57. Dylan
DYLAN
The sky hangs low and gray over the campus, heavy with the promise of snow.
The cold cuts through my jeans and jacket like a blade, making me wish I’d worn something heavier.
I swear the weather changed overnight, emphasizing that we are on the cusp of winter.
I wrap my scarf tighter, my breath forming puffs of white in the frigid November air as Wren and I cut across the quad.
“Last night was hell,” Wren grumbles, her boots crunching over the brittle grass. “Some idiot puked outside the bar entrance, I got groped twice by drunk freshmen, and to top it off, a hockey player tried to tip me with a Stanley Cup keychain like it was fucking gold.”
I snort. “Ah, the dream of college life.”
“Shut up.” She nudges my shoulder with her own. “We can’t all live out our real-life fantasies of having a harem of hot hockey guys.”
“It’s not all unicorns and rainbows over here.
” I filled her in on everything that happened with Kyle after the game as soon as I was released from the hospital.
The guys had already given her the cliff notes since she’d inevitably heard about the hit I took on the ice, but we had a long phone call once I was released, where I told her everything.
Followed by a girls’ night once I was fit enough to return to campus. That was a week ago.
She links her arm through mine, squeezing as she gives me an understanding smile. “It hasn’t been, but it will be from here on out. For the rest of the year, all you’re going to have to worry about is hockey and sex.”
I choke on nothing. Leave it to Wren to make me smile after everything that’s happened.
“Pretty sure I have to worry about passing exams, too.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Small potatoes. Focus on the important stuff.”
“Hockey and sex?”
She flashes me a white, toothy grin. “Hockey and sex.”
We both laugh, the sound curling into the cold air between us.
It’s nice to walk campus like this again—without the guys hovering at my elbows.
They’re still protective, still close. One of them usually drops by between classes, we eat breakfast and lunch together on campus most days, and they text constantly.
But now it’s because they want to, not because they feel obligated to.
When I mentioned it to Jax, he rolled his eyes and told me no one was making them do anything. That they’d always wanted to spend time with me, and they wouldn’t have been so protective if they didn’t care—if they didn’t want to be around me.
Still, the distinction feels important to me.
I’m not just someone they are keeping safe. I’m someone they want . Someone they are choosing .
“Seriously, Dyl. You must have snagged the only halfway decent hockey players out there,” Wren continues.
“I thought you loved hockey players?” I arch a brow, glancing her way .
“No. I love hockey —the game. Hockey players? Not so much.”
“Is that why you don’t come to any Athletes Row street parties?” I tease, nudging her this time.
She throws her head back and laughs, but the sound is off. Not as carefree as normal. “Players be playin’ and I’m a dating girl,” she says, not meeting my questioning gaze. “Besides, my family being who they are makes it difficult.”
“Never really know they’re with you for you or because of who you are.”
“Exactly.”
I get it. My issue wasn’t hockey players specifically, but more fans of my dad.
I remember going on a date with one guy in high school who handed me his Timberwolves jersey at the end of it and asked if my dad could sign it.
Like, seriously? He could have just asked and saved us both some time.
The annoying thing was, I’d liked him. He’d been funny and easygoing, but after my dad had signed his jersey, I never heard from him again.
So, yeah. I get Wren’s reluctance to go anywhere near hockey players.
I lose track of our conversation when a shadow falls over us as someone steps into our path.
“Look who we have here.”
That voice is like ice water down my spine.
No. No, that’s not possible.
I freeze. My lungs stop working. My body stops moving. I feel like I’ve been locked in place, rooted to the spot, unable to breathe.
Kyle Reed—a very free, uncuffed Kyle Reed—stands in front of us, hands in his coat pockets, and a smug grin twisting his mouth .
Wren stiffens beside me, her arm tightening around mine like a band. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He doesn’t even glance her way. His eyes are locked on me, and there’s something in them that makes my stomach twist. A slow-burning fury. Glee. Madness. It makes my knees quake.
“You’re supposed to be in jail.” I hate how soft my voice is, how weak I sound.
Only one other man has ever made me feel this way. Made me feel so afraid. So helpless.
He laughs, the sound scraping along my skin like gravel, leaving little bloody nicks in its wake. “Cops know trumped-up, bullshit charges when they see them.”
Thankfully, that snaps through the helplessness, allowing a gap for my rage to surge forth. “Bullshit?” I snarl, vibrating now. “You tried to drown me!” The words burst out, jagged and raw.
