FIVE
Lincoln
Six Months Ago
My phone burned a hole in my hand as I stared at the picture on one of the more popular photo-sharing social sites. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Staring back at me was a shy-looking Cassie, and with an arm wrapped around her shoulder was Crew.
It was posted on his profile, and I wondered if he did it just to get a rise out of me.
Crew and I had been friends since the moment we’d met freshman year two years ago. I never wanted anything, much less a girl, to come between us, but here we were.
He acted like I was being ridiculous, but was I being crazy when he knew the history there? When he knew she was my sister’s best friend and him dating her could fuck up their relationship?
“Ellis, heads up.” I glanced up just in time to see my favorite energy drink sailing toward my head, and I reached out to snatch it out of the air. Crew stared back at me, a friendly smirk on his face.
He still didn’t get it.
My anger tried to take over, and I told myself to calm the fuck down, to focus on the fact that we were getting ready to play one of the best teams in the league, and I needed to pay fucking attention to that instead of my bullshit with Crew.
I sat the drink down and didn’t say anything, the photo still opened on my phone.
“What? No, thank you?” Crew teased, making the other guys look over. The tension was there, high and tight, and I didn’t fucking understand why he was pushing me.
I didn’t understand why he was goading me with Cassie, why he was holding it over my head when he was supposed to be my friend.
Ever since he saw Cassie the previous Thanksgiving, when she was prodded into telling everyone what her book was about, he’d been all over her, wanting to know more about her, fucking fascinated with the fact she was a writer, as if that was the only thing interesting about her.
When I told him to back off, he didn’t.
I stand then, still in my socks and gym shorts, and stalk up to him. We’ve already come to blows over this situation, and even though I’ve told him again and again that I didn’t want him to date her, he wouldn’t fucking listen.
“What’s your problem, Thatcher?”
Crew squared up, ready for me. “No problem, Ellis. Just trying to get you to open your eyes.”
“Open my eyes, huh?” What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “By throwing shit at me and taunting me?”
Crew looked around the locker room, leaning in closer to lower his voice. “If you’d just listen to me about Cassie, you’d understand that it’s not like that.”
“I’ve fucking seen the way you are, man,” I said, taking a step closer. “Cass doesn’t need that shit.”
He had the nerve to roll his eyes. “It’s not—”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away from her.”
Crew’s jaw tightened, and I braced myself for a punch to come, but he kept his hands down by his sides. “I’m not walking away from her, but—”
His words were cut off by my fist smashing into his face, he’s quick to rebound with a fist of his own, and then we’re off. The guys around us yell, some egg us on, others—like Gabriel Katz—pull us off each other as things progress. Crew gets another shot to my mouth before I hear the piercing sound of a whistle.
“What the fuck are you doing!” Coach Mitchum enters the room, his broad shoulders having to turn sideways to get through the crowd of hockey players that just stopped shouting. His eyes turned to me, disappointment thick there, and I felt a curdling in my gut I wasn’t expecting. Finally, his gaze moved to Crew, seeing that he was just as beat up as I was.
“How old are you two? For fuck’s sake. We have a game in forty minutes!” His vein bulged in his forehead, and I felt immediately bad that I put him through this. He was basically a hero of mine, and there he was, breaking up another of my fights.
“Get your fucking shit together.” He pointed at me and then at Crew. “If you can’t do that, you’re going to see how it feels to let your whole team down and watch the game from a bench.”
With that, he and Lee, the assistant coach, headed to the little office reserved for the coaches in this locker room.
Crew glared at me before making his way back to his temporary locker. We used to have ours right next to each other.
I took a seat on the little bench in front of the locker and grabbed a towel, wiping at my sore lip. Blood came away with the towel, and I sighed, not the best thing to do right before a game.
Gabriel sat in front of his locker right next to me and rested his elbows on his bent knees. “What the fuck is up with you and Crew?”
I grounded my teeth. I did not want to talk about this.
At my silence, the dude shook his head, his long hair moving with his head, and he turned to me. “You two need to figure out your shit, or we’re all going to look bad out there.”
I turned and glared at him. “You don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Gabriel gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, shock maybe, that his captain, someone who was never aggressively angry, was telling him to essentially fuck off.
“Whatever, man. Figure it out before we look like clowns.”
We lost that game, and the one right after it, tarnishing our stellar record and making me feel like an absolute piece of shit.
On the ride home, no one would talk to me, and even though I was tempted to hash shit out with Crew, he’d glared at me like the rest of them and made his way to his seat.
We weren’t far enough to warrant a plane ride, so we had a six-hour bus ride home, and I was looking forward to getting home and relaxing, even though it wouldn’t feel very relaxing with a house full of hating roommates.
Maybe I’d go to my parents’ house for a couple of nights to let the steam blow off.
Thirty minutes from home, my headphones died, and I had to deal with the fact that I could hear every small bit of conversation, including Crew’s.
“…going over there instead of the bar?” That was Connor Bedford, the resident party kid and all-around good guy, even if he was a bit much at times.
“Yeah, man. I haven’t seen her in a while.” I ground my teeth at the voice. It was Crew.
“Pussy whipped,” came Connor’s reply, which made me practically crack a molar when I heard Crew chuckle as if it were true.
Fuck me. They were sleeping together?
“Nah, man, she’s just super chill. I’ve been asking her about—” I cut him off by slamming my hoodie over my head and pressing it over my ears, so I didn’t have to listen to another word.
I didn’t give a shit about who Crew dated, but why the fuck did he have to choose my sister’s best friend?
It had nothing to do with me, yet I couldn’t stop hating the situation. It was only because I didn’t want her to get hurt, making Mickey mad, and therefore making me the bad guy because my best friend—or old best friend—was the one who hurt her.
I ripped my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Cassie’s contact info for the first time, quickly typing out a text.
It was stupid and impulsive and a lie, but I did it anyway.
Hey, almost home. Study tonight?
Fuck me. I hit send before I could talk some actual sense into my brain. I only did it to slow down the momentum of her relationship with Crew, not because I actually wanted to see her or study.
Sure, tell yourself that.
My phone buzzed, and I opened my texts faster than I’d like to admit.
Sorry. Can’t. How’s tomorrow?
Fuck. He’d already gotten to her.
Which begged the question: have they been talking this entire time? Had they texted throughout our road trip and our time away? When we stayed in our hotel rooms, was he chatting with her on the phone while I’d scrolled social media, keeping myself busy?
Also, why the fuck did I care this much? If she wanted to date the prick, if she wanted to get hurt by another player, then why did I care?
The thought of mentioning how much Crew moved around briefly crossed my mind, but what responsibility of that was mine?
Fuck it. I didn’t care, couldn’t care, and would only focus on hockey and school from here on out. I only had a couple months of games left, and then I would be done with my third year of college hockey and could move on to summer, getting away from both of them.
From that moment on, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck about Cassie or Crew.
Sounds good.