Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
“ P ick up your goddamn phone,” I muttered, driving like a maniac across campus. Something was wrong with Maci. A pit formed in my stomach after she stopped responding to me on our phone call. I hadn’t even made it home yet when she called. I stopped by the library on my way home to pick up a few books I reserved for a research project.
Maci’s location was still showing her apartment, which gave me some relief. It was what she was doing in that apartment that scared the shit out of me. I didn’t have access to the cameras on my phone—a problem I’d rectify immediately. Flying blind was something I could not stand. I cussed, slamming my phone into my steering wheel. Maci has been in such a fragile state lately and the idea she finally tipped over the edge and did something stupid scared the shit out of me. I gave up trying to call Maci, instead dialing Jackson. Neither Rae sibling appeared to know how to answer a phone. After my third attempt, I angrily punched out a text message to him.
Hunter:
911! Call me!
I swear if he was balls deep in some puck bunny right now, I’d beat the shit out of him. Maci’s apartment came into view. I slammed my vehicle into park and jumped out. I didn’t even bother to kill the engine. It made more sense to leave it running, just in case.
I bounded up the stairs and tried her door. It was locked—a part of me was happy about that. I didn’t want her leaving it unlocked—I pulled the spare key I swiped from Jackson out of my pocket. The idiot left it out on his desk. Anyone could have taken it during a hockey house party, so I had made sure I was the one to do so first. The last thing I needed was some other person to have access to my girl.
I opened the door and didn’t see Maci. My heart plummeted into my stomach. There was red paint everywhere. The room resembled a crime scene, with thick, crimson paint coating the counters and carpet. A box lay in the middle of the carnage and, approaching it, I noticed glitter coating everything within the vicinity. I glanced inside, repulsed by the words and smashed-up model car. People were sick and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the fucker responsible.
“Maci?” I called out, walking towards her bedroom. She didn’t respond, and I lightly pushed open the bedroom door while holding my breath. I prayed I wouldn’t find her body behind the door. I didn’t know the extent of Maci’s issues, but I had my suspicions that she was on the cusp of suicide. It was part of the reason I wanted to intervene so badly. Jackson was blind to it all. He thought she drank too much. But it was so much more than that.
Relief flooded my system. She wasn’t in the room. It was short-lived when I began checking the other rooms of the apartment. She was nowhere to be seen, as if she vanished into thin air .
“Fuck!” I yelled, finding her cell phone abandoned on the floor of the kitchen. I couldn’t track her without the phone. Where would she have gone?
Trying Jackson again, he finally answered, “Where the fuck have you been?” I half-yelled.
“Chill, man, Tiffany just left. That girl is insatiable and the things she can do with her tongue. Fuck. Me. Anyway, where’s the fire? Coach, call an emergency meeting?” Jackson’s tone was light, with zero clue I was about to be on a warpath.
“Where would your sister go if she didn’t want anyone to find her?”
That got his attention. The sound of him rustling with his clothes came through the speaker. He must’ve called me the second Tiffany got off his cock.
“Why would you want to know that?” He asked.
It took every bit of my restraint to try not to cuss him out. I pinched the bridge of my nose. He was acting way too calm about this, “She called me after I dropped her off. She sounded upset and now she’s not at her apartment.”
“So what? She’s probably at The Pub getting shitfaced.” The thud of a tennis ball sounded in the background. Jackson tossing the ball at the wall and catching it was something he often did to pass the time.
I ground my teeth together. He would be useless, “Where would Maci go to be alone pre-accident?”
Jackson was quiet for a moment, contemplating his response. “Honestly? At the rink. She used to have Dad’s badge to get in after hours. He’d turn a blind eye to it, and she liked to go work shit off on the ice. Sometimes he’d wait for her in the parking lot and bring her home.”
