Chapter 16 #2
Part of what makes Anthony so hard to understand is how no one ever talks about him. He usually avoids getting involved in drama, and even the few times where he has gotten mixed up in things that were gossip-worthy, the rumors died off fast, and everything was forgotten a few days later.
I don’t even know for sure what his sexuality is. There was a bit of a scandal back in freshman year when he hooked up with a female TA, so I assume he’s into women, but I have no idea if he’s only into women.
It would also probably help if I were better at reading social cues.
I can’t even count how many times I’ve thought someone was being friendly when they were actually flirting, or I thought they were flirting when they were only being friendly.
Now I just assume that everyone is being friendly unless they make it obvious that they’re into me, and Anthony has never really crossed that line.
He teases and flirts and says suggestive things, but that doesn’t mean he’s into me. And this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten obsessed over someone like this.
The same thing happened when I first met Damon.
He was so different and interesting compared to literally every other person I knew, and I’ve always had a thing for people with dark hair and light eyes, so put the fact that I found him insanely attractive together with him being so interesting, and I was obsessed.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to realize that my obsession with him came from misplaced attraction, and he indulged my endless questions and never made me feel unwelcome or like I was too much.
That’s something I’ve heard from people my entire life.
I’m always “too much” for them. I get too excited or too focused or too intense, and I have a bad habit of smothering people with attention because I just like being around them so much, and not a lot of people can put up with it once the novelty wears off.
Damon was one of the first people who didn’t disappear after a few months, or even years, of friendship, and we’re still best friends after almost six years. I thought McKenna was another one who wouldn’t get sick of me, but even she tapped out after less than two years together.
I have no idea if Anthony and I are becoming friends, or if he even wants to be friends. For all I know, this is a duty thing, and he’s being nice to me because I’m a frat brother in need. Or maybe he just finds the mess that is my life entertaining and enjoys his front-row seat to the drama.
Either way, I like hanging out with him, and I don’t want to ruin things by creeping on him or by making him uncomfortable because I can’t stop eye-fucking him whenever we’re in the same room.
I just need to get over this stupid crush like I did with Damon. And hopefully I can do that before I fuck this up too.
A loud buzzer, a mix between an air horn and a sports buzzer, goes off, and I blink a few times as the room around me comes back into focus.
I look at the screen of my laptop, and instead of the countdown clock and the camera showing the teams doing their warm-ups, there’s no timer on the screen, and the teams are in their pregame huddles with the coaches.
Another buzzer goes off, and all the players do that thing where they tap their helmets against the goalie’s, like little “good luck” head taps, then skate into their positions to get ready for the face-off.
From what I can tell, Anthony is playing center, one of the twins is playing both left and right wing, and Rath is in the net.
The rest of the players are guys I recognize, but they’re not the ones I’m paying attention to as the ref skates up to the two centers.
He does that thing where he holds the puck over the little circle, and Ant and the other center do a little stick battle for a few seconds, then the ref finally drops the puck.
Anthony is so fast I can barely see his stick move as he wins the face-off, and he and the twins take off, passing the puck back and forth between the three of them as they fly down the ice.
The Keepers are wearing black jerseys, and the Serpents are in green, so it’s easy to follow what’s going on and who has the puck, and I find myself holding my breath in excited anticipation as Ant and the twins literally skate circles around the other team for a solid minute in a sort of humiliation ritual before Ant takes the first shot on goal, and the red light on the back of the net lights up as he scores.
The players all have clear face shields on their helmets instead of cages like they wear in regular college hockey, and something deep in my stomach clenches when the camera zooms in on Anthony and his smirky smile as he does a little victory lap around the net and blows a kiss at the pissed-off goalie.
Just as the twins come up to presumably congratulate Ant on his goal, the broadcast team switches the feed and shows a playback of his goal.
“Jesus Christ,” I say as they slow it down even more and play it a third time.
The goal was impressive as hell, but Anthony moved so fast that I couldn’t see just how complex it was until it was slowed down in the replay. More of those tingles fill my chest as the teams go back to the center line for another face-off.
I already knew I have a competence kink, and now I also know that watching Anthony play hockey like he was born on skates is a part of that kink.
Just. Fucking. Awesome.
The rest of the first period goes a lot like the first few minutes of it did, and the Keepers are up 4-0 by the time the clock runs out, with Hazen and Connor each scoring one goal, and Anthony scoring two.
And if that wasn’t enough, Rath managed to block all of the dozen shots on goal and made each save look easy.
I knew the four of them had to be good, considering the school they went to and the caliber of athletes it produces, but I had no idea they were this good.
Surprisingly, there’s a fuck ton of sports talent at Silvercrest, but that probably has a lot to do with students here having the ability to train at world-class sports establishments and hire the best coaches money can buy, even if they have no plans or even the desire to do anything with their training and talent.
The house leagues are full of elite-level athletes, and that includes the hockey teams, but it almost seems unfair for Anthony and his friends to all be on the same team because of how much better they are than everyone else.
