Hunter
twenty-nine
“CRUISE! In my office. Now.”
It’s rarely good when Coach wants to see anyone in his office.
Jamie and Ryder give me quizzical looks following Coach’s summons.
I shrug and tell them I’ll meet up with them later.
We’re just out of practice, hair still wet from the shower.
I’m starving and wish I could be going to get a bite with them, but that’ll have to wait.
I brace myself as I head into Coach’s office. He’s sitting at his desk, glaring down at the university paper. He tosses it toward me after telling me to take a seat.
“What the hell is this about?” he barks.
I glance down at the paper, no idea what he’s talking about. But there’s a highlighted passage in the gossip section and I quickly scan it. My stomach drops. What the fuck is this shit?
“Is that about you?” Coach asks, tapping the highlighted paragraph. “And don’t even think about lying to me.”
I shake my head. I will deny till I die. Half the garbage in the gossip section is never true, so what if this particular one is? I’m not about to blow up my life by admitting to it.
“It’s not about me, Coach,” I say as calmly as I can. “Half the stuff they print is just BS anyway.”
Coach leans back in his chair. “I didn’t think so,” he says, resting his hands on his belly. “It doesn’t even make any sense.”
I nod. “Right,” I scoff. “Why would I ever have to pay someone?”
He grins, then scowls. “I don’t like it, even if it’s just a dumb rumor. I’m going to have a talk with the editor. They shouldn’t be allowed to publish drivel like this.”
I nod again. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Alright, get outta here.”
As soon as I’m back in the hallway, with Coach’s office door shut behind me, I release a long exhale.
Jesus Christ. That’s the last thing I expected today.
My brain is whirring, trying to figure out how anyone on the paper would know anything about Stevie and me.
I haven’t told a soul about our arrangement. I doubt she has either.
I fish my phone out of my pocket, about to text her, but she’s already texted me a few times.
Stevie
Did you see the paper?
Are you on campus?
Where are you?
HELLO?!
Fuck.
Why do I have a really, really bad feeling about this?
I reply that I’ll be home in 15 minutes if she wants to meet me there, because, yeah, I’m pretty sure we need to talk. Even though I have classes all afternoon, I blow them off. There’s no way I can sit in class and concentrate on anything anyway.
Dread grows in my stomach with every minute of the drive to my penthouse.
As soon as I get home, I grab a bottle of water and down it. Running a hand through my hair, I sit down on the couch and look through the notifications on my phone. There’s some messages from Jamie and Ryder in our group chat, but I don’t want to read them right now.
I get up and pace to my bedroom, then pace back to the living room. I open the university paper website on my phone and read the paragraph about me and Stevie again. The invasion of privacy is nauseating. I can’t figure out how anybody could’ve found out about it. And that pisses me off the most.
I’m only home five minutes when there’s furious pounding on the front door. I open it and Stevie barrels in like a tornado, walking past me and whirling around with an accusing finger pointed at me.
“Who did you tell?” she yells.
I take a deep breath. “I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
“Yes, you did! It was you! You and your stupid hockey friends and your locker room talk and your bragging and, and, and…” She bursts into tears. “I hate you!”
“Baby, calm down.”
“Don’t call me baby! I’m not your baby!” She swipes at her tears angrily, then looks around the room like she’s trying to find something to throw. At me.
I walk toward her carefully. “Can we please sit down and talk about this?”
“I never, ever, ever want to see you again. I hate you. You’ve ruined everything. This is all your fault.”
I raise my hands in a placating gesture. “Yes, it is. And I’m going to fix it, alright? Please just trust me.”
She shakes her head and backs away from me. “Don’t. Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me.”
“Baby—”
“Don’t call me that. I can’t believe I ever trusted you.
I can’t believe I ever had sex with you.
I can’t believe…” She takes a deep breath as another sob racks through her.
Fuck. I want to hold her so badly. I want to wipe every last tear away and I want to do everything in my power to make sure she never cries again. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.
“Let’s talk about this,” I try again. “Please. I don’t know how that shit ended up in the fucking paper, but it wasn’t me. I swear to god. I swear on my mother.”
She looks at me in surprise at that last sentence, then quickly looks away.
“I’m leaving,” she says, sniffling and looking so devastated it nearly brings me to my knees. “Please don’t come after me.”
Before I can say anything, she’s gone, and I’m sitting on the couch with my head in my hands.
Utterly fucking defeated. I smack myself on the face a few times, then rub my eyes and sigh.
I want to kick my own ass for making Stevie cry.
She doesn’t believe me, and I had nothing to do with it, but it doesn’t matter, because making her happy and taking care of her have become as important to me as breathing.
I don’t even know when this happened, but she crawled inside my fucking soul at some point and I never want her to leave.
I grab my phone and finally check the group chat with Jamie and Ryder.
Jamie
Um, are you in the gossip section of the paper?
Ryder
What the fuck did I just read?
Jamie
Do I need to find the editor of the paper and knock some sense into him?
