4. Mason
MASON
Lilah disappeared around the corner like I might give chase, and damn, I was tempted.
I turned my attention back to Brooke and Morgan. Both preening, backs against the lockers where they’d been harassing Lilah. It shouldn’t have annoyed me, but their irritating, rich-bitch bullshit needled at my brain.
“Don’t do that again,” I gritted out.
They laughed and pouted their shiny, glossed lips at me.
Morgan tucked her hair behind her ear. “We were just—”
“I don’t care what you were doing.” They jumped as my words sliced through Morgan’s excuse. “Don’t touch her.”
They exchanged confused glances. Brooke peered up at me, no longer in temptress mode, not that it was working in the first place. A frisson of fear flared in her eyes. Good.
“But—”
“This isn’t a discussion. Don’t look at her. Don’t speak to her. Do not fucking touch her. Do you understand?”
They nodded dumbly and scurried out from under my arm with glances behind them like I was going to chase them down. Didn’t they wish?
“So you’re allowed to treat Lilah like shit, but no one else.” Calder pushed off the lockers.
I swept my backpack up off the floor and slung it over my shoulder, bristling under his scrutiny.
“Or they can treat her like shit, but only at your express direction.”
Turning to face him, I pinned him with my glare, but he stared right back.
“You know, the death stare only works on people who can’t knock every one of your rich-boy teeth out of your mouth.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Why would I when it’s so damn fun pissing you off?” The corner of his mouth twitched. For Calder, that was basically a full-blown grin.
“Because there are eight weeks until the official season starts, which means I can break a few of your bones right now, give you enough time to heal and not kill our championship prospects.”
“I don’t know what Galen was talking about. You’re not touchy about Lilah at all.”
“She’s nothing but a—” The words froze in my throat, strangled by a grenade of emotion exploding in my chest. Lilah was a pile of conflict I couldn’t unravel, so it was easier—safer—to latch onto the thing I could control. Rage. “She’s none of your damn business.”
“Absolutely nothing but stone-cold indifference.” Calder slipped into his classroom, turned and let the door close while shaking his head.
I wanted to punch him through the glass. Instead, I went to my next class. The teacher droned on. My eyes locked onto the clock through each of the next periods until my last. English, the one class I shared with Lilah.
She was already in her seat when I got there. Front row, by the windows. The farthest away from my desk in the back. My entire row had been left empty as always, so there was no one to watch me watch her.
I kept waiting for her to finally show me who she truly was. Not the funny, beautiful, caring girl in the pool house who made me feel things I’d never wanted to feel, but the liar who’d only been screwing with me.
The way she touched Ryker, wrapped herself around him.
Did he know he was sleeping with someone so duplicitous? That she told me to my face she wasn’t dating anyone? Did she tell him how she’d spent night after night curled up against me while she was obviously with him? Still with him. The same unending, unhinged thoughts stabbed through my mind.
Had she only been pumping me for information? Catching me vulnerable and pouncing on the opportunity? Maybe she thought I’d be willing to continue our pool house meetups while she had Ryker over at her house every couple of weeks? Or was I a fun distraction while her boyfriend was away?
I’d beaten her to the punch and made it clear she could fuck off into the sun.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the swirling abyss of raw emotions sucking in all my energy and focus.
Which was why I needed her banished from my head. I shouldn’t have stopped Morgan and Brooke from giving her shit. If anything, I should’ve told them to keep going.
A twinge of guilt curdled like spoiled milk sour in my stomach. That kind of bullshit wasn’t too far from what I’d faced down before. In the days before my dad’s money arrived for hockey, I’d had hand-me-down, taped-together equipment even when my mom had been clean.
Now I was Mason Shaw, Lukyan Petrov’s son, beast on the ice who never showed any mercy.
Calling off Morgan and Brooke was as far as my leniency extended with Lilah. A momentary slip I refused to repeat.
I whispered to the person in front of me. And told them what they needed to do. The word spread throughout the class and everyone dutifully got out their sheets of paper and a pen.
The first note landed on her desk in less than a minute. Like a coach, I watched my play unfold.
She glanced at the person who’d tossed it on her desk.
Confusion radiated off her in waves, then curiosity and finally the click of fear. With careful moves, she unfolded the paper.