There’s a fifteen-minute break between periods, and I pull up the Keepers’ team stats while I wait for things to start again.
“Holy shit.” The numbers are impressive.
Not only are Anthony and the twins the top scorers in the league by a mile, but the Keepers team is way ahead of the others in every single metric. And based on the historical data, the Keepers have been dominating the league for the last three years.
I’m reaching for the rest of the packed lunch Anthony had sent up for me when my phone rings, and my heart drops into my stomach when I glance at the screen.
I’m tempted to let it go to voicemail, but I can’t hide from her forever, so instead of throwing my phone out of my window like I want to, I answer.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to keep the dread out of my voice.
“Hi?” she asks, sounding incredulous. “That’s what I get after over twenty-four hours of radio silence?”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a really rough twenty-four hours.”
She’s quiet for a few seconds. “What happened?” she asks, her tone gentler.
“She cheated,” I say simply.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“McKenna cheated on me. There’s video, and she admitted it,” I add before she can ask me if I’m sure or if there might be some sort of mistake.
“But what happened?” she repeats. “It’s only been a few months since your engagement. What changed? You two were so happy and excited.”
“She realized she was more in love with the idea of being married than she was with the reality of being married to me, her words,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“And instead of talking to me or working things out like adults, she cheated on me, then lied about it for our entire spring break, and only admitted it when I told her about the video.”
She falls quiet, and I brace for whatever lecture is most likely coming my way.
“And you’re sure it’s over?” she finally asks. “This isn’t just a rough patch?”
“A rough patch?” I ask, and now I’m the one who sounds incredulous. “Would you have forgiven Dad if he cheated on you three months after you got engaged? Would you ask Greg or Ty that same question if Addison or Cassie cheated on them?”
“No,” she admits after a few beats.
“It doesn’t matter.” My shoulders slump as all the fight leaves me at once. “She doesn’t want me, and I honestly don’t know if she ever did.”
“I’m sure she did,” Mom says, sounding maternal for the first time since I answered her call. “She probably just got overwhelmed with everything, and she made a mistake.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say, trying not to be too salty about my mom defending my cheating ex instead of comforting me. “But it’s hard to be sympathetic to her being so overwhelmed that she felt the need to publicly cheat on me.”
This isn’t anything new. My mom isn’t the most maternal person, and she looks at every situation from a practical angle and not an emotional one, so she’s definitely not the person to go to for support or when you need a shoulder to cry on.
She is the person to go to if you want something done right, and she has a reputation as a powerhouse who doesn’t take shit from anyone.
She’s also organized, tenacious, well-connected, and incredibly smart.
And she’s been known to make powerful men cower, even cry, if legend is to be believed, when she lays into them.
Her no-nonsense style of parenting worked for my brothers and pushed them to be the best versions of themselves that they can be, but it doesn’t trigger that same motivation in me, and I always end up feeling worse whenever we’re done talking about something important.
And I can already tell I’m going to feel like dog shit when I hang up.
“Are you sure things were okay before this?” she asks, and by the tone of her voice, she’s in problem-solver mode. “Do you think you put too much of the wedding planning on her?”
“The wedding planning I was barely allowed to be a part of unless I was handing over a deposit?” I ask bitterly.
“Or maybe you were pulling away, and she felt neglected,” she continues thoughtfully, like she didn’t even hear me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “It’s over. She cheated, and I can’t forgive that. End of story.”
“Of course,” she says placatingly. “I was just thinking out loud. Are you okay?”
“No, but yes.” I shrug even though she can’t see me. “I don’t know. Eventually, yes, but not now.”
“I guess I’ll start canceling all the vendors we’ve already paid,” she says absently, and just like that, she’s back in problem-solver mode. “As long as you’re sure this is final, because we won’t be able to rebook anything once we get our deposits back. If we can get our deposits back.”
“I’m sure,” I say flatly.
“Okay, I’ll take care of everything on our end,” she continues, like I’m not even on the phone with her.
“And I’ll figure out what we’re going to tell people.
At least it’s early in the process and we haven’t sent out save-the-date cards or made any big announcements, so most people will probably forget about this little incident in a few weeks or months. ”
“That’s good,” I say, unable to muster up even an ounce of enthusiasm, but she’s so deep in her planning that she doesn’t seem to notice.
“All right,” she says brightly. “We have a plan. Just try not to do anything too gossip-worthy for the next little while, and hopefully people will forget all about this unpleasantness when the next big rumors start circling.”
“Here’s hoping,” I say, more to placate her than because I actually give a shit if her friends and colleagues are talking about my failed engagement or not.
“I should go,” she says, sounding distracted again. “But you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Try to take it easy for a few days, and this will all blow over soon,” she says, sounding like a mom again. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
She ends the call, and I toss my phone onto the bed.
Just like I predicted, I feel worse now than I did before talking to her, but at least it’s done and over with, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
Feeling numb, but not in a good way, I settle back against my pillows and focus on my laptop. The second period is about to start, and watching Anthony dominate on the ice until Damon shows up is exactly the type of distraction I need after that phone call.