Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Rebel Arena, Freedom
D’Angelo
I’m in trouble. I don’t think that the others realize how much.
If Heine is involved, then I’m fucked.
I clench my jaw, striding faster along the corridor that leads through Rebel Arena toward the crisis meeting.
What type of crisis?
Is Felix panicking about the club’s finances again? Has Seal, our mascot, been filmed fucking somebody other than me in the locker room? Has the equipment manager run out of pucks?
Coach’s gruff voice still rings in my mind, demanding that I get my ass down to the arena, while my cock was still clenched by his daughter’s sweet pussy.
Freedom Mansion finally feels like a home now that Robyn and the twins are living in it.
Robyn’s pussy aways feels like home.
The last four months, as I’ve worked with Eden in secret on renovating the mansion, have healed the wound in me that was slashed through my heart when my parents had me kidnapped in the middle of the night out of my own bed and abandoned in a discipline school for troubled teens because I dared to kiss a boy.
The scar will always be there, but now, I can think about family without tasting blood in my mouth.
Without remembering the flat look on Mom’s face, as I screamed for her to save me — but she didn’t.
Without shaking because only months ago Dad rejected me all over again because I hadn’t changed.
I haven’t changed, and my new family don’t want me to. I have built this home for all of us.
I’m finally accepted.
Loved.
I will do anything to make my partners feel that love and acceptance just as deeply.
Except, is our forever home at risk because of me?
My breathing becomes shaky. My thoughts spiral. I tap out rhythms of three on my thigh.
Unexpectedly, Robyn stills my hand, before brushing it with the back of hers.
It’s as much public affection that we can dare, when other staff are already bustling around us.
The feel of her warm knuckles against mine, however, are enough to settle me.
Robyn is panting, struggling to walk fast enough to keep up with me.
“You’re not alone,” she whispers, looking up at me. The tightness in my chest lessens. “Although, could you slow down? My legs are shorter than yours, and you’re not wearing heels.”
Shay chuckles.
Coach prefers his players to attend meetings dressed in suits. He has always insisted that I be immaculate.
Shay, on the other hand, refuses to wear a suit. I admire that. Shay is stronger than I was at his age, despite him not being able to see it about himself. He is wearing a scarlet t-shirt, black leather jacket, and jeans.
I love the black jeans because they’re painted on and show off Shay’s tight ass.
Shay bumps his shoulder against mine. “For the sake of fairness, maybe you should be next time, darlin’. Sparkling stilettos would look amazing with those cufflinks.”
I arch my brow. “Are you sure that you want to keep poking the bear?”
“I like growly bears.”
Robyn bites her lip hard to stop herself laughing.
I glance between them, craving to kiss them both hard enough to bruise them and mark them as mine. They deserve a reward for their attempts to distract me from my anxiety.
On the other hand, I shouldn’t encourage a brat.
Instead, I simply walk faster. “Say that when one’s clawing your ass.”
“Promise?” Shay whispers.
I should have said eating his ass, but then, he loves that too.
Shay winks at Robyn.
He is good at relaxing her when she’s stressed. But sometimes, I wonder how much his acting represses his own worries.
“Don’t speak, unless coach asks you a question.” My words are clipped. I need to protect Shay. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
It will be hard.
Shay is the type to be in the spotlight, whether he wants to be or not. He shines as brightly as the sun.
Once I did as well.
I won’t allow coach and Heine to dim Shay’s light like they have mine.
To my surprise, Shay looks hurt. “Do you want me to stay outside in the corridor? It’s okay, I will. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and screw this up for you.” He glances at Robyn. “Is this a no comment situation?”
Robyn shoots me a frosty look; it’s enough to freeze my balls.
“It’s a we both volunteered to support our captain situation, which means that we’re going in with him.
I know that Dad is a ruthless hardass. Also, that we don’t know what we’re walking into.
But we’re facing it like we have everything else that we’ve overcome this season — together. ”
My beautiful, brave, but na?ve Robyn.
She doesn’t know everything about me. She barely understands her own Dad or brother.
I am going to introduce her soon to one of my favorite businesses and closest friends. Then I will see if she can accept my true dynamic and needs.
Yet right now, it feels incredible to have my two lovers fiercely on my side.
Shay smiles. “Hear that? We’re walking into the lion’s den with you.”
“Bears, lions…” I mutter. “You missed the most deadly predator of them all, the shark. Because Heine is in there too.”
