Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
BASS
I try following her.
My feet are already moving, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird in a cage that’s suddenly too small. I only make it three steps across the hardwood floor of my bedroom before Neo’s hand clamps down on my shoulder.
It’s a vise grip. The kind that says don't even think about it.
"Let her go, my dude,” Neo says, his voice like gravel.
“The fuck I will.” I try pushing his hand off of me, pissed that he’s not minding his own damn business.
"Yes, you can." He doesn’t budge, his dark eyes fixed on mine with a level of intensity that usually only appears on the ice.
"Chasing her right now isn't going to help.
You've already done enough damage for one night.
She needs space, and you need to get your head out of your ass and deal with the fire you started. "
“Don’t use that hockey captain energy bullshit with me. She needs to know the truth!" I snap, trying to wrench away, but Shane appears on my other side, arms crossed over his massive chest. He looks less like a teammate and more like a bouncer trying to kick me out of the club.
"And what truth is that, Morelli?" Shane’s voice is a whip, sharp and stinging. "That you were fucking Gia up until the minute you decided Kai was your new obsession?”
“Who the fuck are either one of you to talk to me with some sort of moral authority. You both have fucked puck bunnies…repeatedly.”
“The difference is my girl knows about my past,” Shane continues. “I would never blindside her. But you knew Gia was a ticking time bomb with a vendetta, and you still brought the girl you supposedly care about into a house that Gia’s been prancing around in since we were freshmen?”
The words are brutal and straight-up ugly. They hit me harder than a blindside check into the boards. And it’s exactly what I fucking deserve.
I can still see the look on Kai’s face and the way her eyes, usually so sharp and full of fire, had gone completely dull. Like I’d reached inside her and snuffed out a light I didn’t even know I was allowed to hold.
"I was going to tell her," I mutter. Even to my own ears, I sound like a coward. "Tonight, I was literally about to lay it all out when Gia…”
"Pulled a fucking Gia?" Shane shakes his head, disgusted. "You knew this was coming. We all saw the way Gia was looking at Kai. You just hoped somehow you would get a pass because you’re Bass fucking Morelli.”
He’s right. My mother taught me better than this.
She always worried I would get myself into some kind of trouble with girls.
Probably because getting one to like me had always been so easy for me.
Too easy. As soon as I hit puberty, it was as if suddenly every girl in my school saw me through a new lens.
I’ve never had to be honest or work hard or any of that.
But Kai makes me want to be better.
"Where is that little shit starter?” I ask about Gia through gritted teeth, my hands curling into fists at my sides. I want to throttle her ass. “Is she still here?”
"Kitchen. Looking way too pleased with the wreckage she just caused," Neo says, finally letting go of my shoulder.
“Why the hell is she still here?” I stare accusingly at both of them. “Why didn’t you kick her ass out?”
“Because this is your mess to fix. So go talk to her if you want. Hell, kick her out if you want. But if you lose your temper and make this worse, I’m the one who’s going to put you on the floor. I’m not putting the Ice House in jeopardy because of your love triangle.”
I don't respond. I push past them, my blood boiling with a mix of rage and a self-loathing so thick I can taste it. The party vibe downstairs has evaporated, replaced by an awkward, suffocating silence. People are standing in the shadows of the hallway, whispering, their eyes tracking me like I’m a car crash. I don't give a fuck.
I find Gia in the kitchen.
She’s perched on the granite counter, swinging her legs and sipping a beer like she didn't just set my entire world on fire. She’s still wearing that smug, satisfied grin, her "coffin-shaped red fingernails" tapping against the glass bottle.
"Aww, are you salty with me?” she pouts, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Because your girlfriend bailed on you? Because I spoke the truth? What a shame. I thought you two were building something real."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I roar, the sound echoing off the tile walls.
"With me?" She laughs, and it’s a sharp, jagged sound that grates on my nerves. “Hell, I did that girl a favor. You treated me like a jersey you could just retire when you found a newer model. You made me look like a fool in front of everyone, so now we're even."
"I never promised you anything, Gia. You knew what this was from the start. We were casual. We were a distraction for each other.”
