BECKETT
Chapter Eighteen
Damn.
I stood in the hallway, my breath slowly leaving my shuddering lungs. I hadn’t seen that coming when I should have. Of course he wouldn’t be happy like this for long. It was obvious now that I thought about it.
The prospect of sneaking back into my room and staring at the ceiling until dawn hardly excited me. But the thought of going out in this cold and dreary weather seemed worse.
I only wanted to go back to his room. I only wanted to spend my nights there.
I couldn’t, though. Not anymore.
I realized I was clawing my own palms and biting my lip when white pain flashed in front of my eyes. I released my lip, but my fists didn’t relax. I returned to my room, where Jordan was still awake, lying on his back, scrolling through his phone.
“Back already?” he asked, barely lifting his gaze from the screen. I was grateful that his attention was elsewhere.
“Didn’t feel like going out after all,” I murmured and went straight into the bathroom.
I undressed and splashed water over my face, returned to the room, and slipped under the covers.
Jordan didn’t bother me. Nobody bothered me.
My aura was probably so dark and gloomy that he could feel how unapproachable I was.
I realized from the pain in my face how much my muscles were flexing.
My mouth dragged into an upturned horseshoe.
I was one ‘Are you okay?’ from ripping someone’s head off.
As I lay there, I saw the infinite possibilities before me.
One, shiny and crisp, played out before my eyes.
In it, I marched back to Caden’s room. “How dare you break it off with me?” I demanded.
“Nobody dumps me. I’m the one who does the dumping, asshole.
” In another, I pleaded, annoyed, and pestered him to keep things as they had been.
In yet another, I stormed into his room and challenged him harder to prove he couldn’t be with me.
But even as I fantasized about all the ways to fight him or fuck him or persuade him to hold me like he had for so many nights, I knew I couldn’t do anything.
His request was the simplest ever. He didn’t need to spell it out for me.
It was the bare minimum you expected of someone you dated. If we even dated.
We had never done it the right way around. We hadn’t gone out on dates or sought things we had in common. Instead, we found the one thing that made all the others work and we practiced the hell out of it.
But he left me with only one path forward. I wished I could blame him for that. I wished I could stand before him, tell him what an asshole he was, throw my pain in his face, and watch him regret his words. But he did nothing wrong.
Damn him. He did nothing wrong.
There was no freeing myself of Caden throughout the night.
I decided to be an adult about this. I lifted my chin and respected his wishes.
It was easy while Caden was away from me during the night and the implications were too abstract.
I couldn’t predict the gut punch of meeting his gaze in the morning, though.
I couldn’t prepare myself for how much it would hurt to see him and know he wasn’t mine.
And when it happened in the morning, in the kitchen with other guys around, my stomach roiled, and I pushed my breakfast away.
Murmurs about the anxiety over facing the Vikings in the afternoon rose around me, but I didn’t pay attention to them.
My trembling fingers curled and I stormed out of the house in only my sweatpants and T-shirt.
I told myself it was the biting cold that made my vision blurry, but I knew that no cold could streak my face with hot tears. The fucker hadn’t even done anything. He simply existed in my line of vision and I couldn’t stand to take another breath.
Some solace existed in the coffee place in the student center.
It was bustling with students at this early hour, so I had my coffee at one of the large shared tables.
I scanned the room for familiar faces and was relieved when I found none.
I wanted my solitude now more than ever, yet I had the biggest game of my captaincy this very afternoon. And my uncle was almost in Detroit.
I sat alone until I wanted to jump out of my skin. It felt like it was getting tighter by the minute. I was itchy, I was cold, I was hot, I was restless. I got up and left, walked it off, returned to the rather empty house, and I was still no closer to cooling my head.
He’d asked me to go away. He’d asked me to stop this fling. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but it bothered me more than I could describe. It wrecked me whenever I allowed the thoughts to trickle in through the cracks in the walls I had raised.
And when the time to go to the rink came, I felt like a ghost moving through a thick fog.
I wanted to remain in my bed and sulk it off.
But because I couldn’t, I wanted to find a reason to fight the man who had done this to me.
