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Page 52 of Call the Shots (For The Arena #1)

JUNE

THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN

When I saw Marrs in the distance, I breathed out a sigh of relief. I couldn’t wait to curl up in a blanket after the last twenty-four hours, but when we came to our dorm, Bear placed his hand on the small of my back and dipped down, his voice quiet.

“I’ve been thinking…” His hand drew away, leaving warmth where it’d been. “I want you to go to Fridge and Nick’s. I’ll put everything to get rid of in a box, and you figure out what you want to keep, okay?”

I was prepared to try when I felt better but I wondered how long I’d been doing that. How long had I been waiting to feel strong enough, just to keep putting it off?

Today I couldn’t do it. I’d get tangled up with memories and tell myself I could throw certain things away tomorrow, but that magical time tomorrow wouldn’t come.

Slowly, I nodded. “Okay.”

“You don’t have to get rid of anything you don’t want to,” Bear assured me, knocking on their door.

Before Nick could open it, Montoya burst into the hallway and enveloped me in an anaconda-like hug. “ June! ”

Wasn’t Montoya all skinny limbs and elbows? It’d only been a couple of days since I’d seen him! Maybe I didn’t notice the gradual changes. I hugged him back. “Where’d this muscle come from?”

He blushed. “Bear and I have a new workout schedule.”

“Don’t go dark on us again,” Nick warned me, welcoming us in.

He chugged the rest of a protein shake and wiped his mouth.

“I thought Bear was going to have a heart attack and die. Do you know how much stress that put me under?” He pointed to a faint line in his forehead. “This is because of you. A wrinkle.”

Montoya brought me to the couch. “If you want to get drunk, you can get drunk with us, June. You don’t have to drink alone.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Bear swore us to secrecy.”

“Secrecy?” I repeated.

“He said if anyone finds out you got alcohol poisoning, he’ll break a finger for each person who gets told.” He grinned, sheepish. “It’s cool knowing a secret like that. Not one where you’re hurt! But a bone-cracking secret. That’s pretty cool.”

Montoya had no idea. The Gladiators had no idea how I’d gotten that drunk—Bear kept his word. My heart thumped steadily, and I pulled a pillow to my chest as the door opened again.

“You’re looking better,” Fridge remarked, giving me a side hug, leading the way for more hockey players.

“June’s back!” Charlie announced, drumming his hands on the back of the couch.

Pickles ruffled my hair. “Shouldn’t have left in the first place—I can’t believe Mom’s still gone.”

Denali took one of the chairs. “Sorry it doesn’t smell better, I tried to convince them to shower before the homecoming.”

There was a team-wide vote on what to watch—most wanted a gruesome trucker massacre movie—but when Montoya heaved through the trailer, they switched to a video game instead. Wrapped in blankets, I snuggled with Montoya while his character kept falling into endless abysses.

The door opened again, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Bear. He made his way to me, quiet, and placed a bowl of orange slices in my lap.

Careful to shield his screen from everybody else, he showed me a picture on his phone.

It was my cardboard box.

There were my old calorie-counting journals, my weight goal dress bunched in a ball of pink fabric, a pile of tiny, indiscernible shreds of the polaroids, and other things he picked from around the dorm.

My scales from the bathroom, the bedroom, and under my bed.

My food scales from the kitchen. Stickers he must’ve peeled off my water bottles— excuses don’t burn calories!

My monthly gym calendar, fitness trainer business cards, and little odds and ends I didn’t realize I’d been collecting.

“What do you want to keep?” he asked, his voice soft.

Bear was so close, I could feel the heat from his body. Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was because it felt so good to hug him earlier, but I leaned against him.

“I don’t want to keep any of it.”

“Okay,” he said simply and moved to leave.

“Bear?”

“Mm-hmm?”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Can you add the flowers too? And the nametags? And the crown?”

“Uh-huh.”

Bear looped his arm around my chest, pressing me to him. His cheek brushed against mine. It was a two-second hug before his hold disappeared and he left the dorm. I could feel the eyes on me. The guys were curious, but none asked questions.

I’d been waiting to burn the box in a bonfire, toss it in a woodchipper, have some kind of climatic ending but that never came, and it felt like the box grew roots in retaliation.

I didn’t need a climatic end. I just wanted to sleep without being haunted by a blurry gloss over the truth.

The truth wasn’t two sizes smaller. The truth was my hair falling out again, my nails cracking. The truth was the constant headaches, the ones so bad, I’d pass out from them. If I worked to get two sizes smaller, I wouldn’t just hear the ocean. I’d sink into the water and wouldn’t make it out.

Gingerly, I picked an orange slice and bit into it. An orange is around sixty to seventy calories— I dismissed that thought. What’s an orange? They’re delicious, I always loved oranges, and I was touched that Bear cut one up for me.

