Chapter 10
TEN
brING THE PAIN
“Where was your head at during that last period, Zach?”
I pause in the act of scrubbing my hair dry. “I scored a hat trick and you’re bitching about my head after you spent more time twiddling your thumbs in their zone when you should have been in ours?”
“You weren’t focusing. I need you focused.”
“Yo, Alec, back off, man,” Pecan butts in.
I don’t need him to fight my battles, but fuck if I don’t need him to stop me from fighting this asswipe.
Bewildered doesn’t cut it.
“Have you done that video yet?”
Ahhhh. That’s his beef.
Pecan punches him in the shoulder and shoots me a warning look. “Alec, dude, what’s with you?”
“Tell you what’s with him,” Derek Dyers, impossibly a bigger asshole than Alec, drawls. “He sucked tonight so he’s casting blame.”
Our captain glares at him but doesn’t take the bait. Which either means Dyers cut close to the bone or he doesn’t want to get into it with our forward.
“I already told you. I’m not filming that video with Denver. Why won’t you let it go? I already did it with Pecan, for fuck’s sake!”
Alec scowls. “We need all the publicity we can get.”
“Why do we?! We’ll get it by winning games, if you’d actually play.”
“Just film the video!”
“I don’t know why you won’t.” Dyers pollutes our air with his godawful deodorant. “She’s panting around you most of the time. It’s not like you have to get it up for the fat bitch. Just kiss her.”
The sudden quiet of the locker room should have keyed him into the fact that he was in deep shit, but Dyers’s such a cocky fucker that he doesn’t give a damn.
I might not have been playing for the team for long, but they all know not to bring up Denny.
Alec mentioned her hanging around after practice one time and I nearly bit his head off. Especially when he accused her of watching so she could sell our plays to another team.
Apparently, she’d tried to watch last year and Pecan had backed down when Alec had refused.
I wasn’t about to back the fuck down when it came to her.
One second, I’m on my side of the locker room, burning holes into the asshole’s face with my eyes. The next, I’m on his side and he’s eating my fist as I pound him into his cubby.
Dyers doesn’t even have a chance to get his own hands up. He plunks backward, arms and legs falling akimbo with a yelp of pain. I lock my forearm around his neck and use that to yank him upright, only so that I can shove my knee into his stomach.
As he coughs and splutters, I fume, “You so much as think Denver’s name or insult her to my face again and I’ll make your intestines wish they belonged in your throat.”
“Fucking hell, Zach, calm down,” Alec frets, wading into the fray.
Pecan snorts. “How would you even move his intestines, bro?”
“I don’t know, but I’d have a great time making it happen.”
“He’s turning purple,” Gregg Harrison, a D-man, points out with an approving smirk.
Which means he likes Denny too.
What, with Callan and now him—fuck my life.
“Zach, you need to let the asshole breathe,” Pecan placates. “It pains me to say it, but he kinda needs oxygen to live.”
I release him, but only so he’ll fall flat on his face.
When Dyers’s head meets the bench, he whines, “My nothes!!”
“Keep your nose out of my business. Denny’s my business. So back the fuck away from her.”
Gregg recently told me that Dyers got into deep shit last year so he’s on his best behavior. Seeing as I saw Dyers snorting coke before the game, I know the jackass’ll keep his mouth shut about this mess too.
Not that I care.
If people think they can talk shit about my friends in front of me, then they’ll pay the price for their stupidity.
I’m not messing around anymore.
Losing Mom fucked with my head. Made me see the bigger picture.
Let me figure out who matters and who doesn’t.
Popularity is fickle. Friendship is forever.
Gregg claps me on the back, but Pecan complains, “I wanted to hit him too! How was I supposed to when you went all Overlord on him?!”
Alec anxiously pleats his fingers together. “Leave him alone. We have to play on Sunday.”
Did I mention I hate Sunday afternoon games?
