Blake
I look up and see Briar sitting on the edge of my bed, staring wide-eyed at her phone.
I close my laptop, stand up from my desk, and step over to her.
My eyes bug out of my head when I see the photo. “What the…”
My jaw drops at the image Nick posted on his social media.
It’s a photo of him, shirtless, wearing a scary mask similar to the one I wear when I post on my sexy Instagram account.
“What the hell?”
“Read the caption,” Briar says.
I hear you like shirtless hockey guys who wear scary masks ;)
I frown at the caption and the image. What is he doing? Wait, is he starting a sexy account too?
A second later, a text flashes on Briar’s screen. She reads it. She gasps. “No way.”
She taps her screen, then gasps again. This time, she’s smiling, though.
She turns her phone screen to me. “Look.”
She shows me Leo’s latest post on Instagram. It’s a photo of him, shirtless, wearing a scary mask.
I stare, stunned. What the hell is going on?
I read the caption.
Nothing wrong with flaunting it if you’ve got it, right? ;)
My head spins. This is so unlike Leo to post something like this on social media.
“Travis posted on his Instagram too,” Briar says, tapping her finger on her phone screen.
“What?” I’m almost shouting. No fucking way.
But a second later, when I see the photo, I’m speechless.
Just like Nick and Leo, he’s wearing a scary mask with no shirt on. He didn’t bother to write a caption though. He just put a flame emoji and a thumbs-up emoji.
I stand there staring at the phone screen, my mouth hanging open, confused and blown away.
“What are they doing?” I say.
Briar grabs my arm, smiling. “Don’t you see? They did this for you, Blake. To support you.”
A long moment later, my brain puts it all together. Oh, shit. She’s right.
I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I gotta find them.”
I dart out of my bedroom. I head to Leo’s room, but he’s not there.
I hear people talking downstairs, so I race down there. Nick, Leo, and Travis are all sitting in the living room looking down at their phones.
They look up at me. Nick smiles. “Have you seen our latest posts on social media?”
“Yeah, I…” I’m too overwhelmed to speak. I think about what they just did for me. How they put themselves on the line. For me.
I tug both hands through my hair. “I can’t believe you guys did that.” I shake my head. “Aren’t you worried you’ll get in trouble with the team?”
They all shrug.
“If we get in trouble, it’ll be worth it,” Leo says, like it’s no big deal.
I stare at him, stunned at how unbothered he is right now.
“What if Coach benches you guys?” I ask.
Nick shrugs. “It’s fine. I’ve been benched before for worse stuff. Remember when I stole his car during that prank for homecoming week sophomore year? No way he’d be as pissed as he was for that.”
I stand there and look at them. Quiet understanding washes over me.
“You guys did this for me,” I say, my voice quiet. I’m still in disbelief.
They did something that they knew would piss our coach off to stand up for me. They put their standing on the team in jeopardy for me.
Nick stands up and claps my shoulder. “Remember how you stood up to Coach when I got suspended for running into the stands in the middle of a game to defend Poppy against her ex?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah, of course. That’s different though. You were defending your girlfriend against an attacker. No way would I stand by and let you get punished for that.”
“Remember how you posted on your social media, defending me when that fight with my dad went viral?” Travis says.
I nod at him. Travis is a grumpy guy who can be pretty quiet. Not a lot fazes him, but I remember how distraught he was when that happened. I remember all the shitty comments that people posted about him when they didn’t even know the whole story about him.
They didn’t know that his dad had abandoned his sick mom when Travis was a teenager, and only tried to slide back into his life when he got drafted into the pros.
His dad was the one who started that fight in the first place.
He ambushed Travis, and when Travis tried to walk away, his dad grabbed him.
Travis was just defending himself. He didn’t deserve the shit people were posting about him, so of course I stood up for him. He’s my teammate. And my friend.
“You went out of your way to defend me. You didn’t have to, but you did,” Travis says. “You think I wouldn’t do the same for you?”
“It’s not cool how Coach is threatening to punish you because of something you do in your personal life that has nothing to do with the team,” Leo says. “That’s messed up. It’s also kind of sex shaming, which I don’t stand for.”
I sit down on the couch next to Leo, my head spinning as I take in everything they’ve said—as I realize just how much my friends and teammates care about me.
Emotion grabs hold of me, and my chest goes tight. I always knew they had my back. But I didn’t think they’d go this far for me.
“If Coach wants to kick you off the team for being a thirst trap, then he’s gonna have to kick all of us off the team too,” Nick says.
I spend the next few seconds trying and failing to find the right words. I look at them. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” I huff out a breath. “That doesn’t seem like enough.”
“It’s okay. We’re all good,” Travis says. They all nod along.
I swallow through the tightness in my throat. These guys have been my best friends for the past four years. We’ve played alongside each other. We live together. We may not talk about our feelings often, but I guess this is a different way of standing up for each other.
When shit gets tough, they show up, no questions asked, no matter what.
I clear my throat. “Thank you,” I say again. I check the time. “I should probably leave to meet Coach Sawyer soon.”
“Want us to come with you?” Nick asks.
I shake my head. “You guys have done enough for me. I’ve got it from here.”