Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
PIERCE
Is Beckett going to be pissed?
Maybe.
Do I care?
Absolutely not.
I didn’t even know our phones were set up for location sharing until Liam mentioned it.
But I double-check all our locations anyway as I walk into the rink, the cold hitting my face like a challenge.
I’m a little surprised he’s at the Scorpion’s practice venue right now.
The team schedule has them at the arena across town.
Whatever.
I don’t give a shit about the rest of the team. All I care about is Beckett.
It took me a solid half-hour to get out of the security office at the hotel. Who knew Beckett had some petty bitch in him? I had to show my license, then pull up the pack registration to prove Beckett and I are packmates, and that this wasn’t some psycho-stalker situation.
Well, okay. I am technically stalking Beckett, seeing as I’m currently pounding my way through the guts of this little ice rink, moping around the locker room after tracking his phone, but that’s beside the point.
He’ll be pissed, but that is the least of my fucking problems.
The locker room is empty and eerie. Places like this should be full of people, and when they’re not, the slightest sound can make you jump.
I lean my back against the cool row of lockers and bang my head a couple times.
The urge to rip open his little cubby hole and bury my face in his sweaty jerseys is almost overwhelming.
The man smells so fucking good all the time.
I resist, barely. I also resist the urge to hang over the edge of the rink with my tongue hanging out in the boy aquarium to watch him work out, but, again, barely.
No need to fully lean into my psycho-stalker era.
You’d think hockey would be the least sexy sport.
Rugby? Sure. The little shorts, the jockstraps, the massive thighs.
But hockey? You can’t get a lick of knowledge about what’s underneath all that gear.
The pads, the protectors, the gloves, the big, boxy shorts over cute little leggings.
Can’t even see Beckett’s ass when he’s all kitted out.
But that doesn’t make hockey any less sexy.
Growing up in Florida, hockey was the last thing I thought I’d ever be into. Then I met Beckett. Everything changed with Beckett.
I look down at my hands. After all these years, I still half expect to see blood caked under my nails. I bang my head harder against the locker, and let the dull pain echo through my skull. I force myself to conjure up my favorite Beckett memory.
The first time I saw him. He’d walked out of that shitty rink in Florida, hair still wet from the shower and slicked back, hoodie in his hands.
He was dressed like it was October somewhere normal, not Florida with its disgusting swamp-ass heat.
He towered over Reed as they walked up to my truck, and that was, somehow, fucking hot.
Reed licked his lips and winked at me, and the second Beckett slid into my passenger seat with all that perverse shy confidence and his scent, I knew it.
I knew right then he was part of our pack.
I played it casual when we dropped Beckett at the airport days later, but I had been this close to dropping to my knees and begging him not to go.
Or take us with him.
And then when I… when Reed…
I look at my hands again, curling them into fists.
It had been Liam’s idea to go to Beckett after I… after Reed…
I barely remembered anything from that week.
We had been out drinking. Liam was hustling the bar owner. Reed was working a concert producer to score us a bouncing gig. I was supposed to be sweet-talking the omega of a pack that owned a string of Airbnbs, to get them to let us do their property management.
We needed another 10K before we could grab the kid and get the fuck out of Florida. Reed was not going to leave without his baby sister, and security deposits on a place big enough for all of us were killing us.
We almost had everything set. Liam had fake companies and IDs lined up, a plan to disappear us, no matter how hard their asshole father came after us.
The tricky part was getting Lynn into school.
Her father had pulled her out ages ago. If we were going to kidnap Reed’s baby sister, we were sure as hell going to give her a normal life.
That meant public schools. That meant clothes and school supplies and bicycles, and whatever else a twelve-year-old needed.
That meant first and last month’s rent, a security deposit on a real house, not the busted double-wides and rickety shitholes we were raised in.
But I couldn’t even do my part. I was tossing back shots, scrolling through the group chat with Beckett, rereading every word he’d written since we dropped him at the airport.
I shouldn’t have driven that night. Period. Liam should have been the one to take Reed home. I don’t even remember pulling up to his place, or walking up to the door, or the fight with his dirtbag father.
All I remember is his father shouting, “You killed him!” over and over, the cocking of the shotgun, Lynn’s screams, and the blood.
The door to the locker room bangs open, launching my pulse into the stratosphere.
I swallow hard, gulping air. Beckett staggers in, hitting the swinging door against the wall.
He launches his helmet across the room and makes for the trash can.
The sour smell of stomach acid and bile fill the air. My racing heart stops on a dime.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask, trying to keep the shake out of my voice. I push off the lockers and cross the room.
Beckett pukes again, wobbling on his skates.
“Are you fucking drunk?” I know that’s impossible. Beckett drinks to be polite. Maybe in the off-season he’d get wild and get tanked once or twice, but during the season? Never.
He is still in his skates, the rubberized floor giving him grip, but his ankle wobbles and he almost goes down. I’m at his side in a blink, pinching his elbow.
“Get the fuck off!” Beckett rips his arm out of my grip.
He staggers back, almost falling. In his skates, Beckett has half a foot on me, but our strength is even, since I lift heavier.
Today though, he’s feeble, like a baby bird pushing my arm away.
I slam his back into the lockers. He still has a glove on and uses it to bat my hand. His head lolls on his shoulders.