And I could tell the minute the message landed. Her back snapped up straight, but she didn’t crumple the paper.
She didn’t tear it up or toss it away.
Instead, she refolded it. Not into the crude rectangle. It took me a while for the shape to make sense. A butterfly. She reshaped a note into an origami butterfly. Note after note piled up on the edge of her desk.
If it hadn’t been for how much it pissed me off, I’d have admired her ramrod straight back and completely unfazed expression while she listened to the lecture and kept her hands busy with the paper.
Deep down, a tweak at the center of my chest made me want to go to her, which only proved how weak I’d let her make me.
And each one she unfolded without reading and turned them into a butterfly. Some were no bigger than a quarter. Others as big as her palm. A butterfly garden covered her desk by the time the bell rang.
She shot up from her spot and took off, abandoning her creations.
I grabbed my bag and didn’t walk to the door. Instead, I took the long route to the window side of the classroom. Fighting against myself and losing, I plucked an abandoned butterfly from the desk and shoved it into my pocket.
A flood of students poured into the hallway, but Lilah was long gone.
I walked past Calder as he slammed his locker shut. “Galen’s house this weekend.”
Calder tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Does he know that?”
Galen had the best thing for a party house—parents who didn’t give a shit.
“He will when I show up with booze. Last chance before conditioning kicks our asses.”
Calder shook his head. “You truly don’t care about keeping all your teeth this season.”
“What’s a few teeth between friends?”
Galen popped out of the hallway to our right. No backpack, no tablet, not even a pen. “Who’s losing teeth?”
A classroom door, twenty feet behind us, flew open. Erik burst into the hallway, pen in his mouth. He tripped over the straps of the backpack he dragged along the floor.
In a move that was equally cartoonish and smooth, he caught himself on the lockers across from the doorway.
In a much less intimidating version of my pose from earlier, he stretched his arm higher to flirt with the three girls, who laughed like almost being crushed by him was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.
Bringing his face and body closer to them, he spoke in hushed tones.
Whatever he said worked as they nodded like bobbleheads and exchanged smiles when they took his phone and probably added their numbers.
All smirks, he turned to us, pen still in his mouth.
“HAVOC!” He jogged toward us.
I shook my head. “How is someone so clumsy on solid ground but impossible to stop on the ice?”
Erik reached for Galen, who expertly dodged the touch. “Don’t know, Galen’s not that bad.”
“Keep your iPad kid hands away from me.”
Erik stared down at them before wiping his palms against his pants.
There were only twenty games left playing with these guys. We’d been through some shit together, but making that final farewell would be the elusive state championship win.
In the parking lot, I slid behind the wheel of my black Rover—a gift for making the varsity hockey team as a sophomore. I hadn’t even gotten my license until a year later, but I’d prized the shoulder squeeze and nod from my father even more than the car.
Calder climbed into his truck, which had more dents and scrapes than Erik’s phone. He pulled up beside me.
I rolled down the window.
“Galen’s agreed to your party request.”
“Why are you never happy to enjoy the spoils, man? Will you be there?”
He stared at me with a grim look and a single dip of his chin before pulling away, engine rumbling and spewing exhaust on the way out.
His truck tracked across the parking lot, drawing my attention to the Hawthorne Prep uniform in the distance.
Lilah was already a block away from the parking lot.
The hemline of her skirt kicked up enough to keep my attention glued to her, but it also had me checking to make sure no one else was staring as she almost jogged to get away.
A girl came over and hung on my door through the open window, her shirt unbuttoned enough that her push-up bra was working overtime. Mia? Mallory? I didn’t know and didn’t care.
She batted her eyes at me. “How about a ride home?”
Instead of answering, I rolled up the window.
She yelped and jumped back.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
Dad: Rink. Half suit.
Hawthorne Prep conditioning didn’t officially start for another week, and my travel team fall series had ended last week.
My father had insisted I join a tournament team over the summer on top of his training regimen.
He always pushed me to the next level, even if it was a painful step up.
But that final game hadn’t been my best with Lilah still swarming my thoughts.
This message broke through the silence he’d enacted since my buzzer-beater shot ended with the puck slamming against the boards instead of the back of the net.