Chapter 13 #2
“Rule breaking,” I mimicked in a weakly snide tone. “We didn’t know we were breaking a rule!”
I didn’t know there was a rule against falling in love with a hockey player.
“Lila.” Maddie turned to me suddenly and grabbed both my hands. “Honey, he’s right, the exhibition is about to start, and I have to go emcee it. Please skate.”
Of course I was going to skate, the whole gala depended on it. The youth league depended on it. The team depended on it. But…
“How?” I whimpered.
She shook her head sadly. “However you can manage. The OHL doesn’t want to believe you’re a couple with Kardok, fine. Do your best to pretend you don’t love the guy, for tonight at least. We can fall apart tomorrow.”
Pizza and ice cream and sad movies—check.
“Okay,” I whispered. Tonight I could skate and pretend not to love Kardok, even if my heart was breaking. “But everyone will see it, see how devastated I am.”
“Good,” she said savagely, eyes gleaming. “Let those assholes see! Make it a sad program, that works too. Then tomorrow, together, we’ll figure this out, Lila.”
Together.
I took a shuddering breath. “I have to go get ready.”
“You still have at least thirty minutes.” Maddie nodded firmly. “Go find your father. He deserves to know everything. Then drink some water or stretch or whatever you do to get ready.”
She really was clueless when it came to figure skating, wasn’t she? Still, her concern warmed my heart, and to my surprise, I felt a spark of hope in my heart.
“Okay, Mom,” I teased, and her cheeks turned pink.
“Go,” she commanded, dropping my hand and pointing me toward the elevator. “Good luck. Respect the ice, or whatever.”
My lips twitched. “Usually we just tell each other to skate well, but I like that one.”
Maddie jabbed her finger toward the elevator as the last of the donors moved toward the rink doors. “Skate well, Lila. You and Kardok both.”
Together.
Kardok
The tuxedo hung on the locker door where I’d left it yesterday evening, still in its garment bag, still perfectly pressed. Still bearing the marks of Lila’s makeup and tears.
I stared at it.
It stared back.
I’d been sitting on this bench for twenty minutes, in my sweats, with my skates in my lap and a head full of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
Rex Fairbanks’ voice: I’ll handle the OHL, son.
The way Lila had looked walking away from me in the hallway, her face buried in her hands.
I can’t be seen with you.
Not because she didn’t want to be. That was the part that made it worse, somehow—she was breaking herself in half to protect the team, protect me, and I was sitting here in a locker room in my sweats while she was up there doing it alone.
The door banged open.
“Ha!” Torrk announced in that too-excited way of his, striding into the space in a tailored tuxedo. “These mirrors make me look magnificent!”
Since he wasn’t talking to me, I didn’t answer. I have to admit, though, knowing that all the guys were up there schmoozing while looking like penguins made me feel a little ridiculous about wearing my tux.
Torrk crossed to his locker, announcing, “It had better be in here.” He emerged triumphantly holding a bow tie. Then he turned around, registered my existence, and his face fell into an expression of theatrical concern. “Oh, man. You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“No, like bad. Like someone ran over your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Like someone ran over your hypothetical dog.” He held up the bow tie, turning it in his hands with a frown. “Do you know how to tie one of these? Turns out it’s not like a suit—you have to wear a strangulation device at a formal event.”
It felt like I just didn’t have the energy to engage him in conversation, so I shook my head. “Dakvaar knows how to tie one.”
Torrk brightened. “Of course he does.” He pointed at me. “Also, you really do look terrible. Someone should tell you these things.”
“You just did.”
“Right. Good.” He nodded, satisfied, and headed for the door. “Hey, what’s black and white and green all over?”
I sighed. “A bunch of orcs in tuxedos?”
“Don’t be silly.” Torrk winked. “A zebra covered in lime juice.”
Since it was expected, I groaned. “You’ve been telling that to people, haven’t you? Dear gods, we’re trying to impress these people.”
“They think I’m charming. Most people do.”
Gods below, it was impossible not to appreciate the male’s vigor. My lips twitched. “Until they get to know you. Lime juice doesn’t turn you green.”
“It doesn’t?” Torrk cocked his head. “Huh.”
Judging from his smirk, he knew that, and was pleased by his efforts to drag me from my sulk. I suppose I should be grateful, but I wasn’t any closer to making a decision about tonight than I’d been before he’d come in.
The last twenty-four hours had been brutal. I’d lost count of how many times I picked up my phone to call Lila. But she’d made it clear that we needed to put things on hold, and even though it wasn’t what she wanted—thank fuck—I had to respect her wishes.
My Mate.
My Mate, who couldn’t be my Mate.
I’d been turning it over in my head all day, and I’d come to a conclusion: I would have to quit the team.
I’d told Rex Fairbanks yesterday, in between his calls to his lawyers, and he’d told me not to do anything rash.