“I played last season with two broken fingers,” Pecan dismisses. “Dyers can throw the puck around with a busted nose.”
Alec shoots me a disapproving look. “Your temper’s insane.”
“Denny’s his trigger. I told you to back off this video BS, Alec. You’re the one who started this.”
“I just want him to post a video to the team account, Pecan! I didn’t ask him to break my best forward’s nose!”
I stomp over to my cubby. “Would you let anyone talk shit about Freya?”
“I wouldn’t bust bones over her, no.”
“Great boyfriend you are. Just because you suck, doesn’t mean that I do. Anyway, if you want him and me to play together, then you better keep him clear of my cubby. I’m not dealing with his shit, especially after what I saw him snort earlier.”
Alec’s eyes flare wide at my words. “DEREK!”
Dyers, who was picking himself up off the floor, jerks back and falls on his ass again at Alec’s volume.
Pecan smirks at me once the captain stalks over to Dyers and tears him a new one.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear about you asking Denver if she’d help you with that assignment you both have in organizational communication, Gregg,” I grouse at the fucker.
He lifts his hands in surrender. “She refuses to see my charm.”
“Good.” My mouth tightens. “And what a douche you are. You wanna date her but don’t defend her against the likes of Dyers?”
Gregg’s expression crumples. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“Do better, dickface.”
My or else is silent.
Pecan shoves his way into my personal space. “How the fuck is Denver the only person who doesn’t know you have a ‘keep away’ fence around her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hell, people don’t stay far enough away in my opinion.
Callan, for one.
The bitch of it is—Alec wasn’t wrong about me being distracted.
Denny nearly missed my last goal because she was so busy talking to him!
What’s the point of—
“Yeah, right.” Pecan snaps me with his towel. Doesn’t take much to rob players of their inhibitions, but Pecan’s the only fucker who’ll walk around balls swinging. “When did Gregg ask D out?”
“Does it matter?”
Pecan, scoffing, wafts his hand up and down in front of my face. “Apparently it does!”
Ignoring him, I use towel-drying my hair as an excuse to hide my expression.
Eventually, Pecan excuses, “Alec has his panties in a wad because it’s homecoming in two weeks.”
“That’s his problem.”
“Well, he’s making it ours. Last season’s captain, Hank Corvin, picked up a car from one of the alumni and he wants one too.”
“That’s wrong, man.”
“Not sure I’d have turned down Hank’s Mustang,” he admits sheepishly.
“You’re a dumbfuck.”
“I know it. You coming to the party with us tonight?”
“No. We have a game the day after tomorrow. I want to be in the right headspace—”
He pshaws. “Like you haven’t partied before a game, never mind the day before. You need a couple shots and a blowjob. That’ll calm you right down.”
When he hooks his arm over my shoulders, I shrug him off.
“What’s crawled up your ass?”
“Aside from the fact I’m only a walk-on, you mean? I don’t wanna fuck this up so soon. You know if I don’t get ice-time, it’ll screw up the draft for me.”
He eyes me. “Nah. That’s not it. You haven’t been dipping your wick, and even Denny’s getting sick of your grouchy ass.” His expression turns concerned. “You know you can always talk to me about your mom, right?”
I grit my teeth but only because the reason I probably should be in a bad mood, grief, has nothing to do with my state of mind.
Denver’s driving me crazy.
And she doesn’t even know it.
“Did you know Denny’s leaving in January?”
“For her half-semester abroad? Sure.” His brow furrows. “You don’t think she should go?”
I shrug.
“Dude, what’s with you?”
“I’m being irrational.”
“No shit.” He gusts out his cheeks. “What aren’t you saying out loud?”
Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks.
Because I see the cogs turning.
His brain working.
He shuffles closer to me and, in a low voice, murmurs, “You’ve always been weird about her.”
“Protective.”
“Weird.”
“She’s not just a piece of ass, Pecan!”
“Never said she was.”
