Chapter 4
Faye
Regret is a flavor.
It tastes like stale toothpaste, day-old vodka, and the bitter ash of humiliation.
I lay in the guest bed—my bed, for now, because I had barricaded the door last night and refused to enter the master suite—staring at the ceiling.
The white plaster was perfectly smooth. Not a crack, not a blemish.
It was annoying. I wanted to find a flaw.
I wanted to find something broken in this fortress of perfection to prove that Graham Vane wasn’t a god, but just a man with a really good cleaning service.
But I knew he wasn’t a god. I had felt his breath on my neck in the alleyway. I had seen the raw, jagged hunger in his eyes when he pinned me against the Rover.
I want to hit you.
The words echoed in my head, bouncing around my skull like a puck in an empty rink. It should have terrified me. It should have sent me running for the hills. But instead, it had sent a jolt of electricity straight to my core that I was still feeling twelve hours later.
He didn't want to hit me. He wanted to consume me. And the terrifying part was, for a split second in the freezing cold, I had wanted to let him.
I rolled over and groaned, pulling the pillow over my face.
"Get it together, Faye," I whispered into the high-thread-count cotton. "He is the landlord. You are the tenant. Do not sleep with the landlord. That is how you end up in a Lifetime movie."
I needed coffee. I needed to wash the memory of the party off my skin. And I needed to face him.
I threw off the covers and dragged myself out of bed.
I caught my reflection in the full-length mirror.
I looked like a tragedy. My makeup was smeared under my eyes.
My hair was a bird's nest. I was wearing one of his t-shirts—a grey standard-issue Sentinel Hockey shirt that came down to my knees.
It smelled like him. Cedar and cold air. It was suffocating.
I stripped it off and showered in the guest bath. I scrubbed my skin until it was pink, trying to erase the phantom sensation of Miller’s hand on my ankle and Graham’s grip on my waist.
I dressed in the "Uniform." Black leggings. A soft, oversized sweater I found in the closet that definitely belonged to him but looked neutral enough to pass as unisex.
I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
Silence.
It was Saturday. Game day was tonight. Usually, the campus would be buzzing, but up here in the clouds, the world was still.
I walked to the kitchen.
Graham was there.
He was sitting at the island, a tablet propped up in front of him, a cup of black coffee steaming by his hand. He was shirtless.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
Oh, come on.
It was a strategic assault. It had to be. No one just sat around looking like that by accident.
His back was to me. It was a landscape of muscle.
The trapezius flowed into broad, powerful shoulders that tapered down to a waist that looked impossibly narrow in comparison.
His skin was tanned, marred by a few faint white scars—puck marks, stick slashes, the history of violence written on his body.
But there was something else.
He was sitting stiffly. Unnaturally so. His head was bowed over the tablet, but his shoulders were hunched up toward his ears, locked in tension.
"Good morning," I said, aiming for breezy but landing somewhere near strangled.
He didn't turn around. He didn't even acknowledge me.
"Are we doing the silent treatment?" I asked, walking around the island to face him. "Because I can be silent. I once went three days without speaking to my stepmother just to see if she would explode."
Graham looked up.
His face was grey.
Not his usual cool, composed slate-grey. I mean sick grey. His skin had a sheen of cold sweat. His eyes were tight at the corners, rimmed with exhaustion. His jaw was clenched so hard I could see the muscle fluttering frantically.
"Coffee is in the pot," he gritted out. His voice was strained, lacking its usual deep resonance.
I frowned, the sarcasm dying on my tongue. "Are you okay?"
"Fine."
"You look like you’re about to pass out."
"I said I’m fine." He reached for his coffee mug with his right hand.
As he lifted his arm, I saw it. A spasm ripped through his shoulder, so violent that his hand jerked. The coffee sloshed over the rim, splashing onto the pristine marble and onto his bare hand.
He didn't drop the mug. He set it down with a heavy thud, his breath hissing through his teeth. He closed his eyes, his head dropping forward as if the weight of his skull was suddenly too much to bear.
"Graham?"
I moved closer. The "Brat" armor dissolved. This wasn't the arrogant Governor. This was a guy in pain.
"Don't," he warned, eyes still closed. "Don't come closer."
"You burned your hand."
"I don't care about the hand."
I ignored him. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped up the spill. Then I looked at his right shoulder.
Now that I was closer, I could see it. The swelling. It was subtle, but the definition of his deltoid was blurred, the skin slightly red and angry.
"What happened?" I asked softly.
"Nothing."
