Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
BECKETT
My skates bite into the ice, carving perfect half-moons with each crossover. The empty practice rink echoes with nothing but the blades. It’s like I’m a rookie in camp again. I push harder, legs burning as I accelerate into another sprint drill. My lungs feel raw. Good. It helps shut my brain up.
I drive myself into another sprint, pushing until my quads scream.
I should be resting. This is supposed to be a day off.
We need one more win, and then the playoffs; the cup could be ours.
It’s dumb to risk injury, but I have to move or I’m going to hate myself for getting into it with Pierce last night.
Things have been tense and messed up, but that doesn’t justify taking a swing at him.
I skid to a stop at center ice, breathing hard. Sweat trickles down my face, cold against my overheated skin. I bend forward, hands on my knees, and let myself feel the exhaustion.
“Nice ass, Hansen. Still looks cute under all those pads.”
My head snaps up. Pierce stands in the players’ box, leaning on his forearms. He looks like hell. Dark circles under his eyes, yesterday’s clothes rumpled like he slept in them. Maybe he didn’t sleep at all. And he’s still fucking hot.
Despite everything, a laugh escapes me. “Fuck off,” I say, but there’s no bite to it.
“That’s fair.” He shifts his weight, looking almost nervous. Pierce never looks nervous.
I straighten, skating a lazy circle as I catch my breath. “You didn’t come home last night.”
“Wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.” His voice is flat.
I don’t know how to answer that so I don’t. I was out the second I fell into bed last night. Hockey players can fall asleep anywhere. But I did pace the kitchen for two hours before getting tired waiting for either one of them to come home.
I keep skating, gentle curves that bring me closer to the box, then farther away. It’s easier to move than to stand still for this conversation. And a part of me doesn’t want to make it easy on Pierce.
Like he knows, he hesitates, then hops the rails and puts his feet on the ice. He’s in his street shoes, designer sneakers that have seen better days. And immediately, he starts to slip, arms windmilling as he fights for balance.
I can’t help it. I laugh.
“Fuck me,” Pierce goes down on one knee and does that baby deer thing trying to get upright. “No, no, I’m fine. Don’t come help,” he bitches.
More slipping, more curses. I plant my stick on the ice and lean on it to watch the Pierce Show.
“Seemed symbolic or some shit. Meeting you halfway.” He’s breathing hard now too.
“You look ridiculous.” But I don’t move to help him.
He takes another precarious step, feet sliding further apart. “Yeah, well. I feel ridiculous, so at least I’m consistent.”
Another step and he goes down again, one knee hitting the ice with a solid thunk that makes me wince. Both palms slap down to catch himself.
“Graceful,” I say, not hiding my smile at all.
Pierce only manages to make it to his knees. He throws his hands up like he’s just done with it all. I’ve never seen him give up before.
“Alright. Fine. Proper grovel position. You brought me to my knees, begging.” He puts his palms on his thighs and gets serious. “I’m sorry.”
“For which part?” I push off with my toe and skate backward a few feet.
Pierce runs a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in messy spikes.
“I didn’t know. I swear. About the scent match thing until last night.
My nose was still fucked up,” he says, pointing to his face.
“Swollen. I couldn’t smell for shit. I didn’t realize…
” He stops, shakes his head. “I didn’t know about Ash.
Not until Alexei said something about scent matches, and then it was like—fuck, Beckett, it was like getting hit by a truck. ”
I keep skating, steady circles around where he kneels. “And that makes it okay to start a brawl in Alexei’s box and do the caveman alpha thing? To scare her half to death?”
“No,” he says immediately. “No, it doesn’t. I fucked up, yes. But that’s not how it went down. Not really. I think she was flipping out because there were too many alphas, and I needed to make it better, and…” He throws his head back and stares up at the lights and rigging in the ceiling.
“You always lose it,” I say, the words coming out harder than I intend. “That’s your whole thing, Pierce. You burn hot, you blow up.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I’ll work on that.” He almost sounds defeated, but I believe him. “I was out of line and I’m sorry.”
I skate another circle, slower this time. “I overreacted too,” I admit. “In the security office. I shouldn’t have swung first.”
“I deserved it.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “Still shouldn’t have done it.”
Pierce shifts on the ice, wincing as his knees probably start to go numb from the cold. He doesn’t complain, though.