I take a deep breath as I reach coach’s room.
This is it.
Out of habit, I smooth through my curls, flattening them. Then I adjust my cufflinks ritualistically three times.
No matter how hard I try, coach always says that I look a mess.
Shay rests his hand on my shoulder, and it steadies me.
Robyn leans forward before I can and firmly knocks.
I’ve suffered for coach. Dedicated my life to his team. Taken every hardass insult and still been devoted to him.
My therapist has helped me to see that the abuse in the discipline school conditioned me to appease both parental and authority figures.
Coach saw that need in me when I was a young, self-destructive player on my last chance.
He used it.
I know that now; it fucking hurts.
He won’t use me any longer.
More than that, I won’t let him use Shay or any of the other players.
I won’t let him hurt his own daughter.
“Get your ass in here, Jude,” Coach yells.
I wince.
Shay squeezes my shoulder.
“He’s not a morning person.” Robyn drops her hand to the door handle. “Actually, he’s not an afternoon, evening, or… Perhaps, he’s just not a people person.”
She shoves open the door and strolls into the room first before I can.
I’ve never had anyone in my life before Robyn who acts like my protector.
My sister, Maria, at least fought to get me out of the discipline school and then allowed me to crash on her couch afterward. Yet she’s much older than I am; we didn’t grow up together.
We exchange Christmas cards still, but outside that, we’re strangers.
I’ve always wondered how much Maria saving me from the school was more about her Catholic sense of duty and morality, rather than about me at all.
Maria never asked about what had happened to me in the school. She could barely meet my eye.
I felt like a burden.
I worked hard to earn the college scholarship and stop causing her trouble as soon as possible.
Robyn never acts like I’m a burden or trouble, however, even when I’m the one causing her headaches with PR disasters.
Instead, she truly protects me, as much as I protect her.
I swagger after Robyn into coach’s room. Shay follows me, swinging the door shut behind him.
Coach is leaning against the wall next to the window. The arctic blue drapes are open. Drizzle is tearing down the glass.
“You’re two minutes late.” Coach glares at his watch, as if he’s attempting to set it alight. “And you look a mess, Jude. You could at least have brushed your hair. Have you been drinking?”
“Sadly not,” I reply smoothly, despite my hammering heart. “Are you offering? This feels like it’ll be a whiskey neat type of meeting.”
“Cut the crap.” Coach’s lip curls. “You don’t need help getting drunk, and the last thing I need is for you to be suspended for drinking.”
I swallow the hurt. “It’s the weekend.”
“But you’re in the arena now. Did I say that you could bring reinforcements?” Coach scans across Robyn, narrowing his eyes when he notices what Shay is wearing.
Shay fidgets.
Coach is tall, although not as tall as I am, with a neat beard and twinkling, emerald eyes.
He has the same eyes as Robyn.
I wish that he didn’t remind me of her.
He is dressed in a sharp charcoal suit with a green shirt and tie. Beside coach, flatscreen monitors hang on the walls. He uses the monitors to watch back the games with me and the rest of the team, analyzing our plays, busting our balls for our mistakes, and making sure that we learn from them.
I can’t help that I still admire him for his hardass talent as a coach.
Glancing at Shay, who is keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the floor, I know that he can’t help still craving coach’s approval.
I throw myself down in the chair opposite the large, mahogany desk in the center of the room. “I told you that I wouldn’t be coming here alone.”
“Shut up, D’Angelo,” coach barks. “Don’t backtalk me this morning.
I know how lax the whole team has become with our temporary assistant coach, Bolling.
The pussy didn’t even make Atlas skate punishment laps or attend extra practice sessions for that stunt he pulled last week.
Don’t think that I haven’t been noting your bullshit. ”
“Like winning games?” Protectiveness surges through me for my teammates. “They’re motivated better with positive, rather than negative, reinforcement. Since Colton was fired, we’ve performed better as a team than we ever have.”
“It’s been brilliant.” Shay rocks on his heels, excitedly. “The team is on bloody fire. Atlas’ puck-handling is amazing. The man has lightning-fast reflexes. He is so bloody calm under pressure that it makes me look like—”
“You’re one spark away from exploding all the time?” Coach swaggers back around his desk. “Everybody looks calm next to you. Even I do.”
A laptop sits on the desk facing coach, which he switches on.
Shay deflates. “I’ll try harder, coach.”