Chapter 23 - Cass
Cass
The wrench slipped again, smacking my knuckles and drawing out a hiss of pain.
I shook my hand and gritted my teeth against it.
The busted faucet in the visitor’s locker room had been leaking for weeks and now, predictably, it was my problem.
Like everything else around here that nobody wanted to deal with.
I jammed the wrench back into place, twisting until my arm ached.
“Come on. Just give me one win today.”
A final groan of metal and the leak stopped. I sat back on my heels, legs sore from crouching, and wiped my forehead with the bottom of my t-shirt. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I scrambled for it, already half-expecting to see Mason’s name.
He was probably following up on his last text that I’d been ignoring.
But it wasn’t him.
The notification was for an email from school, and the subject line made my stomach drop.
Attendance Concern - W. McAvoy copied
No. No, no, no.
I opened it, hoping it wasn’t what I thought. But it totally was. My professor was checking in because I’d missed my last three classes with her. She wanted to know if I was okay, and as per protocol, she’d cc’d my dad. It ended with a perfunctory Let us know how we can best support you.
My chest tightened, the air squeezed right out of me. Three classes. Three. I hadn’t realized it had gotten that bad. I’d promised him. Sworn up and down that school would come first. It was the only thing he asked of me.
I was still staring at the screen when my phone rang.
Dad.
Instead of answering, I froze, the knot of guilt twisting in my gut. I stared at my phone like the spineless coward I was, until his name stopped lighting it up and the screen went dark.
A second later, it rang again. He wasn’t going to let this go.
“Hi, Dad.” I was barely holding it together, my voice brittle with panic.
All this did was give him more ammunition in the face of me seeing Mason. If he knew about that, which I strongly suspected was the case.
“My office,” he said, and hung up before I could say anything else.
I cursed under my breath and grabbed my tool bag, shoving everything inside without much care. The zipper caught on the edge of the canvas and I tugged a little too hard. The whole thing snapped off, almost spilling all the contents on the floor. I didn’t care.
The walk down the hallway was longer than it needed to be. I had too much time to think of several worst case scenarios for this meeting. My footsteps echoed, and I suddenly hated how empty the place was. The only person I passed was Hunter, just showered, gym bag slung over his shoulder.
He slowed when he saw me.
“If you’re going back there… don’t,” he warned.
“Is Coach in?” I asked, trying too hard to sound like it didn’t matter either way.
Hunter gave me a look that said he knew exactly what kind of storm I was walking into.
“Yeah, but like I said, don’t go there. The mood he’s in, he’ll probably make you do suicide laps ‘til you puke.”
I gave a weak laugh and kept walking. My dad’s office door was closed, which made it worse. My hand hovered for a second, then I knocked.
“Come in,” came the clipped response.
I opened the door, ready to magically weave my way out of the email aftermath. But I stopped short the second my foot crossed the threshold.
Mason was there.
He stood in the corner, hands in his pockets. The world’s tension pulled stiff in his shoulders, and he would’ve seen the same in mine if he actually raised his eyes from the floor.
A new bolt of nerves shot through me.
I needed a cover, and fast.
Dad stood behind his desk, and didn’t look my way. His forehead vein protruded, in case I had any doubts about how upset he was right now.
“This is what happens,” he was saying to Mason, “when you let one player get away with too much. The whole damn culture goes soft.”
I stepped in and closed the door quietly.
“It’s a privilege to play at this level,” my dad said. “I don’t need entitlement in my team. Everybody’s questioning my leadership, and the more you screw up, the harder my job becomes.”
Mason stared straight ahead at a point on the wall behind my dad. He looked like a kid who’d been sent to the principal’s office.
I didn’t know if I was supposed to speak or wait, so I stood there awkwardly, still holding my tool bag. Every inch of my skin burned. He hadn’t brought me here to yell about school. This was about way more than a few missed classes.
Dad finally looked at me.
“I’m disappointed in you, Cass,” he said, calm and direct. “You lied to me.”
I would’ve fared better if he were angry and yelling. Disappointment always cut deeper.
“Are you seriously going to believe stupid rumors over your own daughter?”
“I saw you two. In the garage bay.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Last night,” he said, glancing at Mason before turning back to me. “He just admitted it, so there’s no use lying about it, Cass.”
My stomach dropped. Mason’s posture stiffened, but he still didn’t look at me. I stared at him anyway, that moment of flickering movement we’d thought we’d imagined now crashing into certainty. We had been seen. And worse… by the one person who was never supposed to find out about us.
