The Game That Breaks Us (8 page)

I finally locate the room and startle at the amount of people already in the room. I thought I was early. 

“Excuse me,” I say softly, shuffling past a girl setting up her laptop and a guy texting. He’s not paying attention and I trip over his feet falling right in his lap. 

“Oomph,” he breathes out on impact. 

I’m practically sprawled across the poor guy’s lap and I quickly jump up like I’m on fire.

“I am
so
sorry,” I apologize quickly, my cheeks flaming red. I avoid looking at him and sprint down to the other end of the aisle, dropping into one of the chairs. I can feel him staring at me, and my mortification grows. All I want is for a huge gaping hole to open up and swallow me whole. That’d be lovely.

I keep waiting for him to say something and embarrass me further, but by some miracle, he doesn’t say anything.

The class fills up steadily while I pull out my laptop so I’ll be ready to take notes. A few people fill in the seats between me and the guy I fell on. Thank God. I couldn’t take his staring any longer.

The professor comes in and introduces himself. He’s tall with graying hair and black glasses. He’s dressed in a suit and tie with shiny black shoes. There’s something regal about him—like he came from royalty and knows he’s better than you.

“I’m Professor Hanagen. I take my classes seriously and I expect you to do the same. Conduct yourselves in a professional manner or I’ll ask you to leave and drop my class.” He crosses his hands together. “I’m going to pass out the roll sheet. Check off your name from the list—you will be required to do this every class. Whatever seat you’ve chosen will be yours until the end of the semester so I hope you like it.” He grabs a sheet of paper, clipboard, and pen, and hands it to the student nearest him.

“Is this guy for real?” the girl beside me hisses under her breath.

Professor Hanagen immediately launches into his lecture and I scramble to type fast enough. All around me, the clacking of keyboards fills the air.

Forty-five minutes later, class ends and my fingers ache. I pack up my stuff as the room empties out.

“Hey.”

Oh, shit
.

I know, without even looking up, that it’s the guy I fell on. 

Lovely.

“Hi,” I say reluctantly, looking up into impossibly-blue eyes. His blond hair is shaggy and his skin is tanned like he spends a lot of time outside.

“I thought I should introduce myself after that whole … incident.” He points over his shoulder to his chair. “I’m Tanner.”

I want to say that he most certainly didn’t need to introduce himself, but considering
I’m
the one that sat in his lap, I kind of owe the guy. “Grace,” I say, giving him a small smile. “I’m really sorry about that.”

He shrugs. “S’okay.” 

I stand and grab my backpack. “Well, it was nice to meet you,” I say rather fast, trying to get past him. “I need to get to my next class.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he mumbles. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say quickly, scurrying down the aisle and out the door. 

Once outside in the daylight, I shake my head like I’m trying to shake away the memories of the embarrassing incident.

But it sticks like putty to my brain. 

I look up to the sky and sigh.

It’s going to be a long day.

This had been one long ass fucking week.

“Coach,” I plead, hands on my hips. “I
need
to get on the ice.”

Coach Harrison narrows his shrewd eyes on me. He hates begging, but I’m desperate at this point. “Get in the gym with the rest of the guys. Now.” The tone in his voice allows no argument.

The old me would punch something and spout off, but the new me takes a deep breath and lets it out.

This Zen shit is harder than I thought it would be.

I stalk off toward the training facility with Coach hot on my heels.

The team is already there, lifting weights and running on the treadmills. It’s easy to pick out the senior members and the newbies. They automatically segregate themselves. The older players hover around the weights, cheering on one guy. The freshmen are on the opposite side of the room, using some of the other strength training equipment and watching the guys with awe in their eyes.

When I step into the room, everyone stops. 

Up until this moment, I’ve been working out on my own when they’re not around. To be honest, with my weakened leg and knee, I was embarrassed to work around them. They’re all athletes in their prime and I might be only a few years older than them but I feel like an elder. 

Coach claps me on the shoulder and bellows, “A’ight, fellas, I’m sure by now you’ve heard the rumors that Bennett was on campus. Those rumors are true. He’s here to train with you guys until he’s ready to rejoin his team. This is a unique situation, and I hope you’ll be mindful of that.” He glares at each and every one of them. I know he’s warning them off from blabbing their mouths about everything I do and say. I appreciate his effort, but I doubt it’ll do any good. When people want to talk, they do. “Get back to it,” he orders. In a lower voice says to me, “You too.”

I sigh and move over to one of the weight-lifting machines by the freshmen. 

“Dude, what’s the NHL like?”

I turn to look at the freshman on my right. “Like this but harder,” I answer, increasing the weight on the machine before taking a seat.

“Why’d you get kicked off the team?” another one asks.

I push up on the machine, my arms straining. “I didn’t get kicked off the team.”

“But you’re on probation. Isn’t that the same thing?”

I glare at the guy. “No, it’s not.”

