Chapter 8
DENALI
DON’T SIMP FOR PUSSY
Heading to Gianna’s, I couldn’t stop thinking about Zariah.
I didn’t believe her. The ‘No Densky’s’ rule could only be about me. The thing I couldn’t figure out was why? Why was it a rule in the first place? Were people really writing Densky’s on her wall enough to warrant it? And why was she so adamant against it?
I knew the answer to those questions. I just didn’t want to believe it.
Zariah wanted nothing to do with me. No reminders, no nudges, nothing to jog her memory, which was what Densky’s had become. Something to connect to me. That hurt so much. It left me tossing and turning for a few nights, unable to sleep.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it and the daydream I’d worked towards, to pretend like I had no idea who Zariah was.
Not only was that impossible now, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the daydream would’ve never played out like that in the first place.
The scenario didn’t make sense. I hadn’t been on a real date since her, what smoke-show girlfriend would I flaunt?
And if Zariah approached me, would I really say no?
It was a humbling realization. I’d never gotten over her. I’d been lying to myself for years.
And there was nothing I could do about it. When Elijah wasn’t involved, she avoided me. Nothing about that would ever change.
Opening the door to Gianna’s, I looked around to see if anyone was there yet.
It was arguably the best place on campus for food, a mix-match restaurant with ripped booths and some of the greatest pizza in Houston.
The only downside was Elijah’s ex worked there, and after the incident, she had him permanently banned.
So I made a point not to eat here. That meant no more good pizza unless I wanted delivery, and even if Elijah said he was cool with it, it bummed him out to see the pizza boxes in our dorm. So when I wanted to eat there, I planned around him.
I scheduled a small team meeting during his afternoon classes. Elijah didn’t need to come, we’d already talked about the reason for the meeting anyway.
A couple of my teammates and I squeezed ourselves into a booth and I immediately ordered breadsticks.
“Damn, I miss this place,” I muttered. Once the waiter left, I pulled out my phone, searching for my calendar. “We need to talk about an upcoming—”
“This is official business?” Nick asked. “I thought we were just getting lunch.”
“What did Elijah do now?” Fridge pressed. Fridge—Felix Fowler—was the best goalie on our team and that margin was stark. Even though he was outside the usual goalie mold at six-foot-eight, he was quick on his skates in a way that shouldn’t have been humanly possible.
He was also, to be fair, a dick. The self-righteous kind, who always thought his smugness was hard-earned. It sort of was to our freshmen, but it rubbed me the wrong way with how preachy he could be about stuff outside of hockey.
“Elijah didn’t do anything,” I said, irritated.
“Well, there’s a first for everything, I guess.” Fridge smirked.
The waiter returned with our drinks and Bear grabbed his soda. “Say what it is, I hate surprises.”
Bear Moreau and I used to be rivals when he was North Dakota’s top defenseman and I skated for Michigan. He had a temper that fit his name but that definitely cooled since he settled down with his girlfriend. Or, since his girlfriend, June, settled him down.
“Marrs University has this event called alumni night,” I explained. “It’s a formal gala where their biggest donors spend the evening with their sports teams.”
Bear choked on his drink. “You can’t mean we’re going.”
“Why would they include us?” Fridge asked. “Marrs barely knows they have a hockey team. We haven’t won anything.”
“The favoritism is still there…” I ripped a breadstick in half. “Most of the teams send fifteen or twenty players. We get five.”
Nick made a show of counting us at the table. “I’m counting four…oh. Except for the defenseman who’s banned from Gianna’s.”
“Yep. Elijah.” I tore into my breadstick. “We’re the five most likely to go pro.”
Bear set his drink aside. “What about Montoya?”
“Be real,” Nick groaned. “Kid’s Toy isn’t coming.”
Yeah, Bear’s question didn’t make sense. Why were we pretending otherwise? I knew Bear had gotten close to Montoya, but his protectiveness blinded him.
“The people at the gala won’t recognize Montoya’s name,” I said coolly. “Even if they did, I’m not introducing our lineup with a freshman. Sémajuste, Cleo, and I made the list, it’s a group decision.”
Bear conceded. Montoya wasn’t ready, but the rest of my teammates weren’t either.
“This is a fancy event,” I said. “Dinner, dancing, black tie. I’ll be giving a speech—”
Nick wiggled his eyebrows. “A speech?”
“Don’t be a dick.” I raked a hand through my hair, irritated. “It’s the first time the Gladiators have even been invited. We can’t act like a bunch of assholes. We need to show that we’re professionals.”
