Chapter 8
GRAYSON
My phone buzzed in my hand, tearing me away from thoughts of my past. I gritted my teeth as my gaze flicked down to the screen. Part of me was still expecting another threatening text from an unknown number, but everything had been quiet.
Too fucking quiet.
I exhaled, seeing Micah’s name appear, and my heart rate increased for a whole different reason. A reason I didn’t want to think about right now.
Micah:
Are you free yet? We’re at Ava’s house
Tuning back into the meeting, I noticed my teammates were still discussing the video footage we’d already spent thirty minutes picking apart. It didn’t look as if we’d be done anytime soon, and as the captain, I couldn’t duck out early.
Me:
Stuck in this fucking meeting
My fingers pounded out another message before I could think it through.
Me:
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the captain anymore
My eyes widened as I stared down at the message I’d written. Was that how I really felt?
Me:
Fuck. Forget I said that
I groaned, tipping my head back against the couch and rubbing at my brow.
“Gray? You okay?”
Rolling my head to face the Barracudas’ goalie, Smith, I jerked my head in acknowledgement.
Shit. What were we doing? Oh yeah. Our upcoming game.
I thought fast. “Yeah. Just thinking about the game. Levinsky’s good—one to watch, but he’s a fucking dirty player.
We should use that to our advantage. Get Miller on him, get him pissed off enough to lash out. ”
Smith held up his hand for a high five. “Fuck, yeah.” He raised his voice. “Hear that, Miller?”
We fell into a discussion about the best ways to piss Levinsky off, and for a while, it was all okay. Until my mind wandered again.
Ava, Cruz, and Micah were all together at Ava’s house.
And I…I was in a house full of people, and I’d never felt more alone.
All this shit that had been happening had made it feel like there was a wedge between the rest of my teammates and me.
It was a wedge none of them knew was there, but I did.
There was this huge fucking thing that had happened to me, and I couldn’t share it with any of them.
Fucking hell, my sexuality crisis over Micah was probably the least of my worries at this point.
Finally, after the longest two hours of my life, the meeting was over. I apologized to my teammates for being distracted, but they brushed it off, saying they hadn’t noticed anything. Maybe it was all in my head. Who fucking knew at this point? Everything was so messed up.
I trudged upstairs to my room, exhaling heavily as I opened the door.
“Hi.”
I stopped dead, staring at the person sitting at my desk. His lips tipped into a crooked grin as he took in my shock.
“Micah.” Closing the door behind me, I took a step closer, blinking several times.
Yeah. He was still here. I wasn’t hallucinating.
“What the hell— How did you get in here? Why are you here? I thought you were with Ava and Martinez. Is everything okay? Shit, is Ava okay?” She hadn’t answered any of my recent calls or texts, and it had been playing on my mind.
I hoped that if anything had happened one of them would have contacted me, but it was yet another thing that had been fucking with my head.
His smile widened as I fired off questions at him, which made a tiny part of me relax. Rising from the chair, he closed the distance between us. When he reached me, though, his smile died away, the confidence disappearing from his expression as he lowered his gaze.
“Everyone’s okay. I didn’t know if you wanted me to come, but your text…”
Fuck. I groaned. “Ignore my messages. I wasn’t trying to say— I don’t even know what I meant. You should’ve stayed with Ava and Martinez.”
I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, lifting his gaze back to mine. “You should’ve been there with us,” he said softly.
“I couldn’t.”
“I know.” He bit down on his lip and then raised his hand.
It felt as if we both held our breaths, before he slid his palm across my shoulder and wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck.
“Come here,” he mumbled, tugging me closer.
My arms went around his waist instantly, and I lowered my head to his shoulder, breathing out properly for what felt like the first time all day.
Tightening my grip on him, I steered us over to my desk, pressing him back up against it. “I don’t want you to feel fucking responsible for me or something.”
“It’s not like that, okay? I care about you. We all do.”
Yeah…no. Not fucking likely. Ava…maybe she was starting to care, but it was doubtful that Cruz would give a shit one way or the other if I was around.
I didn’t like thinking this way. All this uncertainty and depressing thoughts.
It was weird. Wrong. I’d never cared about anyone enough to feel the hurt before…
or if I had, I’d been able to suppress it with hockey.
These three people had blown my defenses wide open, somehow, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to build them back up again.
“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered. “What happened at Ava’s, anyway?”
Micah inhaled sharply, and then he pushed at my chest, creating some space between us. His cheeks flushed as he tugged his lip between his teeth. “Uh…I think we had a threesome?”
Fucking hell, those words shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did. Maybe if I’d been secure in…in whatever the fuck this thing we had going on was, then I’d be okay with it. As it was, in my current fucked-up state of mind, it was yet another thing making me feel more alone.
Taking a step back from him, and then another, I fumbled for the door handle. Closing my fingers around it, I yanked my door open. “I think you should leave.”
There was a long pause, and then…
“No.” Micah folded his arms across his chest, staring me down.
“No?”
“You heard me. No.” He glared at me.
“Fuck you, Pierce.”
“You do not refer to me by my surname, Grayson fucking Cross,” he growled, and holy fuck, my dick seemed to love the way he was getting all riled up.
I stared, open-mouthed, as he stalked toward me, slammed my bedroom door shut so hard it vibrated, and then launched his body at mine, sending us both staggering into the wall.
I caught him, slanted my lips across his, and it was game fucking over.
My dick was in charge now.
“You really sucked Martinez’s dick?” I murmured as we curled up on my bed, wrung out after coming just from grinding up against each other like teenagers. Again.
“Yeah. And I got to taste Ava…she was so fucking sweet.” His eyes darkened, and I groaned. Thoughts of Cruz were enough to make my dick shrivel up and die, but as for Ava…that girl was an aphrodisiac. Way more than an aphrodisiac. A goddess, beautiful inside and out.
“Fuck…I wish I’d been there,” I said unthinkingly, then instantly wanted to take it back.
“I wish you had, too. It’s gonna happen.” He said it so confidently that my brows flew up, my head tilting toward his.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
Micah chuckled. “Wishful thinking? No, I think it will. Ava’s into you, I know it, and Cruz…uh.” He paused, and then we both laughed. “It’s not like the two of you have to do anything with each other.”
“Yeah. No worries about that. The day I do anything with Martinez is the day the polar caps melt, hell freezes over, and zombies take over the planet.”
Rolling over, he buried his face in my throat as he continued to laugh. “That’s specific.”
“Yeah? It—”
Buzz.
Buzz.
Our phones vibrated at the same time.
Unknown number…