The fucking psychopath gapes at me, his hand coming to his chest like he’s a Southern woman clutching her pearls. “Me? I tried to help you! I was trying to save you when Coach stormed in, reading the room entirely wrong.”
I shake my head. “No. No. You pushed me under. You held me down.”
My hands tremble, from fear, from fury…who knows.
His eyes flash with menace as he leans in, dropping his voice. “Prove it.”
Hands balled into fists, I go to step forward. Oh, how I want to punch the fucking smirk off his sick, twisted face. Wren’s arm, still linked through mine, yanks me back, though.
“You’re fucking insane,” she hisses at him.
For the first time, Kyle looks her way, giving Wren a slow and disturbing once-over, before flicking his focus back to me.
“You think you’ve won, huh? Got the guys, the sympathy, the team. But you haven’t. You’ll never beat me, Carter. You just delayed the inevitable. ”
I shake my head. This was never a game. Never about beating anyone.
My throat tightens, and I don’t know if he leans in or just the rest of the world falls away, but his gleaming, menacing face takes up my entire field of vision.
He sneers down at me, insanity gleaming in his pale eyes.
I always knew Kyle was a misogynistic prick who couldn’t stand to lose, but did I really drive him to this level of lunacy?
Or was it there all along, hidden beneath arrogance and getting his own way?
Dropping his voice, his breath is warm and sickly against my cheek, twisting my stomach violently. Oh God, I think I’m going to throw up.
“I’ll be seeing you around, Dylan.”
The world is spinning as he walks off, like he didn’t just upend my life…again.
Wren turns to me immediately, grabbing my arms. “Dylan. Are you okay? Talk to me.”
But I can’t speak.
I can’t breathe.
The cold that nipped at my skin a moment ago has sunk deeper, rooting in my bones.
He’s back.
And this time, he isn’t going to go down without taking me with him.
I’m curled on the couch in the living room, still in a haze.
Coach, Griffin, Ethan, Jax, and Finn are all here—because Wren called the guys the second Kyle walked away, and they called Coach in a demand for answers.
Coach’s office was too small to house four humongous hockey players with anger issues, so we’re packed into the living room instead.
Which, large as it is, is barely big enough to contain the fury vibrating through the floors and up the walls.
Griffin paces like a caged animal. Jax is beside me, his hand rubbing circles over my arm and shoulder. Finn and Ethan have been snapping questions at Bear since the second he showed up on the porch.
“I thought he was locked up,” Ethan growls. “How the hell did he get out?”
Bear’s jaw clenches, his head hanging low between his shoulders.
He looks at me with such ravished pain that it twists my heart.
“His lawyers are claiming he was trying to save Dylan,” he states, his words a near snarl.
His leg bounces with pent-up aggression.
“Said he found her drowning and that I misinterpreted the scene.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Finn snaps. “Why the hell would she be drowning in a shallow-ass tub she could stand up in?”
Bear throws his hands up.
“They’ll say she had a concussion,” Ethan answers grimly. “Or that she passed out. Seizure. We all saw the hit she took on the ice—they can claim any number of things to justify their version of the truth.”
A shiver crawls up my spine.
Lies . Their version of the truth is lies , but I know better than anyone that the truth means jack shit.
It’s not a matter of what you know, it’s what you can prove.
I’ve been in this situation before—with Lucas—except the stakes weren’t so high then.
My life wasn’t on the line—just my career, my future.
“What if she goes to the police?” Finn tries, running his hand through his messy red hair. It’s something he does when he’s frustrated. “She can tell them what happened. The truth .”
Coach looks pained as he shakes his head. “It won’t matter. It’s her word against his. There’s no evidence. No witnesses. ”
Griffin snarls as he turns on his heel, wearing a path in the wooden floor with his pacing. “So what, we do nothing? Let him get away with it?”
“He’s off the team,” Bear states firmly. “I’ve notified security. He’s banned from the arena, from our facilities, from every game. But I can’t stop him from attending class. That’s out of my hands.”
Finn’s resounding laugh is bitter. “So that’s it?”
There’s silence. Defeat hangs like smoke in the air.
My eyes close, my head falling forward to rest on my bent knees. This is never going to end. I came here for a new start, and it’s turning into an even bigger nightmare than at my old college.