Chapter 5
FIVE
DYLAN
MORNING AFTERS ARE hell. They’re even worse when I haven’t drunk at all and the backs of my eyes still pulse with a headache.
Why am I being punished? I’ve given too many people the best night of their life to be treated like this.
I lift my head to see the morning sun stamp a window-shaped shadow on my closet doors.
My memories of last night are scattered, but one hits me hard.
Maybe it was her piercing green eyes, the red lips, or the tiny skirt that showed off the kind of thighs I’d happily let her suffocate me with, but the girl wasn’t what I expected.
You spill a drink on someone at a party and you get a fuck you and a middle finger.
Not an irritated figure skater who takes your IOU without even giving you her name.
I check the time on my phone. It’s still earlier than I’d ever willingly wake up, but the warmth emanating from the other side of my bed kills the lingering haze.
What the fuck?
I rake my spotty memory for someone I might’ve brought home last night.
Is it her? A fire flares in my stomach, but it dies quickly, because I remember after I found my car blocked in the driveway, I walked home.
The rest of my lame night was spent watching anything other than hockey, and when I ordered a pizza, I vaguely remember asking the delivery guy if he wanted to watch a movie with me. He did.
Damn it, is it the pizza delivery guy?
My heart stills as I turn toward the body curled under the comforter. I cautiously lift one side, but when I catch sight of the idiot dead asleep beside me, I blow out a breath of relief.
“Why are you in my bed?” I rip the comforter off Kian, who’s still covered in paint. When he doesn’t stir, I push him hard enough that he rolls off the mattress to the floor with a heavy thud and a high-pitched scream.
He blinks at me from his place on the floor with disbelief, sprawling flat in defeat. At least he’s got boxers on, even if they are his Ken-themed ones.
“Good morning to you too,” Kian mutters. “Do you treat all your guests like this?”
“My guests are usually hotter than you and wake me up with a thank-you for the night before.”
He slaps a hand over his chest to feign offense. “I won’t whore myself out just because I needed a place to sleep last night.”
“Keep your whoring to yourself, Ishida,” I say. “What’s wrong with your room anyway?”
I imagine he’d have had to find someone having sex in there or something equally off-putting to deem my room an alternate safe space.
We still have two free rooms in the house that belong to Aiden and Eli, but we haven’t bothered to give them to anyone else since the guys say they’ll visit. Or we’d like to believe they will.
I sit up against the headboard just as Kian sighs dramatically. “It was too far.”
He catches the pillow I throw at him and hugs it to his chest. He’s lucky I don’t have the energy for anything worse.
It’s hours later, and I’m tossing out the empty pizza box I left in the living room last night as Kian stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“What’s to eat?” he asks.
I hold up a bag of moldy bread, and Kian grimaces before grabbing a box of cereal. He cranks up the small antique radio he picked up at a garage sale last week, then sits on the counter, bowl in hand, watching me clean. Then my phone lights up.
Vik: Heads up. Results went out an hour ago.
Oh shit. Now, that’s one memory that hits me hard.
The goddamn test. I thought I’d have more time.
The clatter of my phone slipping from my hands and falling to the floor doesn’t register past the sharp ringing in my ears.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I pace the kitchen and pick my phone back up.
I haven’t received a text or email from Kilner yet, and that terrifies me.
“What’s wrong?” Kian asks through a mouthful of cereal.
I could say it was an edible mix-up, and I ate one by accident. That’s believable.
“D, what’s going on? What happened?”
Or maybe claim it was a rare result of secondhand smoking.
“Dylan.”
“What?” I snap.
Kian’s head rears back at my reaction. This whole thing is one massive fuckup, and it’s completely my fault.
“My drug test came back positive for THC,” I tell him.
Kian jumps off the counter, his mouth agape. With one sentence, I’ve made two deeply regrettable mistakes. One, letting my personal shit out in the open, and two, telling Kian about a problem he can’t fix for me. His savior complex is probably kicking in right now.
“That can’t be right. We’ll ask for a redo,” he says simply.
I thought I’d been smart, at least with timing when I would let loose at a party, but with everything going on last semester and this summer, I miscalculated.
It didn’t occur to me that our preseason testing would be so soon after.
There was so much going on the week we tested that I hadn’t thought twice before taking the test. The only thing on my mind was my parents’ phone call and their goddamn vow renewal.