And not just for denying me the pleasures we shared, but for letting me taste the rich flavors of our passion and making everything else taste like ash in its place.
And all of that is your own fault, I reminded myself.
He had refused me. He had pushed me away.
He had tried his best not to give in. And I had tempted him until I had gotten him into my bed.
When we all gathered in the locker room before the game, Coach Murray came in to do a little speech of encouragement. I was thankful because I wasn’t capable of lifting anyone’s spirits, least of all my own.
Caden, tall, muscled, and darkly handsome like a fallen angel, stood at the furthest spot he could pick from me.
I wasn’t sure if it was by accident or design.
Either way, it annoyed me in the same way he had always annoyed me.
It was a tickle deep in my stomach. And when it flared through me, it was so much more than mere annoyance.
It had always been more, but I finally knew what it was.
Even when I hated him the most, he was the object of my desire, not just fascination.
And now, when I couldn’t bring myself to hate him, he was nothing other than the embodiment of all I wanted.
He glanced at me, then quickly away. His face was calm and still. So calm, in fact, that I was certain he hid his emotions under the surface. He was so damn skilled at that.
“Partridge,” Coach Murray said. I shook myself straight and realized he’d said my name before.
“Yes, Coach?” My eyes were still on Caden for a heartbeat longer, but he was acting as if I had never existed at all. I looked at Coach Murray then.
“Gear up and stop by my office,” he said.
I nodded.
My guts were too restless. All of me was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I inhaled a breath of air, but it wasn’t deep enough to satisfy my body’s rising need for oxygen.
Coach Murray left us to put our gear on.
I faced away from Caden and considered it both a blessing and a curse.
His body was my weakness, but I had learned a greater weakness, too.
I had learned how deeply I could connect my heart to his.
I had seen his soul bared and he had seen mine.
I had discovered that we could speak to one another and receive the understanding I had never found in another human being.
My Caden.
I wanted to see him alone before the game. He would understand my anxiety over it better than anyone. He could wave it all away with little more than a bat of his long, dark eyelashes.
I gritted my teeth, got ready, and left the locker room. My pace was savage as I marched down the corridor and stopped in front of Coach Murray’s office. The door was closed and there was soft laughter on the other side. He wasn’t alone, but I was invited.
I pushed Caden out of my mind and knocked.
The laughter continued a moment longer and then Coach Murray spoke. “Enter.”
I did.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected. In fact, I had no idea how I hadn’t expected this. But Coach Murray was leaning against the windowsill; arms crossed, mustache curved with smiling lips. The man in front of him turned with an expression of utter delight and my heart leaped.
“Uncle,” I gasped. I had been too busy licking my wounds to consider this.
I’d simply imagined spotting him in the crowd, probably wearing a hat and a pair of sunglasses.
But when he stood in front of me, a towering presence even if he was a mere two inches taller than me, my heart wanted to jump out of my chest.
“There’s my boy,” Uncle Nate said. He took two big paces toward me and his big arms wrapped suddenly around me, squeezing the air out. “Beck,” he said in a way of greeting.
When he released me, Coach tipped his head to one side. “I do believe there’s a few spare minutes.” He winked and walked out of the office.
I waited until the door shut before I catapulted the question. “You know Coach Murray?”
Uncle Nate pulled back a little. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head. It was paranoia, but it didn’t want to leave me. “How come you’re here?” I asked. My voice was not unkind.
Uncle Nate pulled a chair back and sat down. I did, too. “I drove in a rented car from the airport. I parked behind the rink. I found the way in through the back. The office is on the right side near the entrance, clearly marked as Coach Murray’s. What’s with the Spanish Inquisition, Beck?”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a heartbeat or two. “Nothing. Nothing.”
“Are you alright, Son?” Uncle Nate asked.
I needed a moment to get myself together. I shook my head. “Everything’s fine, Uncle. Sometimes, I get these crazy thoughts that bug me. I know it’s not true, but when others believe it so passionately, it’s hard to…” I shrugged.
Uncle Nate sat in silence for a few long moments. He inhaled, held his breath, and exhaled. “It’s the same old story.”