43. Dylan
DYLAN
Not showing up to this morning’s meeting isn’t an option. Missing it and practice afterward would mean sitting out the games this weekend, and there is no fucking way I’m letting some humiliating stunt and a shattered heart keep me off the ice.
I dig deep for my big girl pants.
Exhaling sharply, I shove my phone in my pocket and force myself forward. Every step toward the team room feels heavier than the last, but I keep moving, fingers curled into fists at my sides. I’ve got this. They can’t say or do anything worse than what has already been done .
The second I step through the doorway, the room goes silent, all eyes swiveling my way like they’ve been waiting for me.
I duck my head, keeping my gaze on the floor as I maneuver through the room.
I expect whispers to break out. Hushed laughter.
Slurs hissed just loud enough for me to hear. But nothing comes.
Silence clamps over the room like a vise.
I can feel the weight of every gaze pressing into me, but no one says a word.
No one smirks. No one sneers. The unease coils tighter inside my chest, but I don’t stop, moving quickly to the back of the room where Griffin always sits.
He’s waiting there for me, his hand moving to rest possessively, protectively on my knee as soon as I sit down.
No sooner has my ass hit the chair when Coach marches into the room. If the vicious scowl on his face wasn’t an indicator of his piss-poor mood, the fact that he slams the door so hard the glass rattles in its pane would be.
All heads snap toward the front of the room, players sitting straighter in their chairs, shoulders squared like they are soldiers lined up waiting for their commanding officer’s orders.
Fury rolls off Coach in waves, his expression a mask of unrelenting authority as he glares out over the room with eyes sharp as flint.
Even the air crackles with the extent of his contempt as he takes his time, sweeping his gaze over each individual player like he’s committing every face to memory.
I fight the urge to scan the room, not wanting to see where Ethan, Finn, or Jax are seated.
If they are beside Kyle and his cronies.
I definitely do not want to see the smug look on their disgusting fucking faces.
When Coach finally speaks, his voice is a blade, slicing through the air with finely crafted precision.
“What happened Friday was a disgrace .” The words land like a slap, several players around me flinching from the verbal blow.
“I don’t know which one of you thought it would be funny to humiliate one of your teammates, but let me be clear—if you choose to spend your spare time crafting high school pranks, you don’t belong on this team.
” His fist bangs against the top of his clipboard.
No one moves. No one speaks. No one dares to even breathe.
My pulse stumbles. Even knowing Bear wouldn’t let this slide, I wasn’t prepared for the force of his anger. The sheer authority in his voice.
“ I do not tolerate bullying. ” His jaw flexes.
“I do not accept hatred amongst teammates. If you have a problem with another player, you bring it to me. We handle it like fucking adults .” His grip on his control falters as he smacks his clipboard against a nearby table, the sound reverberating through the room and bouncing off the walls.
“When you wear your jersey, when you step onto my ice , you represent me. You represent this program. You represent this university.” He shakes his head, his voice quieter now.
“Friday night was an embarrassment. Not just for the player you humiliated, but for every single one of you.” I struggle not to slide lower in my chair.
I am strong. I have survived worse. Instead, I lift my chin an inch higher as Coach glares out over the room and declares, “An attack against one of our players is an attack against us all.”
A slow, suffocating wave of shame crashes over the room. Shoulders stiffen. A few heads dip. The air is thick with tension.
Something hot pricks at the back of my throat.
Coach exhales sharply, nostrils flaring as he drags a hand through his thinning hair. When he speaks again, the rage is still there, but underneath it is something heavier.
Disappointment.
He lets the silence stretch, lets the weight of his words settle like concrete while he scans the team one last time before shaking his head. “I expected better—from all of you. ”
The weight of his words, his disapproval, sits there, festering, bubbling, lingering like a bruise. When the tension in the room is pulled so taut it’s about to snap, he straightens.
“I will find out who was behind this,” he declares in a quiet, dangerous promise. “And when I do, you will be stripped of your jersey. You will no longer be a Steelhawk.”
If the silence was deafening before, it’s nothing like the pressure I feel against my eardrums after that statement.
