7. Cole
Chapter 7
Cole
“S wear to god, if Colton's cornered her somewhere,” Xavi said, setting his empty bottle down on the counter for the bartender to collect, mumbling a quick thank you as it was taken. “We should probably make sure she’s not trying to escape him.”
I wanted to insist that he’d just gone to the bathroom and would be back any second, but I’d been checking on the swinging door beneath the badly painted RESTROOMS sign for the last minute or two and hadn’t seen him. I let myself scan the room quickly, looking for a head of auburn hair so I could at least confirm she wasn’t with him, but didn’t find anyone her height wearing the same clothes.
A part of me felt bad for stepping in and insisting on playing that stupid game to get them to cut the shit. Colton was obviously into her, and if I hadn’t been a grumpy ass about getting thrown in the penalty box during the game or taking them to Smokey’s, maybe I would have just taken his side and told Xav to cool it. But I hadn’t. And I didn’t necessarily regret it — Annie was nice to talk to, and I couldn’t deny that the way she’d looked at me had gone to my head a little. Sure, I was used to flames trying to throw themselves at me, but most of the time they were either closer to my age or questionably young, and it never sat right with me.
But her… she’d blushed when I spoke to her. She’d looked confused that I was even speaking to her, but not in a way that was an insult. It was better than that.
But I probably shouldn’t have stepped in Colton’s way on it.
I glanced back at the swinging door, Xavi’s idle chatter falling on my deaf ears, and caught sight of a shaved head and glasses pushing through the door into the obscured hallway with an air of anger coming off him in waves.
Shit. The boyfriend.
I didn’t know where he was going, but he was probably in search of Annie, and I couldn’t deny that a part of me worried she would be on the receiving end of that anger.
“Xav,” I said, cutting him off mid-sentence as he rattled on about something relating to Colton. “Would I be insane to follow him?”
Xav turned to me, his brows furrowing, a strand of black hair falling forward into his face. “Who?”
“Elliot. Annie’s boyfriend,” I clarified, tipping the top of my bottle toward the swinging door. “He just walked in there. Looked mad as hell.”
“Nope, let’s go,” he chirped all too eagerly, pushing off the bar in an instant.
I threw back the rest of my beer, swallowing it in one big gulp before leaning over the counter and tossing it straight into the trashcan. I followed Xav through the crowd, both of us ignoring the attempts from passersby to talk to us, and pushed through the swinging door, leaving the crowd and the music a little dampened behind us.
The hallway stretched in front of us, and a door at the end that read STAFF ONLY, and two doors on the left for PUCKS and STICKS. I snorted. “Your dad needs to change those, that’s awful.”
Xavi crossed his arms over his chest, a playful scowl turning his lips down. “It’s so self-explanatory,” he argued. “Sticks for the men's room, and… well, yeah, I guess I don’t see how pucks relate to women.”
I held up a single finger to my lips, shushing him effectively, and tried to train my ears to see if I could hear Annie or Elliot.
Either I really was old and was starting to go deaf, or they weren’t in the restrooms.
“Staff area?” I asked, raising a brow at Xav.
He nodded and led the way, pushing open the door and revealing… more doors. Fucking fantastic. There were three on either side — on the right, an open coat room, a door that read OFFICE , and a door that read GAbrIEL MOREAU . On the left, there was the kitchen, a stock room, and an emergency exit.
The sounds of Smokey’s faded a little more in here but were replaced with the sounds of dishes haphazardly being thrown around in a sink and the idle chat of someone on the phone behind the door of Xavi’s father’s room.
“Where do we go?” I asked, peering around the corner into the coat room just to check.
But Xav was already moving, his knuckles rapping against his father’s door before turning the handle and pushing it open. Gabriel turned in his chair at the intrusion, his mostly grey brows knitting together before raising in surprise. “Hey, kid. Good game earlier! I’m on a call, though?—”
Xavi grinned at him. “Thanks, Dad, but did you hear a couple of people come through the hall?”
“Sorry, one second,” Gabriel said down the phone, bringing the old, corded thing down to his lap and covering the receiver with his palm. “I did, yeah, why? Should I be concerned? Oh, hey Cole.”