One guy hits them in the arm and they move off to the treadmills. The two other guys beside me seem uninterested in talking to me, which is fine by me. Besides, they seem to be having a conversation of their own.

The blond guy says, “Dude, this girl in my English class fell in my lap on the first day. It was hilarious.”

“Was she hot?” the other one asks.

“Oh, yeah. Legs for days and long brown hair.”

I perk up at that.
Could it be? No …

“Have you talked to her?”

“A few times. We also have economy together so I purposely took the seat beside her,” he chortles. “She’s pretty embarrassed around me after the lap incident, but I think I’m wearing her down.”

“What’s her name?”

“Grace.”

Fuck.
Can he be talking about Grace?

I quickly tune out what the guys are saying. It’s none of my business anyway. 

I push myself harder. Sweat courses down the side of my face, but I keep pushing harder, trying to quiet my mind, but I can’t let go of that conversation and I hate that it bothers me. I spent
one
afternoon with Grace—the brief run-in with her at the coffee shop on Monday doesn’t count—and all we did was go to fucking Target. How can she possibly be under my skin this deep? 

“You’re gonna regret that in the morning,” one of the senior guys says, coming over to stand beside me and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Don’t worry about me,” I say.

“Here,” the guy says, holding out a towel. “It’s clean. Promise.”

I take the towel from him and mumble a quick, “Thanks.” I wipe the sweat off my face, cursing myself for leaving my bag back at Coach’s office. It has all my stuff in it, including my water.

“Michael Thomas,” the guy holds out his hand. “I just want to say, I really admire what you do on the ice. I don’t think you get enough credit.”

I look up at the guy. He’s tall, slightly taller than me, and wide like a wall. He has close-cut brown hair and brown eyes, and he sports a near-beard.

“Thanks,” I say. “Are you a senior?”

“Junior,” he answers. My eyes widen, the guy is huge so I just figured he was already in his final year. “Hoping to get drafted this year.”

I nod. “Good luck.” I start to leave.

“Maybe you could train me?” he calls out questioningly.

My feet falter. “Uh…” I pause, not knowing what to say. I laugh lightly. “There’s not much I can teach you that you don’t already know.”

“Yeah, but you
made
it. You’ve been there—on the big stage. That counts for something.” Michael’s eyes light up. 

I sigh and lean against one of the pieces of equipment. “I’ll be out on the ice with you, practicing like I’m one of the team—I’m sure you guys are going to teach me more than I can you, but yeah, I’ll do what I can.” I shrug. It would feel good to give back in a way. I
was
these guys only a few years ago with stars in my eyes—dreaming of being drafted. I would’ve shit my pants to work with a pro—even one as fucked up as me. 

“Thanks, man.” Michael holds out his fist for me to bump mine against.

“I’m going to hit the showers,” I tell him. “See you tomorrow.”

He nods, lifting two of his fingers to his forehead and saluting me.

I go to Coach’s office to grab my bag and stop when I hear my name. “Are you fucking crazy? Letting Bennett James train with us? What were you thinking?”

“I will not be reprimanded by
you
,” Coach says in a steely-calm voice. “You might be the team captain, but I’m the coach and you
never
address me that way ever again or you’re off the team.”

“But, Coach—”

“No buts.”

I grab my bag and haul ass down the hall to the showers before Coach or the team captain spots me. I knew some of the players were bound to not want me here, but to have the team captain be the main one isn’t going to be good, and something tells me he’s going to set out to make my life a living hell. After all, you never really leave high school.

I head out of the gym and toward the garages. I need to get out of here. It’s late and I need a fucking drink. The last thing I need to do is get drunk at a bar and have it show up in a magazine, but fuck it.

I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans, hunching my shoulders as I power across campus.

I become distracted when I notice a girl standing at one of the coffee carts. She’s dressed in a blue skirt and white blousy thing with long dark hair. 

My gut tells me it’s Grace even if I can’t see her.

I should keep going, ignore the urge to speak to her, but I can’t, and the conversation the guys were having back at the gym comes flooding back to me.

I hesitate for one second—warring with myself—before I veer to my left and over to where she stands in line. I settle into line right beside her. “You have a thing for hockey players, don’t you?”

She looks up at me, jumping back a bit. “Jesus, Bennett, you scared the crap out of me.” She raises a hand to her heart. “And what do you mean?” Her nose crinkles in confusion.

“The guy you fell on is a hockey player.”

Her mouth pops open and pink blooms across her cheeks. “How do you know about that?” She hisses, looking around like she’s afraid someone’s going to overhear.

“The prick was talking about it in the gym,” I answer, unable to keep the sneer from my voice.

Her eyes widen in horror. “I’m going to kill him,” she hisses under her breath. Raising her voice, and her chin, she says, “I didn’t know he was a hockey player. I’m not one of those fuck bunnies if that’s what you’re thinking.”