Chapter 7 #2
I liked Hailey Baleman. More than liked, in fact. And yeah, maybe I lost my cool around her more often than I cared to admit, but at the end of the day? I was not the kind of guy who threw a game.Not for anyone.
Not for her. Not even for myself.
The shift in me was immediate. Playful, easygoing Lively? He was gonein a heartbeat.
I sat up slowly, my spine straightening, my expression smoothing out into something unreadable. Dylan—and the other guys too—saw it and the amusement in their eyes flickered into something wary.
“Hey, you bastards, what the hell do you guys take me for?” My voice was calm. Too calm. And the atmosphere in the room dropped as the guys shifted under the serious weight of my stare. Yeah, now we were getting pretty fucking serious.
Dylan exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck. "Hey, Cap, I was just asking."
Logan and Mason were nodding in agreement. “Yeah, Cap, we were just horsing around—”
“No.” I cut them off. “You guys were doubting me just now.” I let the words settle, let the weight of them press down. “And I get it. I do. I know how I sound when it comes to Hailey. I know how I act. But don’t ever— ever —think for a second that I’d throw a game. Not for her. Not for anyone.”
I looked each and every one of them in the eye as I said it, made sure they could see the conviction and slight disappointment in my eyes. Because I'd expected them to know that much about me by now.
Hockey was the one thing in my life that made sense.
The one thing I could control. It didn’t matter how much money my family had, or what people thought of me, or how many times my parents forgot I even existed.
The ice didn’t give a shitabout any of that.
The rink didn’t care about last names or bank accounts.
Its math was simple: either you put in the work, or you got left behind. Simple as that.
And I wasn’t getting left behind. Not now. Not ever .
I had goals—my game plan for the bigger fish; the NHL, and a career that proved I was more than just a rich kid coasting on privilege and charm.
But first, I had to make sure we remained reigning champions for the third year in a row; keep the legacy of our predecessors alive.
I wanted my team to look at me and know—without a doubt—that I was someone worth following.
And as the goddamn team Captain, I wasn't going to mess around with and give up the practice slots because I had the hots for the other team's Captain, putting my team in fucking jeopardy.
And I knew I would be doing Hailey a disservice if I voluntarily half-assed it. It was pretty reasonable; if I was ever gonna be worthy of her—if I was ever gonna really earn her respect—then she deserved everything I had.
Not some half-assed performance, orsome fake, scripted loss. I was going to put in every damn thing .
Dylan held my gaze for a long moment, the moment, his lips pressing together, and then he sighed. “Yeah. I know.” He shook his head, a humorless chuckle escaping. “You just scare the shit out of me when you go full ‘Captain Summers’ mode.”
The tension in the room slowly started to dissipate as the other guys joined in the laughter.
"No shit," Logan chuckled, rubbing his hand up and down his face. "Always freaks me out when he gets all damn serious like that."
"I know, right?" Mason piped up as well.
"Shut it, you traitors. You think I'm going to let y'all off the hook just like that?" I narrowed my eyes at them, and they winced. "Only Randy bet on me out of all of you. You think I'm gonna forget that?"
Evan coughed from across the room, perched on the arm of a dining chair. "Shit, lucky you, Randy."
Randy, unfazed as ever, scratched at his chin. “It’s not about faith. It’s about numbers.”
Logan cocked his head. “The hell does that mean?”
Randy exhaled, like he was about to explain something to a group of particularly dumb children. “See, all you idiots bet on Baleman, which means the payout for her winning is shit. But if Lively somehow pulls this off, I clean up.”
Logan burst into laughter. “So, it wasn't faith. It’s just math.”
Randy nodded. “Exactly.”
I stared at him. “That is both the most disrespectful and most supportive thing I’ve ever heard.” How the helldid he manage to pull that off?
Randy tipped an imaginary hat. “You’re welcome.”
Ha, these guys were just fucking unbelievable.
"See?" Evan piped up again, no doubt bolstered by Randy's betrayal. "You just gotta cut us some slack, man. We, uh, we believed in you from the beginning, too."
This asshole.
Dylan cleared his throat. "The stakes are still the same either way, Cap. Either you win and prove us all wrong—or you get your ass handed to you by Baleman."
I narrowed my eyes at my Vice. "Yeah, and you're expecting me to get my ass handed to me."
"No hard feelings, man." The guys chuckled.
At least, now that I'd cleared the air, the tension that'd been thrumming in the atmosphere had eased, and everyone looked visibly relaxed.
I was going to play the match against Hailey and I was going to give it my all. If she beat me, it was going to be because she'd earned it…because she was better .
And shit, maybe she was. I wasn’t a shameless Hailey Baleman fanboy for nothing, after all. I always watched her games…I even had contraband practice videos of her that helped me fucking sleep at night.
I could still see her: Hailey on the ice, moving with that sharp, predatory grace, the kind that made defenders hesitate just a second too long, the kind that made goalies bite down on their mouth guards andfucking pray . She was so goddamn electric.
Like usual, just the thought of her sent a bolt of something dangerously close to exhilaration through me.
Not just because of Hailey, but because of what it meant.
Because this was what I lived for. The competition, the challenge, the rush of pushing myself to my limits and then finding a way to go beyond them.
“Dude.” Dylan’s voice cut in again, and I looked up.
He was staring at me like I’d grown a second head. The way the room had gone silent was proof that all of them were watching me, and they all had varying degrees of shit-eating expressions on their faces.
“What?”
“You’re blushing.”
I scowled immediately, the heat rising even more in my face. “Pissoff.”
“No, seriously, man.” He smirked. “Like, actual pink-in-the-face, heart-eyes-level blushing.”
This bastard. He always took pleasure in teasing me about my feelings for Hailey like he enjoyed getting a rise out of me when I least expected it. Like he expected me to duck my head in embarrassment.
Unfortunately for him, I was a shameless bastard where Hailey Baleman was concerned.
“What about it? You jealous?” I leaned back against the bean bag now, my face cracking into a shit-eating grin.
Dylan's amused expression immediately shuttered. "What the hell are you—?"
But I wasn't yet done. "Are you sad that I'm giving so much attention to Hailey and neglecting you?
You really shouldn't worry so much, you know," I said, laughter dancing like fairy lights in my chest as I watched my Vice Captain's expression grow even darker with each passing word, not to mention the raucous laughter of the boys around us.
"You'll always be the number one mistress—"
"I'm going to fucking kill you, you damn pervert." Dylan shook his fist at me,and I couldn't help but laugh at him.
Despite our nearly 3 years of friendship, it was always so damn easy to get under his skin with just a few, carefully calculated words.
Evan cocked his head at me then, his next words opening up a whole new piece of gossip for them to snack on. “You really okay with all this, Cap? This whole pairing up shit?"