37 - Grayson
Grayson
The assistant coach is still yelling when I sit down. He might’ve actually been yelling before I even got through the door.
I have no idea because his voice is bouncing off the locker room walls while I replay my conversation with Avery.
I just need a fucking minute.
The words loop through my head while I stare at the concrete floor.
She didn’t say this is over.
Or we’re done.
She said just a minute. So why does it feel like my entire heart has been ripped out of my chest?
“Are you even listening to me?” His voice cuts through the haze.
I blink. “What?”
His face twists with anger. “Jesus Christ, Shaw.” He throws both hands in the air. “You get ejected from the biggest game of the season, and you don’t have anything to say for yourself?”
I don’t answer.
What am I supposed to say?
Sorry, I punched a guy and blew up my entire secret relationship in front of thousands of people?
He shakes his head before muttering something under his breath and walking away.
The silence lasts maybe thirty seconds before the locker room doors open and the team files in. Every single one of my teammates looks miserable as they drop their sticks to the floor outside their lockers.
My stomach drops.
Caught up in myself, I’d forgotten there was still a game happening after they dragged me off the ice.
Nathan rips off his helmet and throws it into his stall, and Liam drops onto the bench with enough force to rattle it. Across the locker room, a few guys swear under their breath, and I hear my name right along with it. I can’t blame them for it. This is entirely my fault.
We lost.
The weight of my mistake bears down on me.
While I was standing in a hallway trying to fix things with Avery, my team was fighting for this season without me.
And they lost.
Now, we’ll be flying back to New York for Game Five.
I stare at the floor harder as if I could disappear right through it if I try hard enough.
Coach Rylan walks into the room last, and everyone falls completely silent.
My entire body braces for the explosion, but it doesn’t come. I look up to find Coach glancing around the room, looking exhausted. The silence stretches while I nearly crawl out of my skin from the disappointment radiating off of him.
“We leave tomorrow morning,” he finally says. “Get some rest.”
I exhale slowly.
Then his eyes land on me. “Grayson. Be in my office in five minutes.”
Fuck.
The room somehow gets even quieter, which shouldn’t be possible. Coach turns and walks toward his office without another word, the door slamming behind him.
No one moves until a trainer filters in, breaking the tension and giving small chatter permission to pick back up.
Nathan finally breaks. “What the hell happened out there?”
I close my eyes, running my hands down my face.
“Seriously.” Nathan throws his hands up. “We’ve played against Woods for years. He’s a dick, but he’s not that much of a dick.”
Liam nods in agreement. “What did he even say?”
I don’t answer because if I open my mouth right now, I’m not convinced I won’t punch another wall.
“Grayson?” Nathan lowers himself onto the bench next to me.
I ignore him.
Across the room, Wyatt is glaring at me. He’s not confused like Nathan, or frustrated like my other teammates. No, Wyatt is pissed. The kind of pissed you can really only ever be when someone you trust wholeheartedly lets you down.
Letting my teammates down feels like shit. But disappointing Wyatt, and letting him down, it’s worse.
“What?” Nathan looks between us, noticing the tension thick in the air.
Wyatt lets out a humorless laugh.
“What happened?” Liam cuts in.
I already know where this is going.
“Wyatt.” The warning falls sharp off my tongue.
His eyes snap to mine.
My jaw tightens. “No.”
“They deserve to know why you just risked our entire fucking season.”
The room shifts, and Nathan and Liam look back and forth between us, trying to figure out what the hell they’re missing.
“Stay out of it.”
“I would’ve loved to.” His voice rises. “Except, I literally told you before the third period to leave your personal shit off the ice.”
Nathan frowns. “What personal shit?”
“He’s been sleeping with Avery.”
The air leaves my lungs, while the space between us all falls completely silent.
Then Liam sits upright and nearly falls off the bench.
“You’ve been what?”
I stand so quickly my stall rattles. “Shut the fuck up, Wyatt.”
Nathan’s eyes widen, and so do Wyatt’s, because I almost never raise my voice, especially not at him. But I can’t bear to get the third fucking degree right now. Not when everything is up in the air, and I’m still bleeding.
“You and Avery?” Liam’s jaw is practically on the floor. “Avery and you?”