I nodded my head, even though he couldn’t see. It was worth a shot. “Thanks man. Want me to let you know if I find her? ”
Things had been tense between Jackson and me since the Hockey House fight. He was pissed they detained Maci for the night and I was pissed he picked Tiffany—the girl who fought Maci—over his sister. We were barely talking and eventually, the team would pick up on it. Jackson and I were on the first shift together with Axel and Crew, whose little brother, Cooper, was our goalie. We worked together better than most shift mates, and it had captured the attention of NHL scouts. I didn’t have an agent yet, but Coach told us we should look for one. He had contacts interested in us, including a new expansion team in Texas. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I would love for us to sign onto a new expansion team together. It would be the only way we would all get on the same team at the same time. I bet Crew could even convince Cooper to leave school early for it, too.
That didn’t matter now, though. It all would mean nothing if I lost Maci to herself. I headed back to my truck and took off to the rink.
I made it there in no time. Coach had given all of us passcodes to get into the rink after hours earlier this season. He stressed the codes were only to be used for hockey. We would be immediately kicked off the team if we were at the rink for any other reason than ice time. A few guys made bets with each other to have hook-ups in the locker room. If it happened or not, I didn’t know, but knowing the team—it had.
For the first time tonight, I felt like I could breathe. She sat in the stands, her hands folded in her lap and her stare absent. Her hair was soaked red from the paint, and her face matched. The glitter sparkled in the emergency lights of the arena. Maci looked like that chick Carrie after the prom scene. She was crying, with the only skin color on her face coming from the track of her tears. She was okay, shaken, but okay. I made my way up the steps, quietly taking a seat next to her. Maci was still wearing the same T-shirt and leggings as earlier. Gooseflesh pimpled her arms, but she wasn’t shivering. She didn’t realize that I was there. Shrugging off my jacket, I slipped it over her shoulders. When the fabric contacted her skin, she broke her stare on the ice. Her big gemstone colored eyes shone up at me, and even sitting, I towered over her.
“How’d you find me?” She croaked.
“Jackson.” The silence hung between us. I didn’t want to push her, but the desire to find out what happened wouldn’t relent. The idea of someone hurting her caused rage to burn under my skin. Whoever did this would pay. It was a promise.
People talked about Maci’s involvement in her dad’s death a lot. The puck bunnies shut up whenever Jackson and I were around, but I caught my fair share of girls discussing it. It was unfair what the student population thought. I had seen the police report from the accident—Maci had had a copy emailed to her—her dad caused the crash. He blew a red light going 45 miles an hour. He hit another vehicle head-on, the situation of the other vehicle mirroring his own—the driver died and the passenger survived. People insisted Maci must have distracted her dad at the wheel. There was no way the beloved coach could make a mistake. This town had turned Coach Rae into some damn God amongst men, and Maci was paying the price for it. If anything, she was the one person people should sympathize with. She was conscious when the emergency vehicles arrived on the scene. I couldn’t imagine what she had heard or saw. I asked Jackson once if she ever told him about it. He’d told me no and continued eating his lunch as if I asked him if it was raining outside.
Maci sniffled. “It was just a stupid prank.”
I shook my head, “Doesn’t seem like just a prank” My blood boiled at the thought of this being a common occurrence. She didn’t say anything, instead shrugged her shoulders.
“Maci, does this happen a lot?”
She sighed, looking away. “No, not like this anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’ve heard the rumors. It’s no surprise that my social circle disappeared. It’s no big deal. I get shoved here and there and occasionally have my phone knocked out of my hand. It’s all elementary crap.”
I closed my eyes, taking a large breath through my nose. She didn’t need to be brushing these things off. She should’ve said something to someone. Hell, the University has a strict anti-bullying/hazing policy. Plenty of people on staff still love her because of her dad. Someone could rectify this. She rolled her eyes at me and I tried not to smirk. That was a good sign.
“I’m not tattling to the university. I can handle a few gossips and dropped books.”
I looked at her, raising my eyebrows, “Then why are you in here so late covered in red paint and…is that glitter?”
A small bubble of laughter emerged from her lips, causing a smile to spread across my face from the sound. “It’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?” she conceded.