“Beckett, look at me.”
Of course, he doesn’t. I grab his chin and give his head a little shake, my panic making it rougher than I mean. His pupils are blown huge, eating up all the blue in his eyes. And this isn’t from bullshit alpha rage. His eyes are bloodshot too.
“Did you see the doctor?”
“I just need to eat.” His words are clear, not slurred. At least there’s that.
“You dumb fuck!” All my care comes out as curses. “You didn’t see the doctor, did you? You got clocked so hard it rattled your little puppy brain. You have a concussion. And then you get the bright idea to train hard on top of that and not take a day off?”
A bang behind me sounds like a shotgun through the locker room.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Julius strides in, all righteous.
“It’s nothing,” both Beckett and I say, in perfect unison.
Julius rips off his gloves and throws them to the floor like he’s on the ice and going for a winger. I don’t even see the punch before it lands. Stars break into little sparkles at the edge of my vision. Instantly, blood flows from my nose.
“What the fuck, man?” I wipe my upper lip with the back of my hand, and it comes away red.
“You!” Julius hauls me off the floor and shakes a finger in my face. “This is your fucking fault!”
“What the fuck?” I say again.
“You have one job, you degenerate asshole!” Julius slams me into the lockers next to Beckett. “Your one job, Pierce, is to take care of him, and you fucking failed at that. He has a concussion and you did jack shit about it?”
I open my mouth, then close it. He’s not wrong. I did jack shit about it. Regardless of the fact that Beckett is a pro athlete and a goddamn adult, and that he should fucking know better. That is my job. Beckett is my job.
Julius gets his hand wrapped around my throat, and he hauls back for another punch. I brace for it, then Beckett’s voice cuts through the tension right next to my ear.
“Don’t fucking touch him.”
Julius drops me like I’m a bag of dog shit. He takes two giant steps back, and I’m left with the taste of copper in my mouth. I wipe under my nose. Blood. I look at my hand, then spit onto the floor.
“At least I still have all my teeth,” I mutter, tongue probing the line just to be sure.
Julius snorts.
I want to tell him he’s right, but my jaw aches too much to be funny. I glance at Beckett, who’s swaying on his feet. Fuck.
Julius points at me, then at Beckett. “I’m going to do you a solid, Beckett, and keep this quiet.
So, we’re going to reduce this down to a migraine.
And not whatever the fuck is going on with you right now.
But you,” he jabs a finger at me, “you’re going to take him to the clinic and get all the imaging that he needs.
And you,” he points at Beckett, “are benched for at least a week. Get in bed. Rest.”
He looks at me, then at my crotch. “And I mean actual fucking rest, so that your brains don’t turn to complete mush.”
Beckett staggers to his locker. He’s got his game face on, but his hands are shaking as he digs through his gear. “I’ll drive over to urgent care later.”
“No, Beckett. Don’t be a fucking dumbass.
You’re not getting behind the wheel of a goddamn car,” Julius snaps.
“Pierce is going to drive you. You’ll see the doc.
I’m calling him right now, and he’s going to order you off the bench for the rest of the week, at least. Jesus fucking Christ, this is exactly what we need, with the season coming to an end.
Paxton? Now this?” Julius slumps. He hangs his head, cracks his neck.
“We’re almost there, Beckett. I need you on the ice, and we’re not going to fuck this up.
Go home, get in bed, and don’t get out of it until I call you. ”
He bends, scoops up his gloves, and vanishes onto the ice with a door slam that leaves the air vibrating. Beckett’s still standing by his locker, looking like he might fall over if I breathe too hard. The silence stretches out.
“You’re bleeding,” Beckett says without looking at me.
“No shit.” I know I deserved that punch. I deserve a lot more. He should have caved my face in with his stick, then skated over my chest and left a set of grooves there for good measure. “Let’s be good little boys before your team captain comes back to fuck us up some more.”
Beckett drops onto the bench, fingers shaking so badly he can’t get the laces on his skates undone. “Fuck,” he whispers. It’s the softest sound he’s made all day.
I kneel in front of him and undo the laces, one skate and then the other. They thud to the floor. I look up. His eyes are soft, but he’s breathing hard, nostrils flaring.
I run my palms up the back of his calves, slow, feeling the twitch of muscle under my touch. His eyes narrow, and I know he remembers he’s supposed to be pissed at me.
“Fuck you, Pierce,” he says, shoving me back. He steps over me, but has to catch himself against the locker.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. I stand, grab the hem of his jersey, and peel it over his head. He doesn’t fight me, just lets me strip him down, piece by piece, until his gear’s in a heap and I’m pulling his street clothes out of the locker.
He doesn’t even hit the shower. Which means he’s actually scared. It also means he’s going to stink up my car with his scent, and it’s going to drive me absolutely fucking crazy on the drive over.
I stuff his clothes into his arms, and he just stands there, blinking at me like he’s forgotten how to get dressed.
He drops everything but his jeans. Shaking them out, he leans a shoulder against the lockers.
His movements are slow and exaggerated as he carefully steps one leg, then the other into his jeans.
Fuck. Now, I’m scared. He’s holding on to both hands as he stomps into his sneakers.
“Let’s go,” I say, and he follows me silently, out into the cold.