Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 102607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Nova Montagalo doesn’t love me back and it’s been destroying me.
Eating me up inside.
Parker slaps a pass my way. I fumble it. Again. I can feel Coach’s rage like a heatwave against my back. Gio actually swears from the goal.
“Jesus Christ, Luca!” he barks. “Get your shit together!”
I want to. God, I want to.
The buzzer blares and we head off the ice for intermission.
The locker room is tense.
Coach is red in the face. Skaggs throws a water bottle at the wall and it ricochets like one of my passes, not quite making it to the trash.
No one looks at me, but I feel the weight of their judgement.
Gio’s the last to come in, yanking off his helmet and wiping sweat from his face with the hem of his jersey. He walks right past the bench, right past the whiteboard, and drops onto the seat beside me like a boulder falling from a cliff.
"Hey," he says, low enough that no one else can hear. “You alright?”
I don’t answer.
No, I’m not fucking okay. I’m a wreck pretending to be a guy pretending to be fine but not hiding it well.
Gio sighs. “She call you yet?”
I shake my head.
"You think she will?"
I shrug. “Don’t know.”
He studies me. Bumps his shoulder against mine like he’s my big brother, too. One who doesn’t know how to say the right thing, but will give you shit regardless of how you feel.
“You’re playing like total garbage,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“Just saying. If this is what heartbreak looks like, I’m gonna need you to fall out of love in the next ten minutes.”
I snort. Barely.
Then I stand, roll my shoulders back; pull my helmet on like I’m suiting up for war. Because at this point, I kind of am. Ha! I’m not battling the other team out there—I’m fighting the version of myself that used to know how to play this damn game in my sleep.
We hit the ice.
Immediately, I feel the heat—the crowd hates me, the lights are too bright, my thoughts spiraling. The more I think about it, the worse I play.
Every scrape of my blades is too loud.
Every breath feels like it’s being sucked through a straw.
My gloves are soaked.
My heartbeat is a goddamn drumline, eyes shooting to the seats Nova typically occupies.
They’ve been empty the whole first half of the game and now…
Still empty.
I miss my mark again.
“Fuck!”
It costs us.
Again.
The puck turns over, the other team breaking away, and their fans roar as their winger snaps a clean shot past Gio’s blocker side.
Goal.
Tie game.
Shit, shit, FUCK.
The horn blares and I barely make it back to the bench before Coach tears me a new asshole for the third time tonight. I don’t register his words.
“Pull it together.” Damien Stark glares at me with gritted teeth.
I nod.
Yup. Got it.
Thumbs-up!
I take the ice again with a chip the size of the goddamn Zamboni on my shoulder.
The guy across from me—number 13—has been chirping at me this entire miserable game. Big talker. Mouth like a woodchipper. He’s the kind of player who exists solely to piss you off into making a mistake.
I usually don’t rise to it.
Tonight?
I see red when his big mouth starts yapping.
“Babineaux,” he taunts, grinning through his mouthguard. “Heard you were seeing Montagalo’s sister and she dumped your limp dick.”
I don’t even think.
I just drop my gloves.
His eyes widen for a half-second. Then he drops his, too.
The crowd erupts before the first punch is even thrown.
We collide mid-ice like a car crash, fists flying. My knuckles find his jaw, his glove clips my cheekbone. It’s sloppy and brutal and pointless—but it’s exactly what I need.
Because for thirty seconds, I’m not thinking.
It feels too fucking good.
Every punch is an unsaid word. Every hit is a kiss I won’t get back. Every grapple is me trying to hold onto something that’s already slipped away.
The refs pull us apart.
I’m breathing hard, blood gushing from my nose, heart hammering like a war drum in my chest.
The crowd’s on its feet—they live for this shit.
I skate to the penalty box, ignoring the cameras.
The dull roar.
I catch Gio’s eye from across the ice; he’s shaking his head slowly behind his cage as if he can’t believe I actually lost my cool.
So unlike me.
I drop onto the bench in the box, droplets dripping onto the front of my blue jersey, chest still heaving. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, trying to breathe through it—through everything.
The sting in my knuckles.
The dull pulse in my cheek.
The aching hollow in my chest that no helmet, no gloves, no full-body check will ever fix.
And then—
Knock. Knock.
I glance up.
There’s a blur through the scratched plexiglass. Long hair down. Ballcap with an HB on it. A frown that matches my own. Eyes sharp with frustration and something that looks a whole hell-of-a-lot-like worry.
Nova.
She’s standing right outside the box, knocking.
“Let me in.”