Bear scoffed. “June taught me, I can dance like a motherfucker.”
“See, that’s the problem. You can’t say ‘dance like a motherfucker’ at this kind of thing.”
He shrugged, unperturbed. “I’ll bring June, she’ll keep me in check.”
“I’m bringing Tallulah,” Fridge confirmed, adding his girlfriend in the mix too.
Nick was silent for a moment, running his thumb along his drink. “We’re not required to bring dates, are we?”
“What’s the problem?” Bear asked. “Call one of the girls on your list.”
“I don’t really have a list right now,” Nick muttered.
I blinked. “You’re joking. You can’t bring somebody else’s girlfriend?”
Fridge and Bear snickered. Nick’s favorite trick before a game was to DM another player’s girlfriend to rile him up. I expected Nick to laugh too but his eyes dropped to the table. “Haha. Really cute, Denali.”
“He’s on a celibate streak,” Fridge remarked.
“Nick?” Bear chuckled. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s for…mind stuff.” Nick shifted, clearing his throat. “I don’t want to lead somebody on. I don’t want them to think it’s serious or whatever. Do we know any gay girls down for free canapés?”
“You can go stag,” I said. “I am.”
Nick arched an eyebrow. “No, really?”
“Yeah—”
“That was sarcasm,” Nick replied. “I know you’re going solo.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dude.” Bear motioned to Nick. “Do your Denali impression.”
“Relationships are for losers, your focus should be on hockey.” Nick grunted, his eyebrows scrunched up with a deep frown while my teammates laughed. “The only curved stick you need to worry about is your hockey stick.”
“What the hell? I don’t say that,” I argued.
Fridge snorted. “That's all you say.”
“Don’t simp for pussy,” Nick quipped.
Shit, I definitely said that. Okay, yeah, I’d pushed the guys to focus on the goal at hand instead of girls. But to be fair when most of us transferred in May, our hockey team was shit. We couldn’t afford to be distracted. And it was so easy to say that stuff when—well, before—
The bell over the door rang and I glanced over.
Zariah strode through, a pair of old-fashioned soft pants belted at her waist while a slim, dark shirt tucked in, melted over her body like it was painted on. Her long, dark curls draped down her back, swinging with her while she chatted with a couple of the football team's girlfriends.
The same girls I saw constantly filter out of her dorm. Elijah told me Zariah was an essential part of that entire friend group, she was close to the Romans. The championship winners, the faces of Marrs University.
I watched Zariah travel between the tables. She giggled at something another girl said. So close, yet so far away.
My stomach sank. I faced the guys again and realized Fridge was studying me, his lips puckered in a look of disbelief. Fridge had huge brown eyes—Nick called them his ‘baby cow eyes’—so I knew he was staring at me, but he didn’t look away.
Fridge made a noise at the back of his throat. “You’re kidding.”
I didn’t understand and neither did my teammates.
Bear frowned. “Kidding about what?”
“What are we kidding about?” Nick pressed.
“Denali, you’re kidding.” Fridge lifted a brow.
“What?” I pushed. “Kidding?”
“Of all the girls—” Fridge rubbed his temples. “Of all the girls?”
A cold feeling touched the back of my neck. “I—huh?”
“Some things are off-limits for a reason,” he continued. “After everything that happened with Elijah—does nobody think things through on this team?”
“What are you two dumbasses arguing about?” Bear demanded.
My teammates called me uptight, but I’d always considered that a badge of honor. I had a retirement account I’d never prematurely dip into, a car with an oil change schedule on my phone, and I was always the earliest person to check off my gym slots, my meetings, and my homework deadlines.
Stern? Yep. Strict? Absolutely. A gigantic hard-ass? Fuck yeah.
So blushing in front of my fucking teammates was inexcusable, but the guys stared in shock as my face burned hotter and hotter.
“You like Elijah’s sister?” Fridge said, deadly serious. “Zariah Contractor?”
I cleared my throat. “Who?”
Fuck, that was the wrong thing to say. The guys guffawed into laughter, wheezing, while I fumbled with an excuse, hunching down in the booth, hoping this was a nightmare I could wake up from.
“Who?” Nick’s voice cracked in delight. “Who? You’re the worst liar on the team! Who?! Uh, your roommate’s sister. Your teammate’s sister.” He morphed into a song. “Your best friend’s liiiittle sister—”
“Little sister by five fucking minutes, they’re twins,” I snapped.
“He didn’t deny the rest of it,” Fridge said, smirking into his drink.
“I’ve never seen this side of you,” Bear snickered. “What happened to ‘relationships are a waste of time’?”
