Page 15 of Ice Cold, Red Hot (Coldwater Firehawks Hockey #1)

SHEPHERD

“Dude, we’re going out and you’re coming. Your panties have been bunched way too tight lately.” Griff leaned against the door jamb of my room. I was on the bed, studying. Or at least the intent was to study. In reality, I was staring at the words in front of me, seeing nothing.

My mind was on everything else.

My father. Celeste.

Mostly Celeste.

I’d successfully walked away. I’d pushed her out of my life. The only place I needed to see her now was one hour on Fridays, and if I did my best not to look at her while she taught, then I could get through that with a minimum of effort. Maybe.

I knew what I needed to do. Why was it so fucking hard?

“I need to study.”

“You need to loosen the fuck up. What is this, Ren? It’s like you’re under a cloud all the time this year, like you’re two steps away from exploding. It’s freaking the guys out. ”

“The guys? Or you?”

“Everyone,” Griff said. He moved into my room, plopped himself down on the end of my bed, sending my books bouncing around. “If we were the kind of guys who had heartfelt talks, I’d be offering to have one now. I’m kinda worried about you.”

“That’s sweet,” I said, deadpan.

“Just come out. It’s Friday night. Show the guys you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Prove it with beers.”

Shit. He wasn’t going to let me mope, and I knew it was probably better for me to escape these four walls anyway, and get some air. Too much time alone with my thoughts wasn’t a good thing.

“Fine.”

An hour later, we were at McDougals, and I’d had a few.

Most of my teammates were there, and it kind of felt like our bar for the moment.

We were playing darts, a couple pitchers on the high tops around the pool table, and I finally felt like I was relaxing.

There were even moments when I realized I hadn’t thought about her for a while.

It had all the makings of a good night—good music, my friends, enough of a buzz to have that liquid warm feeling.

And then Ethan Calloway strode in with a couple of his preppy friends and sat down around one of the high tops next to us. His smug face and even more smug voice threatened to break my chill, but I wasn’t going to let it .

I turned my back on them, but unfortunately, they did not have a volume adjustment ,and Ethan’s voice caught my attention. Especially when he mentioned Celeste’s name.

“You think she’ll accept?” One of Ethan’s douchebag friends asked.

I turned halfway to hear better. Accept what?

“I’m sure she will. It’s an opportunity she literally can’t pass up. Especially as a first year,” Ethan said.

“And your plan is to get her working under you so you can get her, ah… working under you?” One of Ethan’s friends said this, and they all laughed their snooty, guffawing laughs as my hand tightened around my glass.

I downed what was left of my beer as Ethan’s voice clarified. “Between me and that hockey player? Celeste’s too smart for some meathead fling. I’m gonna be working with her on the daily. It’s just a matter of time before…”

At this point, I’d turned all the way around, and was staring at the group talking about Celeste like a conquest, totally oblivious to how loudly their voices carried across the noisy bar.

“Shepherd? Oh shit. What—” Griff was at my side, and he followed my gaze to Ethan’s table. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said, and even I heard the danger in my tone.

“That the grad student Celeste is dating?” Griff asked.

Hearing him phrase it that way only made my chest tighten more, my blood pound through me like a battle drum. I didn’t answer him—just put my glass down with a thud and started moving .

“Shit, Ren, don’t do it.” But Griff was behind me now.

“Not worth it man,” Burns said, grabbing my arm. I shook him off, making my way to Ethan’s table. I leaned down, bracing my forearms on the tabletop.

“Evening, gentlemen.”

“Renshaw,” Ethan practically sneered. “How’s all that… hockey stuff?” He and his friends exchanged a look like this was possibly the funniest joke they’d ever managed.

“Good,” I told them, ignoring their little smirks. I stared at Ethan. “What were you saying a minute ago? About Celeste? And me?”

Ethan shrugged and raised his hands. “Meant nothing by it, man. You guys had a moment, I get it.”

A moment?

“You know nothing about it,” I told him, my vision beginning to tunnel.

“I know that Celeste is way too smart to waste her time with a guy like you. Besides, she’s older, focused—she knows what she wants.”

“And that’s you, I guess?” I could barely get the words out with the adrenaline shooting through me.

Ethan smiled, and the smug certainty in his expression sent me over the edge. I didn’t even feel my fist forming, my arm pulling back. But I did feel the satisfying crunch of the cartilage in his nose when my fist connected with his stupid face.

Glass shattered somewhere nearby, maybe I knocked the beers off their table, or maybe it was from when Ethan’s friends jumped to their feet and backed away as blood spurted from his face.

