“You don’t think anyone’s going to get hurt this game, do you?”
“God, I hope so,” Lila mumbles through a mouthful of food, standing up to shout something at the referee.
I shrink lower into my seat to avoid any unwanted attention.
Now seems like a good time to bring up the fact that my father reached out to me about Hayes. Yes, the first part of my father’s statement turned out to be true—with Hayes confirming he slept with Sienna—but I have no idea if anything else my dad said holds any merit. I know I was making an executive decision to disregard his words, okay? But this tiny bud of self-doubt has been niggling at the back of my mind ever since.
Maybe Lila will have some advice as to whether I should tell Hayes. It’s killing me keeping this secret from him, but we’re in such a good place right now that I don’t want to mess things up.
Guilt maims my heart. “Li, I need to tell you something.”
Lila’s full-on cussing out the ref, but she turns to me like the nastiest curses didn’t just fly out of her mouth.
“What’s up?”
The throbbing in my head increases tenfold, and it tightens around my temples like an elastic band. I thought it was from dehydration, but now I know it’s definitely from the anxiety pinballing through me.
“My father called to tell me something…about Hayes.”
Lila’s mouth bends into a frown. “Your father? You mean, the embodiment of all things evil? The man who probably sacrifices newborn children to keep himself young?”
“The one and only,” I mutter, drumming my nails against the edge of my seat.
“What did he say to you? Do I have to fly to Oregon and make his murder look like an accident?”
“Not…yet.”
Uncertainty smacks me in the face with the force of a sledgehammer. “He told me that Hayes has been using me to save his image.”
When Lila looks at me, her stare holds the intensity of a thousand suns. “You’re joking, right? That’s a load of horseshit!” Her scream is loud enough to garner the attention of the people around us, and I awkwardly shoo them back to their avid watching.
“Do you think I should tell Hayes?” I ask.
I know I should. If it’s the right thing to do, then why does it feel so hard? Hayes is going to be so hurt to know I kept this from him. I’m a hypocrite. I asked him to be honest when I can’t even be honest myself.
“You don’t believe it, do you?”
My initial frustration has ebbed, and now I’m caught in a shower of meteor-sized fears all hailing down around me. “I don’t know. I mean, I shouldn’t. Hayes has proven to me how much he cares about me. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But my father was half-right. Why would he make this up?”
It makes me sick to think that I’m even entertaining this. It all takes me back to how badly Wilder treated me. I can’t believe I have such shit luck with relationships. You never truly know someone’s intentions. Wilder didn’t put up a front; he wasn’t trying to hide how manipulative he was, and I still somehow got hurt.
“This is up to you, Aeris. If he was the one who heard a rumor about you, would you want him to tell you?”
Fuck. I would. And the sinking pit in my stomach tells me I just got the answer I wasn’t looking for.
27
CONTROL IS OVERRATED
HAYES
The third period is in full swing. I’m facing off with Cadieux for the first time, and he says something that stokes the fire inside of me.
“Where’s that little dime piece of yours, Hollings?” he taunts.
I crack my neck, rolling my shoulders back. “Excuse me?”
Cadieux’s grip on his stick tightens, his serpentine eyes sizing me up. “Oh, you know, the girl who’s been stuck to your side like a barnacle. I mean, she’s not really your type, right? Did you lose a bet? Does she have some dark dirt on you?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Cadieux,” I growl, heat nesting in the pit of my gut, urging me to stick my toe over the edge. “And if there’s a single brain cell in that empty fucking head of yours, I’d watch what you say next.”
His reedy grin makes me sick. “I saw those photos of her at the sponsorship party. If what her body looked like in that black dress is any indication of what it’s like out of it, I wouldn’t mind sticking my dick inside her tight little cunt.”
What the fuck did he just say?
I don’t even hear the whistle over the hammering of my own heart, and in the blink of an eye, Cadieux is off with the puck. My teammates are yelling at me, same with the fans, anger and disappointment hitting me from all sides. There’s a fissure of rage cracking deep inside me, and if I don’t close it soon, the Atlanta Avocets are going to lose a very critical player.
I skate over to Cadieux—who’s about a few feet from our goal—and something inside of me snaps.
Lunacy rakes through me when my right hook contacts Cadieux’s jaw, my fist breaking bone in a crack that can be heard around the world. Blood fountains onto the unblemished ice, tarnishing the surface with an oppressive shade of red, and I can feel my skin split across my knuckles underneath my glove. It burns, but it’s not strong enough to counteract the wrath inside me.
It feels like my fury has surpassed the hundred on a high striker, demolishing that bell at the very top. I can handle some trash talk, but when it comes to talking shit about the people I care about, I turn into a monster.
I hit him again—since nobody’s rushing over to stop me—and he spews some teeth.
I have to give it to Cadieux, I thought he’d be down for the count, but he’s more resilient than I gave him credit for. I have a lot of fighting experience under my belt, and I could spend the rest of the game making Cadieux eat his words, so I’m surprised when he swings at the bottom of my mouth. An ache slingshots through my bones from the force. It’s not enough to knock me on my ass, but it’s enough for sickle-shaped droplets to spurt from the gash on my lower lip.
Cadieux’s next punch barely grazes me, and I take advantage of his inexperience to whale on him some more, giving him a gnarly shiner. Our teammates finally spring to action and pull us apart.
Embers of rage sweep through me, hot enough to burn through skin and muscle. My chest is rising and falling with each hurried breath.
Out of my peripheral, I see Aeris standing up with her hand over her mouth. The full-blown inferno that was rampaging through me has now descended to a warm buzz, and it’s given me a split second to fully process what I’ve just done. Shit.
Everyone’s looking at me liked I’ve just committed a murder in broad daylight.
“Riverside Reapers, number eighteen, five minutes for fighting.”
I take out my mouthguard so I can yell at the ref. “This is fucking stupid!” I shout, hostility drenching my voice.
Bristol brushes past me. “Shake it off, man.”
The next thing I know, I’m getting up close and personal with the penalty box. I should’ve just bodychecked Cadieux. I didn’t need to ensure a full-out brawl. And now my team might suffer because of my careless mistake.
What’s Aeris going to think? Yeah, she knows I have a bit of a temper, but she’s never seen it in person. And that was probably one of the worst fights I’ve gotten into since I’ve entered the NHL.