“I didn’t lie,” I said quickly, stepping forward without thinking. “I just… didn’t tell you everything. That’s not the same.”
“Is that so? Because all I can see from where I’m sitting, is how exactly the same it is,” he said.
“I was going to tell you,” I found my voice again, louder and firmer. “But you didn’t exactly make it easy.”
“I was waiting to see if you’d own up,” he said simply. “To see if you respected me enough to come clean.”
“I didn’t want to keep this from you.” I dropped my tool bag on the floor and sat down. “You have to believe me, Dad. I just… knew how you’d react.”
He scowled at me. “And you think that made it okay?”
“No.” My voice cracked. “I thought I’d get the chance to explain before you made up your mind about us.”
“It’s ‘us’ now, is it?”
Agitation ruffled the last remnants of calm inside of me. “What do you have against him? Mason’s one of the good ones.”
“This isn’t about whether he’s a good guy or a good player,” my dad replied. “It’s about the kind of daughter I raised.”
This gutted me. When I looked over, Mason was staring right at me. So much passed in that brief moment of open honesty.
“I’m still the same daughter.”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw, thinking hard. Something much heavier than frustration darkened his expression. I’d hurt this man, and it fucking sucked.
“We used to trust each other, Cass,” he said.
“You can still trust me. I trust you.”
His eyes flicked to Mason and back again. “Then why’d you keep it a secret? Why didn’t you trust me with it?”
“Because—” The pent up panic and anxiety I’d been carrying spilled out of me, and I raised my voice without meaning to. “I knew you’d judge me before you gave him a chance. I knew you’d make it out to be this horrible thing, when it’s actually the exact opposite.”
“Cass—”
“You didn’t even ask,” I interrupted, unable to stop the flow of words that trembled around the edges. “You just assumed the worst.”
“He’s changed you.”
“I’m twenty-one, Dad, not twelve,” I shot back. “I’m not some little girl getting influenced by the bad type. I make my own choices. Mason didn’t corrupt me, or whatever you decided happened. I chose this. I chose him.”
A silence settled over the room, broken only by the sound of the air conditioning whirring in back. Up until now, Mason still hadn’t said anything, and I didn’t blame him.
My dad stared at me for a long while, then asked, “Do you love him?”
“Sir—”
“It’s Coach,” my dad snapped at Mason. “And I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to my daughter.”
It was hard to breathe under the weight of his question. So jarringly simple and direct.
I glanced at Mason, but couldn’t hold eye contact for longer than a second. My heart was pounding too hard. Mouth dry. It felt as if any movement, any answer, would give me away.
Dad shook his head slowly. He looked ten years older and dog-tired. “This might be fun and games to you. Some exciting love affair. But it’s his livelihood you’re playing with.”
I bristled, but kept my cool. “It’s not a game to me.”
“That boy’s on the edge of a career-defining season,” he said, pointing to Mason. “One slip-up, one scandal or damaging headline, and it’s all over. Do you understand that? Do you want to be the reason he loses everything? Can you handle that kind of responsibility?”
It’s like he’d dunked me in an ice bath. Like he didn’t know me at all.
He raised me around hockey. It’s all I knew because of him. Of course I’d thought about it. Every single time I’d walked away from Mason it was more for his own good than mine. It was me not wanting to get in the way of his one shot. I thought about it all the time.
But hearing the way my dad said it… as if I was the danger, the weak link that would be Mason’s ultimate undoing. It made me feel small. Like there was no place for me in his world at all.
“It’s all I think about,” I said quietly. “I would never get in the way of Mason’s career. But at the same time, we’re adults who can make our own decisions. You need to let us.”
Dad sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then I’m going to need you to start acting like it. Because once this gets out there, I won’t be able to protect you. And he won’t be the only one under a magnifying glass. We just went through this last season with Grayson and Josie. It’s hard, Cass.”
I flinched, but didn’t respond.
He looked at me, softer now, his voice more final. “I just want you to be careful, Cass. Mason’s on his way up, and that means his hockey will always come first.”
I glared at him, my chest on fire. My voice shook when I spoke, but I said what I needed to say. “I know. That’s how it’s been my whole life with you. Always second. Or third. To your team. The game. Thanks to you, I’m well-versed in warming the bench while hockey takes center stage.”
I got up, without sparing a glance in Mason’s direction, and stormed out.