I’ve never lost my cool in front of my team. It’s why I’m a great captain. Except tonight, instead of just losing it on the ice, I’m going to lose it right here in the locker room, too.
But I’m too tired to care. Too angry at myself to stop.
Wyatt’s expression hardens. “If you didn’t want to hear about it, then you shouldn’t have fucking beat his face in.”
“Stay out of it.”
“You made it everyone’s problem when you put our season on the line.”
The words land exactly where they should: right in the gut.
Because he’s right, and everyone in here knows it.
I’m supposed to be the one they can count on to lead us to victory, but I failed them.
And I failed Avery.
All I did tonight was fucking fail.
I look away, shoulders slumping because I don’t want to fight with him. I don’t have it in me. “Well, none of it matters anymore anyway.”
“What does that mean?” Nathan asks.
I shrug, but it feels more like collapsing.
“Pretty sure I ruined things with Avery when I punched him.”
“Can we circle back to there being a ‘thing’ with Avery in the first place?” Liam interrupts, just to have Nathan smack him in the back of the head.
“It doesn’t matter. Because whatever ‘thing’ we had, I’m pretty sure just ended.” My voice cracks. “So there’s nothing to talk about.”
“Oh.” Nathan’s voice is softer.
Liam’s grin disappears.
And Wyatt’s face shifts from anger to honest concern, in the way only family would do.
“Grayson…”
I shake my head. “Don’t. Please just fucking don’t. I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy right now.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in, and the way they’re looking at me isn’t helping. When Avery stepped away from me in that hallway, something inside me started unraveling. I haven’t figured out how to stop it.
The office door opens, and Coach’s thundering voice echoes through the room.
“Shaw. Now.”
My legs feel heavier than they should as I cross the room. Everyone quiets down as I pass them because they know as well as I do that I’m a dead man walking.
Maybe the suspension will only be a game.
Maybe we’ll still win Game Five.
Maybe we’ll still make the Cup Final.
Maybe none of this would matter in a month.
But worrying about any of it feels hollow because everything stopped mattering the second Avery looked at me like it was over.
I step into Coach’s office to find him sitting patiently behind his desk. The tension in the room is suffocating as I slide into the chair across from him.
Finally, he exhales through his nose. “What happened?”
“I lost my temper.”
Coach waits, but nothing good comes from explaining. It doesn’t change anything. When it becomes clear I’m not going to elaborate, he leans back in his chair.
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
I know, but every answer just sounds like a shitty excuse.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Coach studies me. “Doesn’t matter?”
I shake my head. “No. I fucked up. I know that.”
My eyes finally stop scanning the room and land on his face, expecting to find anger. Instead, he looks genuinely concerned.
It pisses me off. I deserve his anger, not his concern. Not Wyatt’s sympathy. Not Nathan’s pity.
I deserve for everyone to be as angry with me as I am with myself.
“You have played over five hundred professional games.” He lets out a long breath.
“You’ve been Captain for years. And you’ve been ejected once.
So, forgive me if I’m having trouble believing that whatever the hell happened on my fucking ice was nothing.
That wasn’t just someone getting under your skin. ”
I swallow but stay silent. Eventually, Coach leans forward.
“Fine.” The disappointment in his voice hurts worse than Damon’s fists had. “If you won’t tell me what happened, then tell me this.”
I brace myself.
“Was it worth it?”
My stomach twists as Avery’s face flashes through my head. Her stepping backward, looking lost and completely unsure of me.
There are a thousand ways it was worth it and a thousand ways it wasn’t, but the only two that matter are my team and Avery’s opinion of me.
I shake the image from my head. “No.”
“That’s what I thought.” He grabs a folder from his desk. “The fight will be reviewed tonight. But based on what I saw? I’d be shocked if it’s less than three games.”
Part of me wants to argue that one mistake shouldn’t erase an entire postseason, but I know better. I’d thrown Woods onto the ice when the puck was on the other side of the rink. There was no way of getting out of that unscathed.
But three games?
That could be the rest of this series. The rest of the season.
Fuck.
Coach continues. “And depending on how they classify it, it could be longer.”
I stare at the wall.
The series.
The Cup.
Everything could be gone.