“No, but you almost tried to sleep with her in sophomore year of high school.” I glower at him. “Don’t make out like you weren’t sniffing around her.”
“She’s pretty and I really wanted to get rid of my virginity,” he says easily, but he leans into me. “You and Denny?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. I’m just a friend to her.”
He studies me, my expression, my posture, then whistles. “Friendzoned.”
I don’t say anything.
Not for the longest time.
Then, when he doesn’t drop the subject, I sigh. “Yeah.”
“Never thought I’d see the day the great Zach Bradley couldn’t get the chick he wants.”
“Denny isn’t just any chick though, is she?”
“Nah. You got that right.” His fond smile turns into a scowl. “Hey! I should warn you off her! Be the Zach in the friendship, seeing as you’re turning into Peter Can.”
I shove his shoulder but, I can’t deny, that gets a laugh out of me. “Fuck off.”
“To where would I fuck off?” he deadpans. Then, he elbows me in the side. “Genuinely though. You hurt her or mess her around or fuck with her going to that place—”
“Spain,” I drawl.
“Yeah, the paella place, then I’ll make it my problem.” He grins. It’s giving great white. With fewer teeth. “There, that sounded sufficiently Bradley-esque, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I know where Spain is and you don’t.”
“It’s the boot on the map.”
Mockingly, I applaud him. “That’s Italy. The pasta place.”
He gapes at me. “Oh, my god! That’s why you don’t want to kiss her for the video thing, isn’t it?”
Shit. He really does know me too well. “Maybe.”
“I just thought it was because she’d snip off your balls and put them in the hot wash with our underwear.”
“Fuck, you remember that? Everything that didn’t shrink, melted.”
He snorts. “How could I forget? That was my lucky jersey too. D’s so predictable. She always targets our laundry and we don’t think to protect it. Maybe we need an armed guard—”
“I’m sure your dad will sign off on that expense.”
With a side-eye, Pecan plucks at his bottom lip. ”She’s such a bitch sometimes.”
“Hey!”
He instantly pounces. “You know it. It’s why you lurrrrrrrrrve her.”
I shove his shoulder again. “Don’t push your luck.”
“That’s the only way I know how to live, bro. Maybe you should come to the party tonight. Get over her by getting under someone else. Just not Addison. I hate that skank.”
“Agreed.” I rub the back of my neck. “I dunno. Denny’s waiting for me outside.”
“She can party too.”
“Who’s holding it?”
“The Rhos.”
“I think she’s had enough of Greek life for one year. It’s fine. We were going to grab pizza. She’s paying ‘cause we won. Feel free to bring Hailey with—”
“Look at you two, all domestic,” he baits.
“Pecan, don’t make me regret this conversation!”
He winks. “Your secret’s safe with me, baby.”
I shoot him a warning glance, but I know he wants to hurt her as little as I do.
Sophomore year in high school aside, when he thought with his dick too much.
Trust me—this version actually has his libido under some semblance of control.
He asks me once again if I wanna meet him at the party, but I flip him off.
In the end, I’m one of the last guys in the locker room, the others are talking about the frat party or heading to Dopie's, and I just wave them away when they ask me along.
If I didn’t know Dyers was unpopular, tonight confirmed it.
I get zero shade for beating the shit out of him.
As I head out, my shoulders feel lighter and it has nothing to do with that fight either.
I didn’t realize how much liking Denny in that way was a burden.
Confessing to Father Canard obviously lessened the load.
Until I see her.
Sitting on the bench outside, painting her nails in the half-dark. AirPods lodged in with those dumb silicone bands I always tease her about so they don’t fall out of her ears, humming away to that pop violinist she loves.
My reaction is why I can’t film that stupid video.
That ache inside me—god, it’s unrelenting.
Was it always there?
Was I just too blind to notice it?
I look at her now and all I see is how much of her I don’t have.
That I’ll never be able to access.
Not just sex. But her.
Denny.
My Denny.
Only… not.
Goddammit.