Chapter 3
LIVELY
God, she's so fucking beautiful when she glares at me like that.
How I was able to keep my expression fucking relaxed like this was completely beyond me because, on the inside, I was totally freaking the hell out: pounding heart, beating pulse, butterflies in my stomach, the whole damn works.
Hailey Baleman has always been able to cut me off at the knees with one look. It was the stuff of my fantasies to be able to get down on my knees for real in front of her, show her exactly what she did to me just by... breathing . Shit.
"That's not very nice now, is it, Hailstorm?" I drawled and leaned down closer, even though I could literally feel my pulse pounding at the base of my throat. "We're going to be partners, after all. We should make nice."
Hailey's glare only seemed to intensify, but she didn't pull back in disgust like she'd always done. No, she lifted her face to mine, red blooming across her high cheekbones with a passionate anger that stole my breath.
Literally.
Oh shit, she's so close . And damn it, yes, I was totally panicking in my head.
I was not prepared for how close me leaning towards her would make us.
Shit, this wasn't how this usually went.
Cue example 1: I leaned towards her, and she pulled back with that sexy-as-hell sneer on her face. That was how this usually went.
But that was obviously not the case today. I could literally feel her breath fanning out against my jaw, and her eyes... God, those frosty brown eyes of hers were so close I felt like I was drowning in their icy depths—I couldn't pull my eyes away.
One look at Hailey Baleman, and I became a fucking poet, because, damn.
"Make nice ?" She hissed back at me, jaw sticking out in that stubborn jut that made me want to grab it and kiss the vitriol right off her lips.
But I was pretty sure she'd bite my lip off if I tried that. Not that I minded her using her teeth on me. The thought slammed into me so hard I had to lock my knees to keep from swaying forward, from closing the last inch between us and finding out what she’d do if I really pushed her.
If I kissed her—if I grabbed that stubborn little jaw and made her shut up the best way I knew how.
God, she doesn’t know what she does to me . Really didn’t know how… gone I was for her. Didn’t know that every time she glared at me like she wanted to wrap her hands around my throat, it took everything in me not to beg her to just do it—
Ugh, I needed to get. It. Together .
"That’s the plan, sweetheart," I murmured, my voice coming out a little rougher than I meant it to. "Come on, Hailstorm. Don't tell me you’re scared of a little team bonding?" She stilled, her expression cooling even as that fire flashed in her beautiful eyes.
I swallowed hard, pulse hammering.
She wanted to kill me. I knew she did—I could see it in those gorgeous, pissy eyes of hers.
But even though it was a complete panic room up in my head, my grin widened. "What’s the matter, Hailstorm? Cat got your tongue?"
Her nostrils flared. " You got about two seconds to back the hell up before I make you regret it, fuckface ."
I bit back a groan because, God, her voice when she was pissed was so… sinful . Especially when she called me that: Fuckface . It was all sharp and deadly and so damn hot I could barely stand it.
"Regret it?" I echoed, tilting my head, dropping my voice into that low, teasing lilt I knew drove her crazy. "See, that’s where you and I differ. 'Cause I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy whatever punishment you’ve got in mind."
Her entire body went rigid. Oh shit. That was definitely too much .
For a single terrifying second, I wondered if I'd pushed her too far this time.
This was what we always did; I pushed, and she pushed back even harder, but there were times when she drew a line.
And the look on her face right now? It definitely looked as though she was seriously considering drawing that line right now.
But I also knew, deep down, that if she shut down on me now, I wasn't going to act all civilized or back off like a gentleman.
But then, she let out a sharp breath, her jaw tightening so much that I could almost hear her teeth grinding.
“You’re such a pain in the neck, and I swear I’m going to break your face one of these days,” she grumbled, as she shoved past me, shoulder-checking me so hard I stumbled back a step.
And maybe I should have felt a bit insulted by that, but all that did was slam my heart against my ribs so hard, there was a strong possibility that I'd drop dead in the next two seconds.
Not that I would mind dying just like this, after having my goddess brush her body up against mine like this—
Sicko. She literally bumped into you. On purpose .
