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Prologue
REED
“You little fucker. If you come at me again, you’ll regret it,” my stepfather screams, his fingers wrapped tightly around the collar of my sweater.
Anger rushes through my veins. Spit rises in my throat, and I shoot a wad into his face. “Don’t you touch my momma again, or I’ll kill you.”
He throws me into the kitchen table by my collar, breaking the kitchen chair and possibly my nose. He’s coming at me as I scramble to get up. My mom’s shouting something indistinguishable—I can’t hear her over the blood pounding in my ears.
“Embezzlement… lose… everything.” Momma’s muffled words bounce off the walls, but I can’t comprehend; I still can’t hear everything.
My stepdad’s figure towers over me, looking down at me like I’m Satan. “That’s all you care about is him and his hockey. Do you know how hard it is to look at him knowing you’re in love with his father? The one who wanted nothing to do with you?”
His face is swollen. Is he drunk?
“Shana, you were a puck bunny to him. Nothing more.” He pushes her again, and I try to scramble to my feet, but I’m off balance and slip in my own blood pooling from my nose and onto the floor. “I’ve given you everything, and you repay me by leaving me? I don’t think so.”
Did he send me to boarding school because they had the best hockey program in the country or so he could get away with hitting my mom? I always thought it was hockey but now, as his hand connects with her cheek, I’m not so sure.
While he turns his attention to my mom, I squirm backwards until I’m completely under the table, wiggling until I come out the other side. He slaps her twice more, and my pulse races.
“You will stand by me, or your precious Reed will never play hockey again,” he screams in her face.
Without thought, acting on instinct to protect my mom, the room goes dark.
Chapter One
REED - 7 YEARS LATER
Out with the boys, getting drunk. I’m sure this isn’t what Coach meant when he said, “Keep your head down and your focus on hockey.”
McShane’s, the local bar where the hockey players hang out, has twenty screens throughout the bar showing the Stallions football game. Everyone’s praising Logan Warren, my roommate and star quarterback.
He’s been a bear to live with, so I’m not really in the mood to hear it. He doesn’t like the relationship I have with Harper, our third roommate and his once-fake girlfriend turned real girlfriend turned… I’m not really sure what they are right now.
From the start, I had a feeling their relationship wasn't based on pretense. Yet, when they finally decided to make it official, it crumbled as quickly as it started. Unfortunately, Harper struggles with anxiety, and being the star quarterback’s girlfriend has been hard on her. Which is hard on Logan. Who is then hard on me.
At least Harper and I are fine. She and her twin brother Hagan are my best friends. Harper and Hagan, to some degree, are the only people from my former life. They know me—the one underneath the layers of pain, hurt, hate, and abandonment.
So, I’m sitting here, shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of assholes from the hockey team when Harper is home, studying instead of watching the man she loves play the game he loves. She believes they can’t be together because of her panic attacks. She doesn’t want to be in the spotlight and embarrass him again by passing out.
I want them together because I need Harper to be happy. She’s the sunshine that pulls me out of my darkness. Unlike Harper, I don’t have anxiety, but I’ve self-diagnosed myself with depression. I know it, but hell if you can say something like that aloud, doctors are quick to put you on medication.
Been there. Done that. The side effects weren’t worth the result. So now, I just drown my pain in alcohol.
Flynn and Dawes, my wingmen, bring shots back to the six-foot-long, high-top table where about half of our hockey team is drinking and watching the game. As a unit, we pound the table three times and then shoot the tequila. About that time, Logan throws a touchdown pass, and we throw our arms up in victory.
Flynn nudges me with his elbow. “Three o’clock. That chick is hot.”
As I twist my head to see the girl, I can only see her profile and just my luck, she turns, catching me staring. Wanting to make her squirm, I head straight for her, and she darts her eyes around, looking for an escape. I have these eyes people can’t look away from.
I wade through people and when she sees me getting close, she turns her back to me. But now, in this crowded bar, my body is wedged against hers. She’s thinner than the clothes she’s wearing suggests. Baggy, long-sleeve shirt with one shoulder exposed and flowy pants.
My hands touch her arms, and a shock of electricity makes us both jump.
“Fireworks already?” I whisper in her ear. “What I could do to you. Umm.”
She huffs, spinning to face me. “In your dreams. Go back to your Neanderthal friends.”