“Still not right though,” I pointed out while nodding.
She was quiet for a moment, contemplating my words, “Some things still trigger me about the accident…I guess I just kind of snapped. I didn’t even realize I was here until you sat down next to me.”
The need to wrap her in my arms and reassure her that everything would be okay, fought against my better judgment. She didn’t accept that out of me. The relationship between us was a teeter-totter. I dropped hints and casually flirted to get her to warm up to me. To her, I was Jackson’s best friend, nothing more. It didn’t matter that from the very first moment I saw her; I loved her. It was one hell of a moment, too. During my recruitment trip to BU, they showed me the ice rink. Skating across the ice in a heated race for puck possession was Maci. Her smile was wide, her hair whipping behind her in a long braid. She taunted Jackson over her shoulder, her eyes glittering in the stadium lights. She was perfect. People talk about moments changing their lives, and that one right there was a category four hurricane decimating mine. She was the best thing to happen to me, and I didn’t want to spook her away before we could even have a chance.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. She shook her head no.
Not wanting to push the subject, I stood up and flipped my key ring around my fingers, “Come on sunshine, I’ll drive you home. I’ll even clean your apartment while you shower.”
“You’re not cleaning my apartment,” she sighed.
I shrugged, “Sure, Sunshine, whatever you want.” I’d let her think she could have her way. She didn’t immediately get up, instead Maci looked back at the ice. She surprised me with her next words,
“You know I can still feel him here?”
I smiled softly. This meant more to me than she realized. She was sharing something private. “It makes the most sense that you would here. This was his church.”
She looked at me quizzically. “Church?”
“Yeah, you know, the one place that is quiet and clean, where you can think without restraint.”
She nodded, letting my words sink in. “I never thought of it that way…but you’re right. He always said he liked it here the best when it was empty. You know he used to spend his Sunday nights here?”
I knew that. The transition from high school to university level hockey was tough on me. The pressure to succeed had become unbearable. Sunday nights, I started coming to the rink to free skate. Those nights, the ice was just for me and not for some ulterior purpose. It felt like skating on the pond in my backyard—fun. One night when Coach Rae found me. He was in a pair of pajama pants and an old BU hoodie. It was weird to see him so casually. He was holding a coffee mug and a book, and was just as shocked to see me. Most coaches would’ve reamed me out and demanded I go home. But that wasn’t Coach Rae’s style.
He looked me in the eye and said, “I come every Sunday for some peace and quiet, and I always forget to lock the door.” He winked and walked away as if he had never seen me.
After that, I made sure to always drop off a hot cup of coffee from the local coffee shop in his office before lacing up. It was an unspoken ritual between us. After he died, it wasn’t an option anymore. So, I started coaching the Peewee League instead. Coaching helped to fill the void and looked great to NHL scouts. It was a win-win.
I nodded my head at Maci. “Can you blame him? He had to be Jackson’s Dad.”
She laughed, and I wanted to bottle the sound and keep it forever. She stood, shrugging her arms into my jacket. I didn’t even care that she was getting paint on the collar. I liked how she looked in my clothes. Hopefully, it will happen again. She walked in front of me, and as we exited, I placed my hand on the small of her back. It was unintentional, but felt right. Happiness bubbled in my stomach when she didn’t pull away from me, and I steered her towards my truck.
“Thanks, Hunt,” she murmured while sitting in the passenger seat. Closing the door, I tried to hide how much her gratitude meant to me. The thought of tonight ending a lot differently put things in perspective. I needed to speed up my timeline with her. I was trying to take it slow and earn her trust, but it was clear it couldn’t be an option anymore. Losing her for real would destroy me.
With that thought in mind, I formed a plan. There was one way to make sure I’d find her, no matter what. I just needed a few supplies first.
“Mind if I swing by Hockey House really quick? I want to grab something before we go to your place,” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.
Maci nodded, and I smiled. She was trusting me already.