23. Colton
Chapter 23
Colton
T he showers hissed behind me, the hot water rolling off my skin like it was trying to burn the frustration out. But it didn’t work. I could’ve stood under it for an hour and still felt the weight of that loss like a boot on my chest.
Xavi paced right outside of the showers, the steam wrapping around him like fog, a towel hanging low on his waist and his hair still dripping down his cheeks. Colton leaned against the opposite wall, already half-dressed with his towel slung over his shoulder. The rest of the guys had already left, and I knew we should have left sooner, gone back to the hotel, and not kept Annie waiting. But the tension and frustration were too heavy for us to be near her right now.
We needed to calm ourselves down before that.
“Ref blowing that icing call in the third fucked us,” Xavi muttered, his voice low but cutting. “We could’ve tied it.”
“ You could have tied it,” Cole said, tracking him with his eyes as Xavi paced in front of him. “You were in the crease with ten seconds on the clock.”
Xavi snorted, but it wasn’t humorous. “Hilarious.”
“I’m serious.”
I turned, dragging a hair through my wet hair, not giving two shits about being nude. “Can we not? The last thing I want to do right now is stand here and relive that mess. It’s over, we can pick each other to pieces over it tomorrow.”
“So what do you suggest we do, then?” Xavi paused mid-step to look at me, his nostrils flaring. “Because I don’t want to go back to the room feeling like this.”
“Neither do I. But reliving it and kicking ourselves for our fuck-ups isn’t going to help right now,” I grunted, flicking off the shower and grabbing for a towel.
“Well it’s not like we can blow off steam the way we normally would,” Cole said, his voice steady as he crossed his arms over his chest. “We need an alternative to getting roaringly drunk at an after-party.”
Xavi’s jaw steeled, working as he turned to Cole. “You know they’re going to notice at some point, right?”
“Notice what?” I asked.
“That we’re not going out anymore. That we’re just going back to our room after each game.” Xavi looked between the two of us as if it was obvious. “She’s going to get spotted at some point. It’s a miracle no one’s questioned anything with this yet.”
Cole’s throat worked on a swallow. “I heard Seb say that he thought he saw one of the Smokey’s girls in the lobby in LA,” he said quietly.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Cole sucked his teeth for a second, his eyes trained on the floor. “I don’t usually go to the after-parties?—”
“No.” The single word cut through the air from Xavi’s mouth like lightning.
“I’m just saying, if you two went, it would save face a little?—”
“Fuck that. No. Nope. Not a chance in hell, Cole, you know why?” Xavi snapped, turning on his heel to stare him down. “Because I’ve barely gotten a moment alone with her in the last five days. I haven’t gotten a night with her alone, she hasn’t left the suites with me, she hasn’t had more than five minutes with me without you two around. And you want me to go off to a party ? You want me to give up more time and let you take it?”
I blinked at them, wondering if I needed to step in. He wasn’t necessarily wrong. She’d either slept in bed with me or Cole or a combination of two or more of us the last few days, and we hadn’t really had much spare time to give to her with two days of practice and then three games in a row. And the moments we’d had… yeah, I’d stolen them or Cole had.
Shit.
“Xav,” I said hesitantly.
He spun on a dime, stalking toward me in the showers, his flip-flops kicking up water. “Don’t. Don’t . You’ve been half the problem here.”
“I know,” I swallowed, raising my hands in surrender. “I know. Calm down.”
“ Calm down ? Fuck off, Colton, you’d feel exactly the same in my position,” he hissed, crowding me, his slightly shorter frame meaning absolutely nothing when he was like this. Xavi could pack a punch, I’d felt it a handful of times, and I really didn’t want to be on the receiving end tonight.
“Xav, come on,” I said, backing myself up to the wall, trying to keep my voice level. “You’re acting like we’re trying to pull her away from you forever. She’s not some trophy, man, it’s just been a couple of days.”
I shot a quick glance over my shoulder at Cole, watching as he took a few steps toward us, his eye twitching. He really didn’t want to have to break this up, I could tell, but he was always the one who needed to if it got too much.