“You’ll be kicked off the team,” he hisses. “We have to get a retest. It’s wrong.”
“It’s not.”
The silence stretches unbearably, and I can’t bring myself to look at his face.
“But you would never do that.” His voice wavers, shaky with emotion, and his words almost shatter my facade.
But what could I even tell him? That I’ve been dealing with my parents’ shit for so long that this was the phone call that sent me over the edge?
That I was so desperate for an escape, I didn’t think twice before letting a few puffs cost me my career?
My phone rings in my hand, and our eyes meet, fear flashing between us. Then I see the caller ID. Coach Kilner.
I swallow. This is it. “Hello.”
“Rink. Now,” he says, and the line goes dead. Just like any hope I had.
“I’M HOPING THAT’S your good news glare,” I say when I join Coach Kilner on the bleachers.
“Sometimes, I think I chose the wrong career,” Kilner says, staring out at the empty rink. “Should’ve been a preschool teacher. At least those kids would listen to me.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Coach glares at me. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Does it matter? You found out anyway.”
His hands curl into fists, and I realize he really does need the stress ball he’s always strangling. “I would have liked to hear about the drug test from you. With an explanation.”
I shrug, keeping my eyes on my hands.
“You can sit here and act like you don’t care, but I see right through you.” Kilner exhales heavily. “I won’t pull it out of you, Donovan. But we both know you’ve been out of control this year.”
“Trust me, Coach. The test slipped my mind. I always know what I’m doing.”
“Of course you fucking do. All you kids think you do,” he says.
“You’ll be suspended from the team, and the NCAA has been notified.
You’ll be put on a conditional hold by the NHL.
The director of athletics could ban you.
Dean Hutchins could take even more severe action, given how hard he’s been cracking down on parties.
You’ll be a free agent with zero league consideration once you graduate. What the hell were you thinking, boy?”
I have nothing to say to him.
“Do you know the seriousness of all this?” he presses. “All I wanted for you was to realize your potential. But you wasted it away at parties. Is this the legacy you want to leave behind?”
“I’ve left quite the legacy on Greek row,” I joke.
I mean, it’s the truth. No one shows up to a Dalton party without asking if I’m going to be there.
Hell, half the time, I am the party. But his words still sting way more than I’d ever let him see.
I can’t bring myself to apologize when everything I’ve done at Dalton was going to amount to this anyway. It was only a matter of time.
“Believe it or not, there are people who want you to succeed, Dylan.”
I scoff. “Right. Like my dad, who will be over the moon that I can’t play hockey and finally do something worthwhile like he’s always wanted.
The same guy who’s threatened to cut me off despite all the shit he’s put us through,” I say bitterly.
“This is the only thing I had, and I fucked it up just like he said I would. That’s all I’ll ever be good for—fucking up a good thing. ”
Kilner puts a hand on my shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be that way. You can forge your own path, as long as you do it with a little self-respect.”
I drop my face in my hands. “Did you read that off a motivational bumper sticker today?” I mutter.
“Read it in some ‘be a better coach’ garbage. Did it work?”
I finally look at him. “Coach, the sports director won’t like me when my file drops onto his desk. You know my record on the ice, it’s not exactly that of a saint. As much as everyone wants me to stop partying, it’s the only thing making life bearable.”
“Because you haven’t tried anything else.” He sighs. “I’ll speak to the dean.”
My head rears. I don’t get why he still wants to help me.
“But.” He stands to descend the bleachers. “You have to clean up your act. Join a debate club or a knitting club for all I care. Just something to show them that this isn’t all you are.”
What if it is.
When he’s gone, I’m left staring at the empty ice. My phone buzzes in my pocket, like it has the entire time I’ve been here. Thirty notifications light up my screen, all about the same topic I’ve been trying to avoid.
Aiden: What the fuck am I hearing about you failing your drug test? Call me.
Sampson: Fucking hell, you got caught? We can’t afford to lose our best left winger, man.
Kian: I might’ve let it slip that you failed your drug test. I DIDN’T MEAN TO.
I stop reading after that because none of them are getting an answer. Except for Kian, whose ass I’m going to kick for blabbing to everyone about this. I’m about to go do just that when music fills the arena and the sound of blades hitting the ice steals my attention.