Wednesday. After my text thanking him for taking care of me, I decided I was done. But now he was here, just beyond the plexiglass. And he looked so freaking hot. My thighs pressed together to ease the throbbing as memories of our night together flooded my mind.
His head lifted in my direction, and his eyes found mine, and just like that, all notions of ignoring my attraction to him went out of the window.
I couldn’t see his expression from behind his helmet, but I couldfeelit everywhere. The intensity. His lingering stare as he whizzed past the glass.
“Okay, that was a little weird,” Rory said, and I could feel her eyes drilling holes into me.
Meeting her gaze, I gave a weak smile. “Yeah.”
“Harper, what aren’t you telling me? Because I’m pretty sure Mason—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head, hoping she would leave it.
Thankfully, the announcements started as both teams headed back to their benches for the pre-game pep talk. My father looked like a different man. Laughing and smiling at Coach Tucker as he motivated his players. It was hard to believe it was the same guy I’d grown up with.
He beckoned Mason over, the two of them deep in conversation as players started to move into position. Clapping him on the back, my father let Mason join his teammates.
It hurt. It probably always would. My father had assimilated so easily with the team when he hadn’t even bothered to pick up the phone and call me while he was in Lakeshore. But I couldn’t let it ruin my college experience.
I wouldn’t.
I could support the team from a distance, go about my business around campus, and should our paths ever cross, I could afford him the same attention he’d always afforded me: cool indifference and a boatload of disappointment.
Because his opinion of me and his lifetime of rejection didn’t define me. In the same way, Mason’s rejection didn’t define me.
If only my heart could believe what my head already knew to be true.
