Chapter Seven
CADEN
I couldn’t sit still.
After the meeting, reality came crashing down.
Jordan wasn’t messing with our heads. He and the team were clear on their boundaries.
Part of me wanted to respect it. Another part was too spiteful to let me feel anything but resentment.
I had recognized this negative streak in myself right away and decided that the wisest thing to do was to go away for an hour or two.
I needed to clear my head before I said anything I might regret.
So, I went off campus to the first bar I found a few streets away. The hustle and bustle of the city meant patrons were sitting at the bar at all hours. They were of all ages and backgrounds. And they had no idea who I was or what burdens I carried. It was the perfect hiding place.
But a couple of beers later, I knew I needed to return.
The thing was, I could no more sit idly in a bar than I could in my own room.
I needed to walk and think and decide. They had at least given me the option to choose for myself.
That was how Jordan had framed it, at least. If we wanted to, we could bow out.
I wondered what the plan was if I tried to reconcile and Beckett refused.
Would I still have to leave? If that was the case, I only had the two of us to blame.
“What a shitshow,” I muttered as I walked down the street toward campus.
Even when I got to the house, I wasn’t tired enough to lie down.
Instead, I kept myself as busy as I could.
Reading the notes from the opening lectures failed to keep me occupied, so I decided to blast some music and tidy up my room.
Afterward, I showered, put on my boxers and shorts, and paced my room from wall to wall.
My hair dried slowly. The thick, dark locks rising, arching over my brow, and falling over my eye.
It was already close to two in the morning when my stomach growled, so I decided to go downstairs and prepare a snack.
It was possibly the worst mistake ever. The house was deathly quiet.
Downstairs, only the tiny lights built into the underside of the kitchen cabinets showed me the way.
The living room area beyond the kitchen island was utterly dark.
So when I flicked the light switch in the kitchen on, a dim yellow glow spilled over to the whole room, and there I saw him.
Sitting in an armchair like a gigantic sulk, Beckett lifted his thousand-mile gaze to meet my face.
And though I wore shorts, I felt naked when he scanned my bare torso.
My instinct was to slouch and make myself seem smaller, but I resisted.
When Beckett was looking, I stood tall. When Beckett was around to witness it, I was calm and composed. I wouldn’t reveal my weaknesses to him.
Our gazes locked. I stood still, practically midstride, and stared back at the question in his eyes. My chest rose and fell as I crossed my arms. Beckett looked from me to the fridge. “Don’t let me intrude,” he said darkly.
I nodded. “Don’t let me disturb you,” I replied.
But intrude, he did. Just as I turned away from him to browse through the contents of the fridge, Beckett spoke. “You must be so happy.”
I held the fridge door ajar, cool air washing over my bare skin until it prickled. I grabbed some sliced cheese and tossed it on the counter, still facing away from Beckett. “Why on Earth would I be happy?”
The sound of Beckett getting out of the chair raised my hackles.
I methodically spread bread slices across the counter and tossed cheese on them, pretending I had no interest in his answer.
But he managed to surprise me. “Why not? I don’t think there’s ever been a shorter captaincy in the history of this team.
You’ve basically toppled me in a month.”
The annoyance I felt at this was enough to spin me around before I could stop myself. I glared at him. “This was never about you, Partridge.”
“Right,” he said skeptically.
I pressed my palms against the island’s marble countertop. “You should get one thing straight. The fact that, of all people, it’s you who was named is only mildly annoying. The real problem is about what was taken away from me.”
He didn’t smirk. In fact, there was nothing obnoxiously superior about him tonight. He seemed hollow and distant. Darkness shrouded him. “It was never yours, Jones. It’s time you stopped living in the Land of Pretend.”
“Don’t be stupid, Partridge. Coach Murray has been naming assistant captains for the job since he started coaching.
The only times he’s ever named someone else was when the assistants graduated the same year as their captains.
And even then, the previous one suggested the new captains.
” It had always been about team unity and dynamics.