“Drop it. We’re talking about alumni night.”
“You obviously have to tell Elijah.” Fridge leveled me with a stare. “The sooner the better.”
“Why would I do that?” I stopped myself. “If I liked Zariah. Which I don’t—”
“This season’s going to be too intense.” Fridge kept talking, unbothered by my sounds of outrage.
“We all know how Elijah operates. We can’t afford to have our first shift defenseman riled up.
Either you tell him now, and it’s a harmless crush he can shoot down, or you wait until the end of the season.
And you obviously can’t hide it. It’ll explode out of you. ”
“Maybe this’ll snap Elijah out of the depression?” Bear suggested. “Give him something to focus on?”
“Something to focus on?” Nick retorted. “What, like snapping Denali’s neck?”
“Tell Elijah and get over it,” Fridge said, his voice flat.
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” I lied.
Nick ignored that. “Can we be the ones to tell Elijah? I don’t want him to explode later, that’d be fucking awful to deal with. Maybe if it’s from a group—”
“Elijah wouldn’t believe us,” Fridge scoffed. “He’d never believe Denali would—”
“There’s nothing to tell him about,” I insisted.
Nick swung my way. “What’d you used to say? ‘No labels, no relationship, no obligations’ and now look at you. You’ve been on Fridge and Bear’s asses about their girlfriends—hypocrite.” He pointed at me. “I’ll make you admit it.”
“You can’t make me do shit,” I shot back.
I couldn’t. Acknowledging that I liked Zariah couldn’t happen because it wasn’t daydreams that connected us, it was barbed wire. Sharp reminders of our past, things we’d experienced together, things I’d done and wished I didn’t.
I couldn’t acknowledge how I felt about her because that’d acknowledge a wound that refused to heal.
I couldn’t get better. I didn’t know how.
“I’ll force you to admit it.” Nick took another drink. “You’re a hypocrite.”
“No.”
“Don’t make me do it, Denali.”
“What are you going to do?” I said. “Fuck someone’s mom?”
The guys straightened up, and the table fell silent. I regretted the comment as soon as I said it, but I couldn’t take it back. Whatever Nick had planned wasn’t a good thing.
Elijah was my best friend. I’d figure out how to tell him, but I didn’t know how to do that yet. But they had a point. If Elijah spiraled further, it could affect his gameplay. His career, our careers. I didn’t want to rush into it and fuck this up before the Gladiators even played together.
Nick tossed back the last of his drink. “I need a date for alumni night. What about Zariah?”
“Zariah?” I repeated.
Possessiveness seized me and I slowly exhaled, ignoring the satisfied grins around the table. Zariah wasn’t mine. Being jealous was unfair. I couldn’t do that.
Because if this was me looking out for her, Nick wouldn’t lead her on. So what was the problem?
Easy. It made me sick thinking about it.
“You shouldn’t,” I said finally. “Because she’ll tell you to fuck off.”
“Really?”
“That’s not the first time a girl’s told you that,” Bear chuckled.
“Zariah doesn’t like hockey, she doesn’t like hockey players. Beyond Elijah, she has no ties to the team,” I insisted. “She’ll tell you no.”
“Want to bet?”
“I don’t need to bet.”
“You had your chance.” Nick pushed out of the booth and before I could grab his arm, he headed towards her table. My heart pounded in my throat as I watched, unable to tear my gaze away.
“Check out the look on Denali’s face,” Bear muttered. “He looks like an abused dog at the shelter waiting for her to take him home.”
I ignored him. “She’ll say no.”
Zariah narrowed her eyes at Nick, palming the back of her chair, but she listened with rapt attention as he whispered to her, careful to keep his voice low.
What the hell was he saying? Whatever he said made her stiffen.
Her eyes flickered to mine and I could clearly hear her voice across the restaurant.
“He did, did he?”
Nick returned so smug, my palms were sweaty. He slipped into the booth, satisfied. “You’re the only one without a date, Captain.”
Jesus Christ, that hurt. I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I would regret, shoving down the emotions unraveling me, tearing me at the seams.
“That’s cold-blooded.” Bear whistled.
“How many times did he lecture you guys about simping for pussy?" Nick rolled his eyes. "Denali, you’ve got to realize you’re no better than the rest of us—them,” Nick quickly corrected himself.
“I don’t care anyway,” I muttered, not bothering to hide how shitty of a lie that was.
Nick rested his elbows on the table. “You know what, Denali? I don’t think Zariah’s got a thing against hockey players. I think she has a thing against you.”