A warm hand squeezes my thigh, grounding me, as Coach moves on to analyze Friday’s game. I don’t hear a single word he says as I glance over, meeting Griffin’s unreadable gaze. However, there is something steady there, something solid.
For the first time since that horrible video began playing on the jumbotron, I don’t feel so alone, so isolated. Things don’t feel so hopeless.
I might have lost three out of four of the guys.
But I still have Griffin on my side.
And this time, I have a coach who’s got my back. I’ve got Bear.
I kept my head down during practice, ignoring the feel of eyes on me.
From the team, but most prominently from the guys.
Them and Kyle. Fucking Kyle . I never met his gaze purely so I wouldn’t see the smugness residing there, and he couldn’t see the devastation I hid in mine.
I focused on my drills, on being the best player out there, and on being part of a team even if I was back to being an outsider.
No one spoke to me, but I equally didn’t get any hostile vibes from anyone.
Well, other than Kyle and his goons, but I’m so used to it, that it rolls off me like water.
By the time the end of the day comes around, I’m ready to fall into bed. Gathering my things after my last class of the day, I sling my bag over my shoulder and exit the classroom.
“Watch it!” someone sneers as something hard connects with my shoulder, and I fall back against the door.
My head whips up, meeting Kyle’s incensed gaze.
He’s glaring down at me, lip curled back.
It’s a far cry from the smug expression I expected him to be sporting after his stunt on Friday.
“Bench Bunny,” he hisses. It immediately gets my hackles up, but I don’t let him see that.
Unfortunately, instead of moving on, he lingers, moving closer. Students file past us, no one paying us any attention as they head out of the building, ready to get home after a long day on campus.
“I don’t know what you did to wrap them so tightly around your finger,” he snarls, deliberately dropping his gaze to linger on my breasts and between my legs.
“Your pussy must be made of gold or some shit.” His gaze snaps back to mine, hardening into something cold and cruel.
“Either way, I will prove that you don’t belong here.
” Another curl of his lips. “Women don’t belong in men’s hockey. Especially not bench bunny sluts.”
Misogynistic prick.
He disappears back into the crowd like he was never here.
I watch him go before blowing out the breath I was holding.
I have no idea what has him so pissed now.
Was it Coach’s speech this morning? Except that doesn’t make sense.
Whatever has his panties in a bunch, I sense it’s no longer purely about getting his spot back.
It’s about getting me off the team. About proving I don’t belong.
One thing’s for sure, I’m going to have to watch my back.
A pang goes through my chest, knowing I’ll no longer have the guys as my bodyguards. Sure, I might have disliked having them constantly watching me—Ethan always knowing my whereabouts—but there was a sense of safety in it too. Now, I feel exposed.
A shiver runs down my spine, and I cast a glance over my shoulder, doing a sweep of the hallway, but other than the odd straggler, I’m alone.
Fixing my bag on my shoulder, I quicken my steps as I head out of the building, suddenly all too keen to get out of here myself. Except, the idea of going home stalls me on the steps outside.
I want to go back to that house about as much as I wanted to step foot in that meeting this morning.
As much as I want to remain here after Kyle’s delightful little threat.
What I really want is to go to Wren’s. I want to cuddle up beneath a blanket on her sofa and listen to her bitch the guys out and yell at the characters on the TV like somehow she can make them make different decisions.
I want to pretend that I didn’t lose the only people, other than Wren and Griffin, who have come to mean something to me.
People who have been steadily plugging the deep, gut-wrenching hole left inside me after my father’s death.
I want to pretend like I don’t already miss playing video games with Jax, Finn’s stealth kisses, or Ethan’s overprotectiveness—even if it did piss me off at the time, at least it showed that he cared and it had been so, so long since I’d had someone truly worry about me.
In their own ways, they made me feel like I belonged.
They included me, looked out for me, ensured I was fed and safe. They…made me happy.
And now I feel truly fucking miserable without them.
“You look like you just found out we lost the season to NSU.”
Lifting my head at the sound of his voice, my lips quirk as Griffin strides up the steps toward me.
“Over my dead body will that be happening.”