There had always been enough trust in the captain’s judgment that Coach Murray saw no reason to defy the tradition.
Beckett shook his head slowly. “What does it matter? We’re getting kicked off.”
My heart sank. He had made up his mind, then.
Very well. I was a big boy. I could take it.
If Beckett saw no way forward, and I wasn’t sure, then we might as well accept our fate.
I set the pan on the induction cooker, sprayed the surface with oil, and then held my hand over it to feel the rising heat.
My back was turned to Beckett again, but he wasn’t moving anywhere.
I could feel the weight of his gaze on my bare back.
“Unless…” He let that tiny word dangle unfinished.
I sighed. “Unless we’re the best of friends until our dying days.”
“Or graduation,” Beckett suggested.
“Small difference,” I muttered. It would still feel like a lifetime of having to be nice to him.
I tossed a couple of sandwiches on the hot oil and picked up the spatula. Beckett sighed over the soft sizzle from my pan. “They really are a team; I’ll give them that.”
I said nothing for some time. My sandwiches were browning on one side while the silence lasted. The team had tossed me in the same bin as Beckett. It was a very strange place to be. “They’re doing what they think is right,” I mused.
Beckett nodded when I glanced at him over my shoulder. “You have to admire the balls on them. We’re the best they’ve got now that Riley and Cameron are gone.”
The space between my eyebrows wrinkled and I directed my attention at the sandwiches. I flipped them one after the other. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to say to this. Beckett Partridge had just called me one of the best. I knew I was, but I hadn’t expected to hear the words from his pouty lips.
Another oddity of the night was the abrupt sense of kinship. By our own actions, we stood against our brothers on the ice. I’d never imagined having something in common with a person as privileged and as spoiled as Beckett.
“It’s a big loss for the Titans,” Beckett said as I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and turned to face him, my sandwiches almost done.
My gaze was piercing and determined. “What are you saying?” I asked bluntly.
He exhaled. “Finesse, Caden, is the cornerstone of diplomacy.”
“I’m not a diplomat. I’m a winger.” I crossed my arms on my chest, constantly feeling too exposed when he scanned me. His eyes searched for something on my face, but they didn’t mind looking for it in the ridges of my six-pack. Although, I might have been imagining that.
He glossed over my body and looked into my eyes again. “Very well.” He inhaled through his teeth, his eyes hardening. “While I respect them for taking a stand, I’m not too fond of getting kicked off the team when it’s my ticket to the NHL. And I’m sure you would agree.”
I tilted my head left and right, leaving my answer unvoiced.
“Don’t lie to me, Jones. You wouldn’t be this bummed if it didn’t matter.
You want to stay on this team as much as I do.
Hell, you want to be the captain as much as I do, but that’s just not gonna happen.
So, here’s how things stand: we can let the bastards kick us out, or we can… razzle-dazzle them.”
My expression remained unchanged, but my brain worked faster. For one thing, I could smell the bread starting to burn. I turned away from the flamboyant wave of Beckett’s jazz hands without acknowledging it, to get my sandwiches off the pan and onto a plate.
“How exactly would you do that?” I asked coolly.
“We, Caden. This isn’t a one-man job. If you want to stay on the team as much as I think you do, you’ll have to play along.
” He waited until I finished cutting the two sandwiches in half.
The melted cheese poured out of the four triangles on my plate.
I looked up to find him examining my snack, his lower lip between his teeth.
He composed himself after a moment, then continued.
“As far as I’m concerned, you can hate me inside out all you want.
In private. And I promise you, your feelings for me will always be reciprocated twice as hard.
But when others are around, we’re going to be sweeter than honey.
Make me a goddamn friendship bracelet and we’ll eat fucking ice cream on a Ferris wheel.
Whatever. Just make them think we’re good. ”
I mulled over his words while anticipation rose in his brown eyes.
When he blinked, his ridiculously long eyelashes distracted me from my thoughts.
He must have been nervous. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and chewed mercilessly the longer my silence continued.
In many ways, letting him stew in his anxiety gave me infinite satisfaction.