Chapter 11 #2
The exact second her performance turns into a nightmare.
“Scotty?”
I blow out the candles, wanting to erase the look on her face from my memory.
The second the flames are out, the cake slips from her hands and drops straight into my lap.
“Laura, I—”
The house lights are on now.
“Oh, my God.” She stumbles back, her hands flying to her mouth as she whips her head left, then right, realizing she is surrounded by the freshman hockey team. “Oh, my God.”
Fuck. Please, please don't see the camera behind Brooks.
Laura freezes.
She takes in a sharp gasp when she looks over her shoulder.
Too late.
I see it in her eyes—the exact moment she spots the lens.
“Laura,” I choke out, yanking against the cuffs hard enough to rattle the chair. “Laura, wait—”
“Happy birthday, broooooo!” Erik shouts from somewhere behind me, but the sound is minuscule compared to the sound of my life crashing around me.
“Get me out of this fucking chair!” I shout, my voice breaking. “Laura, let me explain.”
She looks at me, really looks, and her eyes are hollow, stunned, and wrecked.
“I need to go.”
“Laura, wait!” I call after her, but she doesn't stop. I can only watch helplessly as she disappears, the door swinging shut behind her.
For a moment, the room is silent except for the absurdly cheerful music track still playing in the background, mocking me.
“Get these fucking handcuffs off me now!” I roar, wrenching hard enough that the chair screeches across the floor. My wrists burn from the metal digging into my skin, but the pain is nothing compared to the rage coursing through me.
I'm going to kill Erik.
Literally murder him.
I'm going to beat him to death with his own hockey stick and then use his body as a puck.
“Whoa, chill out, man. It was just a joke,” Brooks says, stepping forward with the handcuff key, actually looking concerned now.
“A joke?” I spit the word out. “You all humiliated her in front of the entire team. You filmed her for my father’s show. How is that a fucking joke?”
The second the cuffs click open, I'm on my feet, shoving past Brooks, beelining straight for Erik. I slam him backward, knocking him flat onto his ass.
“You're a fucking asshole, Steele.”
He throws his hands up, his eyes wide. “Whoa, wait,” Erik says, having the audacity to sound defensive.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
My fists clench, ready to punch the shit out of him.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I thought—it was supposed to be like—like this nice, romantic thing? So you could show her you liked her?” He gestures helplessly toward the door Laura ran through. “I swear I didn’t think she’d react like that.”
I kneel, balling his shirt in my fist and yanking him up. “You're a moron if you thought this was going to go any other way. How did you even find her?”
He shrugs. “There’s a guy on the football team—he’s good with computers. He, uh… figured out she worked for the party company. Didn’t really need to do much sleuthing. Did you know he lives next door to her?”
So the football team knows too?
I pull him closer, my knuckles whitening around his collar, knocking off his baseball cap.
Erik’s breath hitches.
Brooks steps in, laying a firm hand on my shoulder. “Scotty…let him go. He's an idiot. A huge idiot, but beating the shit out of him isn't going to fix anything.”
“You're right.” I let go of his shirt, and he falls back to the ground with a loud grunt. I don't care. I hope that hurts. “I need to find Laura.”
I shoulder past the rest of the guys, shoving the camera away when it swings in my face. “Stop filming,” I snap, and the cameraman flinches. Good. I’m two seconds from smashing that lens.
My eyes meet with Jerry’s, whose mouth is open in shock. “Delete every second of this footage, Jerry. It better never see the light of day.”
It’s something I’ve never asked for.
“Calm down, Scotty,” Jerry says calmly.
Too bad I’m anything but right now.
“No. I will not fucking calm down. You can make a shit situation out of my life, but don’t you dare fuck up hers.”
I don’t stay to see his response.
“I need to talk to her now,” I mutter under my breath. “Before she decides she never wants to see me again.”
I shove through the rec center doors and blow past the front desk, barely hearing the shouting going on behind me.
I take the steps two at a time down to the parking lot.
Then I freeze.
At the bottom of the stairs lies a broken blue sparkling shoe, and I know it’s hers because I’ve seen her in it them before.
The sight of it triggers a fresh wave of anger and guilt.
“Fuck,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair.
She's gone.
She's fucking gone, and I fucked it up before we could even start.
“Laura?” I call out, earning the attention of a few bystanders. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't reveal herself.
I reach for my pocket on instinct, but it’s empty.
Right.
My phone is back at the rink.
I don't know what to do, so I search every inch of that parking lot, calling her name, but it's no use. She's not there.
Ten minutes pass.
Then fifteen.
By twenty, my voice is raw, my lungs hurt, and I’m out of places to look.
Eventually, I walk back inside with my head down, feeling hollow.
Most of the team is still lingering around awkwardly, and no one knows what to do now that the “surprise” has gone so spectacularly wrong. The decorated chair sits in the center of the room, a sad reminder of what was supposed to be a celebration.
What a fucking joke.
“Party's over,” I announce, my voice flat and cold. “Go home.”
No one argues.
Not one person.
Even Erik doesn’t speak.
I walk back out of the room.
I don’t clean up the mess.
I don’t talk to my team.
I don’t say goodbye.
I just walk out with Laura’s broken shoe in my hand, determined to find her.
I’m not losing her.
Not like this.