“So that’s it?” I ask, coming to a stop directly in front of him. “You fucked up your nose, didn’t realize she might be your scent match, lost your shit. That’s the whole story?”
He’s quiet for so long I’m sure when he lifts his head, he’ll blow everything else off.
“Someone’s blackmailing us,” he says. “Me and Liam.”
I stare at him, the words not making sense at first. “What?”
“That fight you walked in on a few weeks back. Just before you started seeing Ash. It wasn’t about the money.” Pierce takes a deep breath, his exhale visible in the cold air. “We got a letter. A bunch of them, actually. Threatening to go public with some stuff from Florida. From before.”
My stomach drops. “What stuff, Pierce?”
He meets my eyes, and the raw pain there makes me take a step back. “About Reed. About what happened to him.”
I think my heart literally stops for a second.
“I killed him,” he says, his voice flat and dead.
“What the fuck are you talking about? He died in a car accident.”
“We’d been drinking. Me, Liam, Reed. I was in my black-out drunk era.
Partying way too hard. We went back to his place, and his father was there.
” Pierce’s words come faster now, tumbling over each other.
“We got into it. It was about money, I think.
He always wanted money. He said I stole something, and… “
“And what?”
“Reed lost it. Someone took a swing. I jumped in. It’s all… fuck, it’s all blurry after that. I was drunk, and everything happened so fast.” His voice cracks. “Next thing I remember clearly is Reed on the floor, his dad shouting “you killed him”, and I ran.”
“You don’t remember what happened?” I ask, trying to make sense of it.
“There was blood everywhere. I was holding the knife,” he admits, shoulders slumping.
“Everywhere. All over me.” He holds out his hands like he can still see it.
“He’s dead and his blood is all over me.
And I just left him there on the floor, his little sister screaming over his body. I left her too.”
I try to picture it. I try to picture a reality where Pierce could ever hurt Reed.
We had a group chat where we would banter. It was mostly flirting and talking hockey. But then Pierce would text me privately. We got into this routine of texting just before I crashed out after games. He was working in bars, he’d usually be drunk.
He talked mostly about Liam and Reed, saying shit that I don’t think he could when he was sober. I thought at first he was trying to make me jealous. But that wasn’t it at all. He was trying to get me to see them like he does, so I would fall in love with them like he was.
It worked.
Which is why I also know there is no universe in which Pierce kills Reed.
None.
A very strange flavor of anger rises in my throat. I turn and skate toward the exit.
“Where are you going?” Pierce calls after me, voice tinged with panic. He tries to stand but slips again.
I skate back for him and haul him up by the arm, half-dragging him off the ice.
“I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Off the ice, I push him before me to the locker rooms. The rubber mats are too bouncy under my blades and it slows me up. I go right to my cubby and tear at the laces on skates and let them drop.
“Beckett,” he says, hovering in the doorway. “Did you hear what I said? I killed Reed.”
“No.” I yank off my jersey and rip off my shoulder pads. “You didn’t.”
“What?”
I meet his eyes, holding his gaze steady. “You were in a fight, you were drunk, things got messy. But you didn’t kill him, Pierce.”
“Dude, I was fucking there. I killed Reed.” His voice is small, desperate.
“You were there. And Reed died. You are not a killer.” I struggle with my base layer. The long sleeve shirt is glued to my thighs with sweat. “Fuck it.” I abandon trying to get it off and yank my jeans out instead and just pull them on over the base layer.
“What are you doing?” Pierce looks at me like I’m the one who’s lost it.
“Getting changed. We’re going home. We’re going to find Liam, and the three of us are going to figure this shit out. Together. Like we should have from the beginning.”
“Just like that?” Pierce asks, incredulous. “I tell you I might have killed someone, and you’re just… fine with it?”
“I’m not fine with any of it.” I pull a T-shirt from my bag. “Not with you lying to me for all these years. But most certainly I’m not fine with you lying to yourself about this either.”
“But I killed…”
I grab Pierce by the shirt and pull him up close to me.
“I swear to fucking god, Pierce, if you say you killed Reed one more time, I will slap you upside the head.”
“Kinky.” The corner of his mouth ticks up just slightly, like he doesn’t know if he is allowed to be so bold with me.
“I’m pissed off. Don’t be cute and make me kiss you.”
I kick my discarded gear into my locker and slam it closed. Grabbing my bag, I head for the exit.
Pierce has to jog to catch up.