It didn’t matter. Same fucking difference.
"Yeah, I missed you, too." I called after her, and she flipped me the bird over her shoulder without even turning her head to spare me another glance.
I couldn't help but stand and watch her storm off, her sharp ponytail swishing behind her, her whole body thrumming with barely restrained irritation. She was pissed. Really pissed. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me want to push her just a little further, just to see how far I could go before she finally snapped.
But that wasn’t the real reason my heart was hammering against my ribs.
No, the reason was pretty simple, really: I just couldn't settle down at the thought of sharing the ice with the women’s team this month—because it meant I’d be sharing space with her .
Finally .
After over two years of the barely contained, self-inflicted torture of watching her from across the rink, of seeing her throw herself into every game, every drill, every single moment with that same icy control, I was going to be close enough to touch.
Not that she’d let me. Yet . Because I was nothing if not one-track-minded where it mattered. And she mattered plenty. Dare I say she was the only thing that mattered the most right now—
"Summers." My ears perked up at Gina Whitehall's edged tone.
Oh, this was gonna be good.
I turned, and—yep. There it was. That look.
She stood there, arms crossed, hip cocked with her head tilted at that unimpressed angle that said she didn't think I measured up to the hype surrounding me. The Blizzard Belles' Vice Captain Gina Whitehall was a 5’9” tank of muscled menace on the ice—a right wing with a shot so lethal she gave all the puck hounds wet dreams. But where Hailey's was an aloof, ice cold fire, Gina was a wall that many lost their teeth against.
Her dark eyes swept over me now, filled with a mix of distrust and mild irritation I couldn't even be offended by, like she was debating whether I was worth the breath it would take to tell me off. I didn’t take it personally—Gina looked at most people like that.
Looked like it was a Blizzard Belles thing.
Their Captain already had that look down to an art form, after all.
And now as we faced each other, I knew, without a doubt, that she was about to tell me exactly what she thought of me in the bluntest, least-friendly way possible.
"To what do I owe the pleasure, VC?" I drawled, all easy charm, even as I braced for impact.
"Just a small warning, Captain Asshole," she began, her tone deceptively calm, "I'm not going to watch you mess with our Captain this year either. Consider this your only warning. You mess with her, you mess with all of us ."
I tilted my head, watching her with genuine amusement now. "Damn. Protective, aren’t we?"
"Damn right, I am," she shot back, not missing a beat. "Hailey’s got enough to deal with without you and your stupid team making things worse. We're not going to tolerate your bullshit this year."
I just stared at her, something in my chest tightening at the way she said that.
"Hailey’s got enough to deal with..."
That little fact lodged itself into my brain like a blade.
Not that I hadn’t already known—Hailey’s never been the type to coast. She played like she had something to prove, like there was a weight on her shoulders only she could see.
I didn’t know the full story, but I knew enough to recognize that whatever it was, it was a hell of a lot heavier than she let on.
And, yeah. Maybe knowing that meant that I should back off. Maybe I should take Gina’s warning to heart and put some distance between me and the girl who’s been driving me insane since the first moment I laid eyes on her.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t going to . Because I’ve waited so long for this—waited for my shot to get close to her. And now that I had it, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was letting it go.
So, I let my lips curve into a bright, innocent smile. "Appreciate the warning, Gina. Really," I said smoothly, "but I don’t plan on messing with Hailey."
Gina gave me a skeptical look, but I just grinned wider.
Messing with her? Nah. I’m gonna win her over . I didn't say that part out loud, though. There was no sense in giving away the game plan to a woman who was obviously praying on my downfall.
Her expression darkened. "You seriously don’t know when to quit, do you?"
"Not even a little bit," I admitted cheerfully.
Gina exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "Christ! Just… keep your guys in check, asshole. Got it?"
I gave her a mock salute. "Aye aye, VC."
She muttered something under her breath—probably something deeply unflattering about me—and turned to go, but I called after her before she could get too far.
"Hey, Gina."
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets, watching her carefully. "You’re a good friend."
This time, she did turn. And the look she gave me was one of sheer disgust. "Shit, Summers, I never want to hear that crap from you."