“Hey, Gabby,” I grunted, giving him a two-finger wave. “No need to be concerned, just trying to work out where they went.”
“I heard the exit open twice, just thought someone was doing a trash run. You could check there?” he offered, lifting on shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “Shitty penalty you got earlier, by the way. Did the ref just not see Parker trip you up?”
“ Thank you, I was saying the same thing! It was completely unfair.”
“Oh my god, shut up about the penalty,” Xav groaned, pushing his hand through his hair dramatically. “Come on. Thanks, Dad.”
“Uh… no problem, kid.”
Just as Xavi shut the door on his father, a loud, muffled word cut through the exit door. Go .
“Shit, that sounds like Colton,” I grunted, pushing past Xav and shoving into the bar handle on the door, throwing it open a little too aggressively and almost tumbling out in the alleyway. Xav jogged out right behind me.
There, not a foot from us both, stood Elliot, his hands clenched into fists and his body tense, his eyes trained on Cole. It took me more than a second to realize there was a second set of legs behind Cole’s.
Annie. So dwarfed by him that I could hardly tell she was even there at all.
“Can you not fucking hear me, Elliot?” Colton barked, his jacket tightening around his shoulders. His voice was sharp, cutting through the relative quiet like a gunshot. My muscles tensed instinctively, and beside me, Xavi stilled, his eyes going wide. We weren’t stupid. We knew Colton, knew how rarely there was ever an edge to his voice off the ice.
Something had happened here, and I wasn’t about to take anyone’s side but Colton’s.
Elliot didn’t move, but I could hear the quickness in his breath. As much as he didn’t want to show it, he was afraid — and that definitely wouldn’t improve once he realized who, exactly, had walked out that door.
I glanced at Xavi, nodding once tightly toward Colton, and we moved without a word in unison. We flanked him, stepping forward and taking up space on either side of Colton like it was second nature, Xavi stopping a little bit closer to Elliot than I was. I turned my head, looking down at where Annie stood behind Colton, her hand clutched onto the back of his jacket as if she could somehow stop him if he decided to lunge — but it was the look of awe and surprise that she gave me that had something stupid in my chest tightening.
I forced myself to shift my gaze back to Elliot.
For a second, he didn’t move. He looked between the three of us, his mouth opening and closing like a goddamn fish, but didn’t say a word, just took in the scene in front of him.
Three hockey players.
Tall, muscular, and used to getting our hands dirty when shit got real.
Granted, that was on the ice, but the guy was a fan.
He’d seen what we were capable of.
And we were blocking him out.
He swallowed, taking a slightly misguided step back, nearly twisting his ankle on a manhole covering. “She’ll have to hear me out eventually,” he snapped, but he was receding, giving up before it could turn into anything worse.
His lips pressed into a tight line before he spun, walking off, his figure slowly lighting up little by little as he walked toward the glowing neon sign at the mouth of the alleyway. None of us moved until he turned the corner, disappearing entirely.
My gaze drifted back down toward Annie, but Xavi already had her, his hands on either side of her cheeks, his body bent down to look her in the eyes as he mumbled something to her almost inaudible to me. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him, one hand shaking slightly at her side and the other still clutched onto the back of Colton’s jacket with an almost immovable grip.
Xavi was good at this. Always had been. He could talk almost anyone down, could protect and help people he cared about. Colton struggled with the patience of it, and I… I just didn’t have it in me to pick my words carefully, especially when I didn’t speak nearly as much as those two. But I almost found myself wanting to when she looked that rattled.
I barely knew her. But the way my chest had tightened seconds ago, the way it was tight as shit now , the way I wanted to tear apart whatever had made her look like that… that scared the hell out of me.
I swallowed, glancing at Colton instead.
He wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was locked on the ground, his jaw tight, his hands shoved in the pockets of the jacket Annie clutched. He was quieter than I’d ever seen him, his cocky, upbeat energy drained away, like something in him had cracked just a little. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was from the altercation or the way Xavi was holding Annie.
My jaw tensed as I looked between the three of them.
This was going to be a problem.