Page 58 of Call the Shots (For The Arena #1)

BEAR

TOOTH AND CLAW

It was crazy to think of how gross the Colo used to look while we slid into the hard metal seats of the break room. No mold, no blood, no biohazardous waste. I grinned, taking the chair next to June, feeling pretty goddamn good.

“What did Marrs say?” Denali grinned.

Cleo was always well-prepared. Her purse had a two-hundred-piece first aid kit. Yet for the first time since I’d known her, she looked unsteady. “This will be a national scandal.”

“Yeah, Marrs fucked up,” I chuckled.

“It’s not like we didn’t tell them,” June remarked. “How many emails did we send about Vernon?”

“When are the checks coming in?” Denali said. “The guys are ready to celebrate.”

Cleo swallowed. “Marrs is…folding the hockey team.”

We fell silent and my muscles froze, my body cooling all over until the only thing I felt was cold.

I searched for a hint that this was a joke.

It was a joke—right? It had to be. Because the Gladiators couldn’t be done .

That wasn’t possible. My heart stopped in my chest as I struggled to understand.

“They’ll allow emergency transfers.” Cleo hesitated. “There’s already calls for Montoya. Bear, Boston colleges have expressed interest?—”

“No,” I blurted out. “We can’t leave. We’re a team.”

“We’re not playing together,” Denali mumbled.

“Why are you saying that like it’s set in stone?” I snapped at him. “Take your head out of your ass. We need someone new. Coaches get fired, it happens?—”

Cleo exhaled. “I’ve been advised not to talk to the team, but everyone should speak to a lawyer.”

“I don’t want to sue!” I interjected. “I want to play with my team!”

Cleo’s remark about Boston flew over my head. I didn’t give a shit that they decided I was worthwhile now. My eyes landed on June, devastation hitting me. How could I be half a country away from her? How could I leave her behind?

“We’ll call people,” Denali urged. “We’ll fill their voicemail boxes.”

“Sure…” Cleo pursed her lips. “We can try?”

It was quiet and Denali took a deep breath. “What am I supposed to say to them?”

Fuck .

“Can you give us ten minutes before we announce it?” June said softly. When Cleo and Denali left, she moved her chair closer to me, and I shook my head.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “We wouldn’t have won with Vernon. What else were we supposed to do?”

“Hey, hey…” June wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me down for a hug. I buried my face in the crook of her neck, overwhelmed by the disappointment. Overwhelmed by the realization that I’d have to say goodbye to her.

“We did everything we could,” I kept repeating, my voice hollow. “I don’t understand.”

She ran her fingers through my hair. “I know, Bear. I know.”

Everyone filed into the meeting room, still in good spirits until they caught our mood. I sat in my chair, chin in my hand, my eyes on June. I only had a limited amount of time to look at her.

Fuck. That hurt.

When the door closed, Denali broke the news, and the team was quiet. A couple of people started to talk but they were empty words before we lapsed into the same silence I’d settled into.

“So what’s next?” Sully pushed.

Denali rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ll look at transfer paperwork?—”

“No, what’s next for the Gladiators?”

“We won’t play together?” Montoya’s voice cracked. “Not one game?”

“Cleo’s printing a list of numbers to call,” Denali said slowly. “We’ll…make a petition, go to their offices, jam their phone lines…”

“This is fucking bullshit!” Sully shoved out of his chair. He was usually so calm, more of a jokester, and it took everyone by surprise. “We need to find a coach!”

“Sully.” I stopped him. “Hey.”

“You’re supposed to agree with me, Bear!”

“Even if we find a coach, we can’t convince Marrs to sign them on.”

Denali straightened up. “I want to thank everyone here. Not just the teammates but Mom and June too. It’s the best team I’ve been part of. Even if it came crashing down, I’m proud of us. So…thank you. For everything.”

A couple of the guys and I sat together in the corner dialing numbers while the rest of them lined up for Cleo’s help. Transfer paperwork and lawyers. I laid back in my office chair while Elijah spun slowly in his, muttering Moosefucker every time he had to lift his feet to avoid hitting mine.

“This is fucking stupid,” he muttered.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I was looking forward to being defense partners,” he admitted.

“Me too.”

June approached with one of her reusable bags. “Bear? I didn’t get to show you your new t-shirt design.”

The last thing I wanted was another ‘ bearly hanging on! ’ slogan but it was a gift from June, and if this was her way to lighten the mood, I’d entertain it. It wasn’t like I could say no to her anyway.

“You changed the color?” I asked, unrolling the black t-shirt.

On the back it said ‘33’ and ‘Moreau,’ no comic sans this time. I flipped it over and stared. On the front was a picture of me with my hockey stick over my shoulders and the phrase ‘ TOOTH AND CLAW ’ in dangerously sharp letters.

It was the coolest t-shirt design we had.

“‘ Tooth and claw ’ is from a poem about nature,” she said softly. “About its unstoppable force. It reminded me of you.”

It was hard to swallow. My words were quiet when I could finally speak. “Thank you.”

June left to help Cleo. The guys had compliments for the shirt but those went over my head. With jerky movements, I grabbed Fridge, leading him to the hallway.

I ignored his questions, my head spinning.

This couldn’t be the end of June and me.

I refused to believe it. There were trains, flights, fucking skateboards to travel with.

The way I felt about June was bigger than me, bigger than I could understand, this wasn’t our finale. I couldn’t let that happen.

“You know women,” I muttered when Fridge and I were alone.

“I know several women, yes.”

“No, you know women—like their heads. The stuff they have in their brains.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I want to tell June how I feel, and I want to do it right because I’d fuck it up.”

“No better time than now.” He folded his arms over his chest. “What’s the pitch? How are you going to tell her?”

“The pitch. Got it. June . I—uh—” My brain wasn’t cooperating, I was too messed-up from everything that happened. “I love how you smell, and it gets my dick hard?—”

“Bad,” Fridge interrupted.

“Fuck. I wasn’t ready.”

“Go again.”

“I think about you all the time?—”

He nodded. “Good.”

“In case you were wondering, you can baby-trap me. I’d be cool with that?—”

“ Bad. ”

“What? It’s the truth?—”

“ No, Bear.” Fridge ran a hand over his face. “The stuff you say in the bedroom stays in the bedroom . If you say you want to get a woman pregnant in the real world, they consider that a threat. June will act accordingly. She’ll pepper spray you.”

“No, I don’t want to get her pregnant—I’m saying if she asked me to get her pregnant—damn—I could do it in twenty minutes?—”

Fridge snapped his fingers in my face. “Don’t make me hurl.” He sighed. “We have a lot of work to do. We’ll make you the most romantic love confession ever written.”