9. Kellerman
Freshman Year of College
“Nice work tonight, Kellerman.”
The team cheers and taps their sticks against their lockers.
My cheeks burn, but I tip my chin. “Thanks, Coach.”
Even I have to admit, I played a hell of a game. A fire has been lit under me since I started playing on this college team. Being away from my father has breathed new life into me, and this team is proving to be more like family than my father ever could be. Every game, I’m working towards my dream, propelling myself closer to building the life I want.
I won’t let anything stand in my way.
“There’s a party at the Alpha house tonight.” Stephen nudges me as we head out of the locker room. “Come out with the team so we can celebrate.”
I’m about to shake my head and tell him no like I always do, but he cuts me off, tossing his arm around my shoulders as we walk. “They’re starting to ask why you never come out with us, and I can only defend you for so long.”
“I never asked you to defend me.”
“That’s the thing about friends—they don’t have to ask. They just do it.”
“Never said you were my friend, either.”
Stephen chuckles. “You need me as your friend. Trust me.”
We’re still walking with his arm around me when I hear my name.
I whip around, coming face to face with my father, and ice fills my veins.
I shake off Stephen’s arm, putting space between us. “Dad, what are you doing here?”
His eyes are bloodshot, and there’s a familiar sway to his stance. “I came to see you play.”
I had no idea he was out of jail, though I guess ten years is possible with good behavior.
His glossy gaze flicks to Stephen, so I step in front of him to keep his attention on me. “You need to get the hell out of here.”
Dad scoffs. “You’re a tough guy, now? All grown up.”
“Yet you’re still the same old nasty drunk.”
Must’ve hit the liquor store the second he got out.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing here?” He moves toward me, slow like a lion stalking his prey. “Running away to college so you can act like a fa?—”
“Dad!” I cut him off before he can complete the derogatory term he’s called me most of my life. “You need to walk away from me or so help me God, I’m going to?—”
He lunges forward and shoves me against the wall. “What, huh? You’re going to what?”
Stephen yanks my father by the back of his neck and tosses him several feet away.
“Stephen, stop.” I try to push past him to get to my father, but the menacing look he gives me stops me in my tracks. Gone is the carefree, happy-go-lucky guy I’ve come to know over the last several months.
“Your son told you to leave,” Stephen practically growls. “I suggest you listen. He doesn’t want you here, which means I don’t want you here either.”
My dad smirks at me. “You gonna let your fairy boyfriend talk to me like this?”
Without a second thought, I slam my fist into my father’s face. He falls backward, unsteady on his feet, and crashes onto the floor. I kneel over him and punch him again and again.
“I’m not a little kid anymore. You can’t control me, and you can’t put your hands on me. Now it’s your turn to see what it feels like to be helpless while your own flesh and blood beats the shit out of you. I should kill you, right here!”
I black out in a rage, years of suppressing my father’s abuse now breaking like a dam and spilling out of me.
Until Stephen’s hands wrap around my biceps, hauling me up. “Enough, Chance. Enough.”
His calm, deep voice rolls over my skin, snapping me back to reality. My chest heaves as I stare down at my father groaning on the floor.
Fuck.
Emotion lodges in my throat like a thick ball. No one has ever seen the ugliness my father is capable of, aside from me, my mother, and a handful of local cops. I feel vulnerable and embarrassed. Exposed. Stephen wasn’t supposed to see any of that.
I have to get out of here. But before I do, I bend down and dig into my father’s coat pocket, pulling out his key ring and separating the key fob from the keychain before tossing the rest back to him. Then I spin around and storm down the hallway.
“Chance, wait.” Stephen jogs to catch up to me, but I don’t slow down.
“Leave me alone,” I toss over my shoulder. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“Are you kidding me?” He yanks me by my arm and spins me around to face him. “You’re mad that I stuck up for you?”
“I didn’t need you to!” I don’t know why I’m doing this. My hands are shaking, my skin vibrating. But I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of me. “That shit you just saw? That’s my life, and it’s none of your business. I didn’t ask you to step in.”
“You didn’t need to ask me,” he shouts back. “That’s what friends do. They have each other’s backs, and they’re there when shit gets ugly.”
“When are you going to get it?” I look him dead in the eyes. “We’re not friends, and we’re never going to be friends.”
He should walk away from me and never speak to me again. Hell, he should punch me in the face for the way I’m acting after he defended me to my father.
Instead, Stephen pushes into my space until we’re nose to nose. “I can see that you haven’t had a great life up until now, and it’s pretty obvious you don’t have a lot of friends. So, you can keep trying to push me away all you want, but I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. If someone disrespects you, I’m going to say something. Every. Single. Time. And if you don’t like it, that’s too damn bad.”
The sincerity in his eyes calms something in my jagged, dysfunctional heart. He’s not looking at me with judgment, and he’s not asking me to talk about what he saw between me and my father. He stuck up for me without a reason to. He could’ve easily stayed back, stayed quiet, and let me handle it. I don’t understand it, but fuck if I don’t like how it feels to have someone on my side for once.
He leans closer, and grips the back of my neck. “You played a great fucking game tonight, and we are going out with the team to celebrate. You are going to forget that your father was even here—in fact, do yourself a favor and erase him from your memory completely. But if you don’t come out? I’ll sit in that damn room with you, bored out of my fucking mind, and you know I’ll annoy the shit out of you, so you might as well just come out.”
I swallow past the burning in my throat, and stuff down all the words I wish I could say to him. “You really are so annoying.”
He grins and smacks the back of my head. “Let’s go get shitfaced.”