"That is not nothing. You can't even lift your coffee."
He opened his eyes. They were bleak. "I checked Miller into the boards during practice yesterday. Before I found you. Just a stinger."
"A stinger doesn't make you look like you're going to vomit from moving your arm."
"I slept on it wrong."
"Liar."
I reached out, my fingers hovering over his shoulder.
"Don't touch it," he snapped, flinching away.
"I need to see it, Graham."
"You need to make breakfast. That is your job. Clause 2."
"Screw Clause 2!" I slammed my hand on the counter. "You are hurt. Does the trainer know?"
He laughed, a dry, bitter sound. "The trainer works for the team. The team works for the Owner. The Owner is your father. If I tell the trainer I can't lift my arm, he tells the coach. The coach benches me. Your father hears about it, and suddenly my draft stock drops because I’m 'injury prone.'"
I stared at him. The logic was cold, circular, and trapped. He was the Captain. The star. He wasn't allowed to break.
"So you're just going to… what? Play tonight with one arm?"
"I’ll manage. I just need to loosen it up."
He tried to stand. He pushed off the stool with his left hand, but his body naturally engaged the right side for balance.
A groan tore out of him—low, guttural, and animalistic. His legs buckled.
I lunged.
I wasn't strong enough to catch him—he was two hundred and twenty-five pounds of dense muscle—but I jammed my shoulder under his good arm, bracing my body against his side to keep him upright.
"I got you," I grunted, my feet sliding on the marble. "Lean on me, you stubborn idiot."
He was heavy. God, he was heavy. He smelled like pain cream and sweat. He leaned into me for a second, his forehead resting against my temple, his breath ragged.
"I'm fine," he whispered, but he didn't pull away.
"Shut up," I said. "Where is the ice? Where are the meds?"
"Bathroom," he rasped. "Cabinet."
"Okay. We're going to the couch. Do not argue with me."
I guided him to the massive leather sofa in the living room. He sank into it, his face pale, his right arm cradled against his chest.
I ran to the bathroom. It was like a pharmacy. Bottles of pills, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories. I grabbed a tube of something called Bio-Freeze, a roll of black Kinesio tape, and an ice pack from the freezer in the kitchen.
When I came back, he had his head thrown back against the leather, staring at the ceiling.
I sat on the coffee table in front of him.
"Shirt off," I said.
He looked at me. "I am shirtless."
"I mean… lean forward. I need to get to your back."
"Faye, you don't know what you're doing."
"I was a gymnast for twelve years before I grew boobs and got clumsy," I lied. I wasn't clumsy; I just hated the discipline. "I know how to tape a shoulder. Sit up."
He hesitated. Then, slowly, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his head hanging low.
The vulnerability of the position struck me. He was exposing his neck, his back, his weakness to me. The man who controlled everything was letting me see the cracks.
I squeezed a dollop of the gel onto my hands. It smelled sharp—menthol and camphor. My eyes watered.
"This is going to be cold," I whispered.
I placed my hands on his right shoulder blade.
His skin jumped. A ripple of muscle tension that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with contact.
"Relax," I murmured. "I’m not going to hurt you."
"That’s debatable," he grunted into the floor.
I began to work the gel into the muscle. My thumbs dug into the knot right under his scapula. It was hard as a rock.
"Jesus," I hissed. "Graham, you have rocks in your back. How long have you been playing like this?"
"Since I was four."
"I mean the injury."
"It’s not an injury. It’s wear and tear."
"It’s inflammation." I pushed harder, sliding my thumbs up the column of his neck.
He let out a long, shuddering breath. His head dropped lower. The tension started to bleed out of him, inch by inch.
I worked in silence for a few minutes. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and his heavy breathing. It was intimate. Terrifyingly intimate. I was touching him—really touching him—and he was letting me.
My hands slid over his deltoid, feeling the heat radiating off the inflammation. His skin was smooth, hot to the touch. I traced the line of a scar on his shoulder blade.
"How did you get this one?" I asked softly.
"Stick blade. Sophomore year. High-sticking penalty."
"And this one?" I touched a small, round scar near his ribs.
"Puck. Freshman year."
"You’re a map of violence," I said.
"It’s the cost of doing business."
"Is it worth it?"
He was silent for a long time. I kept massaging, my fingers slippery with the gel, finding the trigger points and releasing them.
"It has to be," he said finally. "It’s the only thing I’m good at."
I stopped moving my hands. "That’s a lie."
He turned his head slightly to look at me, his cheek resting on his good shoulder. "Is it?"