He’d called me son again, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to examine how that made me feel.
But I couldn’t see any other solution. Quitting the team would remove the obstacle.
Yeah, it would hurt; hockey had been my life for so long, and these guys were my family, now that the twins had moved east. I loved them, but not as much as I loved Lila. If she couldn’t be with me because I was a Teal Terror, then I would stop being a Teal Terror.
At least until we could figure out how to beat this.
Together.
It was a hope I was desperately holding onto. Because yeah, I’d give up the ice for Lila, but it would hurt.
If all those people up there, the donors, knew that tonight would be my last time out there… My Kteer rumbled in anger, and I swallowed down the bile in my throat.
There was a mutter, and I looked up to realize Torrk hadn’t left; he was struggling with his bowtie in front of the mirror. He turned expectantly toward the door a moment before Dakvaar opened the door
The older male glanced from me to the untouched garment bag hanging from my locker, then to Torrk.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he told Torrk, stepping inside and letting the door swing closed. “You need to stand next to me tonight and talk so I don’t have to.”
“No problem, boss.” Torrk held out the bow tie. “Here, tie this.” He pointed to his neck. “Here.”
As if Dakvaar wouldn’t know where a bow tie went.
With a suppressed sigh, the defenseman stepped over to Torrk and took the tie.
He began working the knot with practiced efficiency, making me wonder how the fuck he knew so much about obscure human costuming.
The locker room was quiet except for Torrk making small sounds of fascinated observation at the process, and the distant noise of the gala filtering down from the floor above us.
Dakvaar stood in front of the younger male, his attention on Torrk’s throat…but when he spoke, his words were meant for me. “You going to skate tonight, Kardok?”
I took a deep breath. “I think I have to.”
He nodded once, as if this was the right answer. “You going to skate in that?” He didn’t look at the tuxedo. He didn’t need to.
I exhaled slowly.
The honest answer was that I didn’t know.
I’d put on that tuxedo for the dress rehearsal and felt like a male wearing a costume—performing something, reaching for something that wasn’t quite mine.
It had looked fine. Joshua had said it looked better than fine.
Lila had smiled at me and told me I looked magnificent.
But it wasn’t me.
Magnificent wasn’t me.
I was Kardok the Wicked. I was an orc, and I didn’t belong in this fancy human costume.
“I tried to skate in it,” I said to the tuxedo as much as to Dakvaar.
Torrk, to his credit, stayed quiet. He was watching me with his head tilted like a large bird, as the bow was carefully tied at his throat, his usual commentary apparently held in reserve for once.
Possibly Dakvaar was trying to choke him into submission.
The thought made my lips twitch ruefully. “I’ve been trying to fit into her world.”
“Did they let you?” Dakvaar asked.
The question was so Dakvaar; quiet, thoughtful. Forcing me to consider how to be better.
Did they? Had the humans allowed me to be part of their world, even when I’d acted civilized and worn their penguin suits?
Or had they looked at me—at the ballet, at the galas—as some sort of freak? Isn’t that why they were here tonight? To see if a primitive beast could ice dance like one of them?
I’d been doing everything right and still felt the gap between right and belonging.
I thought about the OHL letter reducing everything we were—our Mate Bond—to a compliance issue.
About the donors upstairs, right now, with their careful bland voices talking about rules and preferential treatment and belonging.
“No,” I finally said. “They didn’t.”
Dakvaar nodded again, still unhurried, as if this was the conversation he’d been waiting to have, and he wasn’t going to rush it.
“She doesn’t quite fit into mine either,” I said. I thought about Lila at the axe-throwing bar, eyes bright and completely herself. Her laugh when she hit the bull’s-eye. Her hair down. Her hand in mine on the bleachers at a minor league game nobody important was watching. “But she’s been trying.”
“So have you,” Torrk said quietly, which from Torrk, without an accompanying fart sound effect, meant something.
I looked at the tuxedo.
I looked at my locker, where my jersey hung—the one with my name and my number, the one I’d been wearing in some form since I was twelve years old and first realized that the ice was the one place where being exactly what I was counted for something.
The one I might not belong to after tonight.
The choreography. Three movements. Two separate things, moving toward each other, finding their own language, making something neither could make alone.
Joshua hadn’t asked me to stop being a hockey player. He’d asked me to bring what I was onto her ice and let her meet me there.
Maybe that was the answer. Not fitting into her world. Not pulling her into mine. Something we built in the space between—a new world, if we were lucky enough, if we were brave enough.
I stood up.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “if we’re very lucky, we could build a new world together.”
Torrk opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” Dakvaar said, hands still wrapped around the younger man’s throat, but his attention on me.
Torrk closed his mouth.
I reached past the tuxedo and took my jersey off the hook.
Together.