“Hmm, did I know that?” For a second, the mask slips. Underneath the heavy mascara and the spite, I see the sting. “Do you remember saying I was special? You said you'd never met anyone like me. You said—"
"I said a lot of shit to get what I wanted," I cut her off, the honesty of it feeling like a knife in my own gut. "And I’m an asshole for it. I’m a liar and a manipulator, and everything people say I am. But Kai? She’s innocent.
She didn't deserve to be a pawn in your shitty little game of revenge. "
"She stole you from me!"
"You can't steal something that was never yours!" My voice is a thunderclap, and Gia flinches as if I’ve actually slapped her. “And if we’re going to be one hundred percent honest, you’ve slept with at least three of my teammates in this house. Are you having this same conversation with them?”
For a heartbeat, I see the girl she used to be before the parties and the labels—just someone else looking for a way to feel important. But that empathy is swallowed by the image of Kai running out of this house in tears.
“Are you whore shaming me?”
“Are you calling yourself a whore?” I ask rhetorically through a deadly smirk.
Gia breaks the beer bottle on the edge of the counter and runs toward me, definitely in an effort to do me bodily harm.
I stop her mid-stride with a hand around her throat.
“Don’t, Bass!” someone yells out in warning. I don’t know who, and I don’t give a shit. Right now, all I see is red.
"Get out," I tell her, my voice dropping to a dangerous, vibrating low. "Now. Before I forget that I was raised better than to hurt a woman."
“You’re a piece of shit,” she challenges, though her voice wavers.
“Ah, so we do have something in common,” I say, stepping into her space until she has to lean back against the cabinets. “Because so are you.”
“I call your bluff,” she spits back. “This is a free country, and I can fuck with your little girlfriend all day, every day if I want.”
“I dare you,” I threaten her. “Because if you speak to, talk about, or even think about Kai Vega again, I’ll make sure that City Council mother of yours knows how you’ve been fucking and playing every guy in this house since freshman year, and so will all of her constituents.
We can play the public humiliation game, Gia.
I’m good at that shit when I’m motivated.
And it just so happens to be that lately I’ve gotten really good at social media. ”
Her face twists with a final, ugly spark of anger, but she slides off the counter and grabs her purse. Pulling the mom card was a long shot, and kind of low, but I had to try something. Everybody has their weaknesses, and disappointing her parents is one of Gia’s.
"She’s going to leave you anyway, Bass. Girls like her, girls with half a brain and big dreams, don't stay with guys like you. You’re just the 'bad boy' she’ll use to rebel before she goes off and marries some boring guy in finance.”
"Get. Out."
She slams the back door, the glass rattling in the frame, but the relief doesn't come. Because Gia was just the messenger. The real villain in this story, the one who hid the truth, the one who played with fire and got the person he loved burned, is me.
Hell…it really is love.
I sink onto a kitchen stool and drop my head into my hands. My chest feels like it’s being crushed and expanded at the same time.
I grew up watching the men in my life do the bare minimum. Love for someone outside of themselves was not something they did well. My parents divorced when I was young because of my dad’s philandering. And my stepfather was even worse.
He was a slacker who was a master of a "charming smile" and the "empty promise." He lied about money, he lied about other women, and he lied about who he was until the weight of it all crushed my mother. Their divorce was brutal, and it forever changed her, which, by default, impacted me.
I swore I’d never be like him. Either of them, really. I swore I’d be honest. Real. And the key to that so far has been to avoid anything serious. Avoid commitment. Then no one gets hurt.
Yet, look at me now. I’m watching the best thing that ever happened to me walk away because I was too fucking scared to be the man she thought I was.
***
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I wake up the next day to my phone buzzing on the counter.
My chest thumps, hoping it’s Kai calling to cuss me out or, better yet, forgive my stupid ass. But instead, the caller ID makes my blood turn to slush. There’s no reason for him to be calling this early in the day unless it’s bad news.
Coach Dixon.
I stare at the screen for three rings before I have the courage to answer. "Coach."
"Morelli." His voice is tight, controlled in a way that usually precedes a locker room explosion. "I just got a very interesting call from the head of the athletic department.”
“Yeah?”
“A student filed a formal complaint against you last night.”
Fuck me.
It hasn’t even been 24 hours.
“What kind of complaint?” I play dumb.