Ryder
I volunteer my knocking-out services.
I close out of the messages app, then reopen it almost immediately. Jamie’s text spurs me to get off my ass and actually try to do something about this whole fucking mess.
Me
Meet me at the hockey house in 20
Jamie
Roger
Ryder
Aye aye, captain
THE HOCKEY HOUSE is an old, red brick building on campus where we lived freshman, sophomore, and junior years.
A lot of the other players on the team still live there.
It’s kind of like a frat house. Sometimes I miss it and the shenanigans we used to get up to, but I like having my privacy too much to ever live there again.
Jamie and Ryder are standing in front of the red door when I walk up.
“What’s the plan?” Jamie asks immediately.
Ryder cracks his knuckles. “Want me to kill someone? Just say the word.”
“I need to talk to the editor of the paper. Now.”
Jamie nods. Ryder grins.
“I have a thing with one of the reporters,” Ryder says. “I’ll text her. She’ll tell me where to find him.”
“Thanks.”
Ryder steps aside to send the message as Jamie looks me in the eyes. “You alright?” he asks.
“Fine.” I crack my neck and look up at the house. “Remember all the crazy shit that happened here?”
He smiles. “Not really. I was drunk most of the time.”
I smile back. “I remember.”
“Perks of never drinking alcohol.”
Ryder turns back toward us. “She says he’s in the library.”
“Let’s go.” I start walking across campus with my two friends in tow.
They didn’t bring up the rumor, which I’m grateful for.
Knowing them, they’ll never mention it again.
I can’t wait till the whole thing blows over and there’s a juicier rumor to take its place, but I know it’ll be a hot topic for a while.
I just need to know exactly how it got in the paper, and I need to make sure the editor never prints anything about it again.
We walk into the library like we own the place.
It’s a huge building, but Ryder’s lady friend said we’ll find the editor, Wyatt, on the third floor, in one of the study rooms students are able to reserve.
I might need Jamie and Ryder to keep me from killing this dude.
“That’s him,” Ryder says, pointing. The study rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows and you can see inside them easily. Wyatt is hunched over his laptop, glasses on his face, wearing a light gray sweater. Typical nerdy looking guy. He’s not gonna know what hit him.
Ryder walks toward the study room ahead of me and flings the door open. It slams against the wall and Wyatt jumps up. “What the fuck?”
“Hi,” I say. “Wyatt, right? You’re the editor of the Concord Courant?”
His eyes widen and he swallows. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Ryder closes the study room door and stands in front of it with his arms folded. Jamie stands beside him. I know the three of us together look formidable as fuck.
“Interesting paragraph in the gossip section today.” I pull up a chair and flip it, sitting on it backwards. I rest my arms over the back of it.
“Which one?” Wyatt asks, pushing his glasses up. “There were several paragraphs.”
“I think you know which one I’m talking about.”
“Don’t act dumb, asshole,” Ryder says from behind me.
“What do you want?” Wyatt asks.
I tap my fingers on the table. “Where’d you get the tip?”
“I don’t reveal my sources.”
I roll my eyes. Behind me, Jamie snickers.
“Dude, this isn’t the fucking New York Times,” Ryder interjects. “Get over yourself.”
“Tell me, or I’m gonna make you fucking sorry,” I say, staring him down.
He shifts in his seat. “You can’t threaten me.”
“Are you gonna run and tell mommy?” Ryder says.
A blush creeps up Wyatt’s neck. “You can’t just come in here and try to intimidate me. I don’t care if you’re on the stupid hockey team.”
“And you can’t fucking print whatever you want about people and ruin their reputations, asshole,” I say through gritted teeth.
It’s taking all my willpower not to slam his head into the fucking table.
I keep seeing Stevie’s tearstained face in front of me and it’s making me homicidal.
I reach out and grab Wyatt by the collar of his sweater and pull him across the table.
He gulps. “Tell me where you got the tip or I’m knocking all your teeth out. ”
“It was fucking anonymous!” he says, face getting red.
“Don’t raise your voice at me.”
He has the grace to look ashamed for a second. “We have a section on the website where people can write in. People send in tips all the time.”
I release him and he flops back down into his seat, adjusting the collar of his sweater.
“Do you log the IP addresses of the senders?” Jamie asks.
Wyatt looks at him warily. “Y-yes.”
“Great,” Jamie says. “So you’ll give my friend the IP address of whoever sent the tip.”
Wyatt glares at us. “I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will,” I say. “I’ll give you until the end of the day.” I get up and push the chair back. “Don’t disappoint me, Wyatt.”
He looks back at his laptop screen, brow furrowed, but I can tell he’s gonna break.
We leave the library. My nerves are shot, but I’m glad I could get some of my frustration out by confronting that moron. I’m desperate to talk to Stevie, but I’m guessing she could use some space right now. I’ll text her tomorrow and hope she’ll hear me out.
I don’t know what else to do.