I needed that peace more than I needed to handle it myself. I needed to get better more than I had to do it on my own.

Twenty minutes later, Bear appeared. I thought he would’ve said something about the cardboard box but he didn’t mention it. He took the seat on the couch next to me and stretched out.

“You don’t get a controller,” Sully said, eyes glued to the screen.

“Don’t want your ass kicked?” he chuckled.

“It’s not fun when you play,” Nick muttered.

Bear grinned until his phone rang and everyone around the room glanced back.

Denali sighed. “Did you talk to him?”

“No.” Bear silenced the ring. “Not yet.”

I frowned. “Talk to who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bear said while half of the room answered with, “ Vernon .”

“Vernon?” I repeated. “Why is he calling you?”

“He’s pissed off,” Nick replied.

“He’s upset because Bear skipped practice,” Montoya whispered.

Bear tried to switch the conversation, but I didn’t understand. Why didn’t he tell Vernon about my hospital visit? Why was Bear avoiding his calls?

“What he’s doing is looking for an angle,” Fridge said coolly. “He wants a reason for Bear losing the captain badge.”

My mouth fell open. “You’re not alternate captain anymore?”

“Nope. It’s Twinkletoes,” Elijah muttered.

“ Riley is alternate captain?”

The good mood vanished, revealing an underlying strain, everyone shifting in their seats, restless. Nobody was happy with the change. Bear especially. Even if he played it off, I could feel it from him, an undercurrent he tried to hide from me.

Bear was hurt.

My lips pressed into a hard line and something bent inside me. Bear was putting himself out there and breaking free from his comfort zone—how could Vernon do that to him?

I was furious.

I held out my hand. “Phone.”

“Uh, it’s fine?—”

“Bear. Phone. ”

He passed me his phone. “Are you going to turn it off or?—?”

I answered the call, and Vernon’s voice thundered through. “Beau, this is the kind of behavior that?—”

“Vernon,” I said, my voice deadly.

Everyone in the room fell silent. Fridge paused the game.

“Who is this?” Vernon demanded.

“This is June, Cleo’s assistant.”

“What are you doing taking Beau’s calls?”

“His name is Bear, ” I punctured his question like a balloon. “And this is June, who had a medical emergency. Bear drove me to the hospital this morning which is why he couldn’t attend practice.”

Vernon didn’t say anything.

“Why you’d think it’s appropriate to reprimand Bear for that, I’m not sure. I’ll assume this is a misunderstanding. Because you wouldn’t punish Bear for this. Especially not on a recorded call that I could easily pull up for the Marrs administration.”

“Yikes,” Montoya whispered, and a dozen teammates shushed him.

“I…I guess not,” Vernon muttered.

“What was that?” I snapped. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I didn’t understand the situation.”

“I’d like to make sure that you’d never say—that Marrs would never say—a perfect attendance is worth more than someone’s life.”

“I never said?—”

“So Bear’s not in trouble.”

A long silence followed. “Beau—Bear’s not in trouble.”

I ended the call to a team of shocked faces. Whatever. After the summer, I wouldn’t be working for the hockey team. If I got in trouble, it really didn’t matter. I handed Bear his phone and turned to face him.

Bear gazed down at me, breathing slowly, his lips parted in surprise.

“I’m the only one who gets to talk to you like that,” I said, still aggravated.

Quickly, he nodded. “Uh-huh. The only one.”

“Fucking ridiculous is what it is,” I muttered, shimmying to the left, cozying up to?—

Bear.

I froze at the same time Bear stiffened, his body taut against mine. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for me. I cuddled with King throughout college and now plenty with Fridge and Montoya. Nick even pretended to sit in my lap at a meeting!

But Bear and I weren’t like that.

Right?

We weren’t. Maybe. I didn’t know.

I couldn’t leap away from him, that’d get everyone’s attention, and Bear lived up to his name with the bear hugs. Cuddling Bear sounded three times as good as that. Plus, we were friends. Friends could cuddle.

Like Bear was counting down the seconds too, he relaxed, pulling his arm from between us. I kept my eyes focused on the TV, all too aware of Bear stretching his arm behind me until he slipped it down to my waist.

His hand rested at my thigh, fingers brushing against me.

After the last twenty-four hours, I was so cold and tired, and Bear was…Bear. Big and warm and comforting.

My belly swooped when his fingers grazed my thigh again. The hoodie was so big, it should’ve offered coverage, but I felt every touch while he gently rubbed the top of my thigh until it was only his thumb, absentmindedly tracing patterns. My heart thudded in my chest, knocking against my ribcage.

This was cuddling. Cuddling with Bear was like everyone else.

Sure. Yes.

I felt eyes on me. Montoya. He was watching us with a knowing smile. When his eyes met mine, he glanced at the TV in a hurry. “I fell down the hole again!”

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