“You better hope like hell,” Coach says quietly, “that your teammates can win without you.”
I don’t miss the implication.
Because if they can’t win this series, this fight will become the thing people talk about forever.
They won’t talk about our comeback this season.
They won’t talk about the impressive showing up to this point.
They’ll talk about the captain who traded everything his team worked for all year for one punch.
Coach stands, opening the door behind me to indicate that the meeting is over.
“Get out of here.”
I rise, my legs feeling wobbly underneath me.
“Coach.”
He pauses, but I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.
Sorry doesn’t seem big enough, so I end up just nodding.
Coach gives me one in return. “Don’t let this happen again.”
The locker room is still full when I walk back in, and considering most nights, guys are gone as soon as Coach dismisses us, I know they’re waiting for me.
Everyone looks up when I enter, and Nathan is the first one to speak.
“Well?”
I sit down heavily at my stall. “League review tomorrow.”
Liam leans forward. “How screwed are you?”
I look up to find every single one of my teammates’ eyes trained on me. “Coach thinks I’m probably out for at least three games.”
The room immediately erupts into chaos.
“But you never fight.”
“No way.”
“Three?”
Nathan’s eyes widen. “The whole series?”
“Yeah.” I shrug, and Wyatt winces beside me.
Then Liam adds, “Woods did look like he got hit by a truck.”
Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitches.
Nathan shakes his head. “Dude.”
“What?” Liam throws up his hands. “I’m just saying. If we’re ranking ass kickings, that one’s pretty high.”
“You’re not helping,” Wyatt says.
The room falls quiet again, and players start gathering their bags, filing out one by one until it’s just Wyatt and me left.
He’s leaning against the stall across from mine as if he plans to stay there all night if he has to.
“You okay?” He asks.
The question is so stupid I almost laugh because I’m about as far away from okay as I’ve ever been.
“Not even a little.”
Wyatt nods. “Did she end it?”
“No.” My throat tightens remembering how she looked at me.
Wyatt frowns. “No? But you said…”
I shake my head. “She didn’t end it. She hardly said anything.” I run my hands through my hair. “I fucked up. I promised I’d be the bigger person, but I just snapped. The things he said about her–I didn’t think about anything at that moment other than shutting him up.”
Wyatt chuckles, “I mean, the asshole definitely needed to be punched in the mouth.”
My head jerks toward him. “I thought you were pissed.”
“I am. Did he need to be laid out? Yes. Do I wish you had chosen literally any other time to do that? Also, yes.”
I snort. “Fair.”
“But she didn’t end it. So, why are you acting as if she did?”
“I’ve never seen her look at me like that.
” The admission tastes awful. “Not once. She looked at me like she was completely uncertain about me. Even when she hated me, she knew what she felt. But now? I was just getting her to trust that I was who she needed me to be. And she looked at me like she didn’t know who the hell I was. ”
He doesn’t argue, but he shakes his head. “She knows you.”
“She does. But that doesn’t matter if she doesn’t trust me.”
Wyatt rubs a hand across his jaw.
“You’re not a mind reader. Stop guessing at what she’s thinking and wait for her to tell you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Then Wyatt pushes off the stall. “You’ll figure it out. And if she can’t get past one screw-up, then maybe you aren’t what you thought you were.” Before I can answer, he grabs his bag. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The door slams shut behind him, and my body relaxes because for the first time all night, I’m finally alone. The locker room feels enormous without everyone in it.
I sit on the bench for entirely too long, giving the adrenaline time to wear off and the bruises enough time to start screaming. By the time I force myself to stand, my entire body aches.
The shower water is almost painfully hot as steam fills the room. I brace my hands against the tile and let it pour over my head. The blood washes away first, and then the sweat. Soon, every ounce of evidence from the fight has washed down the drain, except for the memory of it playing on repeat.
No matter how hard I scrub my skin. I still hear Avery’s voice.
You promised.
I stay under the water until my fingers wrinkle and the steam stops helping.
Tomorrow will bring the suspension. The media. The possibility that I just cost my team a shot at the Cup.
Tomorrow I’ll deal with the possibility that the girl I love looked at me tonight and saw someone she can’t trust.
But tonight, all I can do is try to clear my head enough to survive whatever comes next.