“I get it,” I said to Xavi, my voice a little softer. “I’d be upset, too, you’re right. Cole and I can go out for a drink or something and let you have some time with her tonight. Just don’t punch me in the face, Xav, I’m really not in the mood to nurse a black eye.”
Xavi’s eyes flashed, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “Don’t act like you understand. You don’t know what it’s like to actually give a shit about someone and have to sit there and watch them slip through your fingers?—”
Cole moved at the same time as me.
Everything was a blur. My mask slipped, my body surged forward, my towel dropped to the floor. “ Fuck you,” I snarled, my hands shoving hard against his shoulders. My pulse thundered in my ears as he stumbled back into Cole, Xavi’s eyes wide, and Cole quickly spun and put himself between us as he tried to stabilize Xavi.
“Colton.” Cole put a hand flat against my chest. “He wasn’t thinking.”
“I don’t give a shit if he wasn’t thinking. He can’t just say things like that and expect me to not fight back every time.” My nostrils flared as I looked at Xavi over Colton’s shoulder. “You know damn well that I know exactly what it’s like to care about someone and lose them. How fucking dare you insinuate that that’s anywhere close to what’s happening here.”
Xavi breathed heavily as his eyes went wide, realization clearly setting in. “Shit. Melody.”
At the mention of her name, images of that night flashed rapidly in my mind for the first time in months. The screech of the tires, the shattering of the windshield, the acrid smell of leaking gas, the splatter of blood across my shirt and shorts. Her scream, a sound that still occasionally haunted my dreams, mingling with the sickening crunch of metal and bones in the twisted wreckage that had been our parent’s car. The warm Florida rain in the dead of night, the sound of croaking frogs and twitching crickets, as I’d pulled myself from the wreckage and her arm had come out with me.
My breathing was too quick, too uncontrolled. I hardly ever let this bubble to the surface, suffocating it down with jokes and confidence, but it was out, now. Xavi had cracked it open.
“Deep breaths,” Cole murmured. “Breathe, Colton. You know he didn’t mean it like that.”
“I didn’t. Fuck, I’m sorry,” Xavi added. “I’m so sorry. Genuinely. I wasn’t thinking.”
I took a deep breath in, trying to steady myself, trying to bottle it all back up, neat and tidy, the way I’d always done, always had to do. “Yeah. You weren’t thinking.”
Cole swallowed, slowly lowering his hand from my chest once he’d decided I wasn’t going to hit Xavi. “You’re both right,” he said carefully, his eyes narrowing as my nostrils flared. “Xavi hasn’t gotten as much time with her the last few days. He deserves some. And you’re right for calling him on his words. But we’ve got to figure out something so none of this happens again.”
Xavi took another step back and pushed his fingers through his hair, looking away from me in what I imagined was either shame or irritation.
“This isn’t going to work if we’re getting jealous of one another. And it’s definitely not going to work if one or two of us are hogging Annie more than we should be,” Cole continued, nodding once to me. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to be really fucking careful for the next week and make sure she’s not spotted. We’re going to try to give each other equal time with her. But most importantly, you and I are going to go out for a drink, Colton, like you suggested.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Xavi protested, but his words were almost resigned.
“No, he needs to cool off before we go back to the room. It’s not just for your benefit, Xav,” Cole said.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“You’re not. And that’s okay.” Cole placed one hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Let’s get you dressed and then we can go play a few slots on the strip with a drink. All right?”
I held his gaze, trying to work out a way out of this, a way that didn’t end up with me outside of that hotel room. In honesty, I didn’t want to go for a drink, didn’t want to play slots, didn’t want to be anywhere else but the Bellagio. Didn’t want to be away from her.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “Fine.”
“Xavi, go back to the suite. Spend some time with Annie. Maybe try to figure out a way to keep her out of sight for the Seattle game.” Cole glanced over his shoulder at Xav. “But don’t?—”
The sound of flip-flops padding through the locker room made us all pause. Xavi moved first, eyes wide as he walked toward the shower entrance and peered around the corner. “Hey, Sergei,” he said, his voice a little hoarse.
Shit. How long had he been in the locker rooms? I could have sworn I’d checked to make sure everyone had left.
But more importantly, how much had he heard ?