"Aww, I know you like me too." I chuckled at her, and she scoffed before turning back around and stomping off in the direction where Hailey was currently standing, surrounded by her team, looking completely deadly.
Even standing so far away, just the mere fact that she was watching me made all the hairs on my body stand on end, the feel of her eyes sending shockwaves up and down my spine.
God, I wanted her so fucking bad .
"You lunatic." This time, it was a friendly quip that came a split second before a heavy hand clapped on my shoulder. "You really know how to make an entrance, huh?"
Dylan Langley, my best friend, Vice Captain, and one of the team's forwards, was shaking his head at me. The other guys were slowly approaching, and I knew they'd sent him ahead of them to get the scoop out of me.
I turned toward him, schooling my expression into something easy, casual, like I wasn’t internally screaming about the fact that I’d just been nose-to-nose with Hailey Baleman.
She smells so damn good, too. "Yeah, well," I shrugged, "Didn't want you guys getting bored without me."
Dylan snorted, shaking his head. " Bored ? Dude, you walked into a fucking minefield. And then proceeded to blow it up. The girls hate us."
I glanced over at Hailey’s team, still huddled together, their arms crossed tight, their expressions varying degrees of hostility. He wasn’t wrong. The Blizzard Belles looked like they were ready to light us all up, with Hailey leading the charge.
I smiled, nonetheless, putting up my easygoing facade. "Hate’s a strong word." I said and Dylan arched a brow.
"You do remember what happened last year, right? Or are you so used to skating by on charm that you think they'll magically forgive us?"
My jaw ticked at that and I almost lost my grin.
Like I could forget that absolute mess of a situation.
It still pissed me off to think about it; the fact that some bastards had disobeyed both my and Coach's curfew order and had instead gone on a goddamn drinking binge across campus until they'd ended up at the rink we'd shared with the Blizzard Belles up until last year.
Those bastards had gotten so shit-faced they actually thought it was a good idea to test the rink’s durability—with their own goddamn bodies.
Slamming themselves into the boards, seeing how hard they had to hit before leaving a dent.
They hadn't stopped; not even when one of them—Chris McAllister—cracked the outer panel clean off and sent it crashing onto the ice.
No, the only thing that had finally sobered them up was when campus security had arrived to find a handful of wasted, overgrown morons lying flat on their backs, groaning like wounded soldiers in a war they started.
But the damage had already been done. And the Blizzard Belles had paid for it.
The ice was wrecked beyond repair the night before their first game of the season, and since Northgate University refused to reschedule, their chance at playing in the National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Championship had been stolen from them before they ever even stepped onto the ice.
A whole national debut—gone. Just like that.
Because of us. Because of me .
I hadn’t been able to look Hailey in the eye for weeks after that. I knew just how much that game had meant to them…to her .
I ran a hand over my jaw now, exhaling sharply as the memory burned fresh.
Yeah, those bastards were long gone—booted off the team so fast they probably didn’t even get a chance to sober up first. Coach hadn’t tolerated even a fraction of their bullshit, and neither had I.
The second I’d found out what happened, I made sure they knew there wasn’t a place for them in my locker room.
But it didn’t matter.
Because at the end of the day, I was still the captain when it happened. I was still the one who had to look across the rink at Hailey and her team and see the sheer devastation on their faces when they got the news.
I didn’t need to be told whose fault they thought it was, and honestly? They weren’t wrong.
I clenched my jaw, rolling my shoulders back, forcing myself to shove the guilt down deep where it belonged. No point dragging it up now. But Dylan was still looking at me like he knew exactly what the hell was running through my head. He wasn't my best friend for nothing.
I forced my lips into a smirk, my usual lazy confidence slotting into place like a well-worn mask. "Guess I’ll just have to charm my way back into their good graces then, huh?"
Dylan let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Oh yeah? How’s that working out for you so far?"
Not so great, but I was just getting started. I flicked my gaze back toward Hailey.
She was still standing with her team, arms crossed, eyes burning, looking like she wanted to carve me up and use my bones for goalposts.
Fucking hot .