Ethan’s hands went to his nose, his eyes widening as he pulled them back to look at the blood covering his fingers. “Are you insane?”

Fury threatened to swamp me again, but I was beginning to hear the chaos around me now. Chaos I’d caused. People were yelling, my teammates were pulling at me. But my mouth was on its own program. “Say another word about her, Calloway. See what happens.”

I was in his face, leaning forward despite multiple hands tugging at me, pulling me away. Then Frank was around the bar, his bat in hand as he lunged at me. “Out. Now. And you don’t come back in here, Renshaw. You’re banned.”

As the guys pulled me away, I heard Ethan’s voice again as he said to his friends, “perfect demonstration of why she’s not gonna choose that lunatic.”

I struggled to lunge at him again, but Griff had me too tight and was hauling me to the door. “Dude, you’re in enough shit already. Let’s go.”

Griff was right. The next morning, we were awakened by pounding at the front door and a too-familiar gruff voice yelling, “Renshaw, you better open this goddamned door right now!”

Coach.

I got to the door at the same time as Griff, who backed off immediately, moving into the kitchen to the coffee maker. I pulled the door open.

Coach Adams burst inside, not looking at me and nearly knocking me over. He threw a folded newspaper onto the counter, and spun around, pointing a meaty finger at the headline blaring across the local front page:

COLDWATER HOCKEY STAR ATTACKS GRAD STUDENT AT LOCAL BAR

Shit.

“You better start talking,” Coach said, crossing his arms.

I rubbed a hand through my hair, barely awake enough to form a coherent sentence, let alone to explain myself to my furious coach.

“Shepherd,” his voice calmed a bit. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

I shook my head, wishing I could undo what I’d done. Wishing I could undo so many things I’d done. “Coach, I’m sorry. But it was just one punch and that guy?—”

“That guy wants to press charges.” Coach’s voice was low and cold as he delivered this news.

Shit. If Ethan got the cops involved… I’d be off the team. Even if I could somehow prove myself innocent, there’s no way I could play while the legal shit was going on. I’d be benched — or worse.

“I’ve spoken to your father already, son,” Coach Adams said, and the tone of his voice—not to mention him calling me “son”—made it clear he understood that the potential threat from my father was probably worse than what I’d face if Ethan pressed charges.

My stomach dropped and my skin felt cold suddenly. I did not want to talk to my dad.

“Needless to say, he’s not pleased.”

I dropped my gaze to the floor. There was nothing to say. I’d fucked up. I was going to lose everything. I swallowed hard and forced myself to look up. “Is there anything I can do?”

The coach shrugged. “I’m not sure, but you’d sure as hell better try.”

I nodded. “I will.”

“You’re benched until this is figured out,” Coach added, and my heart sank. “And you better not be late for practice. You’ll be working twice as hard until this is done.”

“Got it.”

He didn’t say another word, just left the apartment, the headline screaming at me from the paper he’d dropped on the counter.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“Sums it up,” Griff agreed.

I’d swallowed a single gulp of coffee before my phone rang.

Dad.

Griff leaned over my shoulder, noting the name on the screen. “I’ll just be going now…” he disappeared back into his room, shutting the door. Even my roommate was terrified of Darren Renshaw. But I had no choice. I had to answer.

“Hi Dad.”

“What the hell did you do?” It wasn’t a greeting so much as a screaming indictment.

Dad didn’t want to hear why—not that I had a good reason.

He wouldn’t listen if I did. He wanted to yell, and it was my job to take it.

I sealed my lips, pulled the phone away from my ear, and let him go.

“Do you have any idea what’s at stake here, Shepherd?

Worse, have you got any idea how this makes me look?

How about your granddad? It’s his name you play under there.

And your brother? Now he’s the player with the asshole little brother who can’t keep his head on.

“A fight? Jesus, Shepherd. I don’t even know what the hell to say.”

It seemed like he’d said it all. And he’d made it crystal clear he didn’t care about me, wasn’t interested in why I fought. I made him look bad, and that was the whole problem in his mind. He wouldn’t understand anyway, because besides hockey, he didn’t give a shit what was going on in my life.

“You gonna say anything?”

“I don’t know what to say, Dad. Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry isn’t gonna cut it.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know what it feels like to watch you throw it all away? Every chance you’ve been given?”

There was nothing to say to that.

“Fix this, Shepherd. I don’t care what it takes.”

I was about to say something, but he was already gone.

Perfect.

I sank down on the couch and let my head fall back, staring at the ceiling.

Griff and I headed to practice that afternoon with the other guys, and there was none of the usual banter, none of the antics I was used to from my teammates.

If they hadn’t been there, they’d heard about it, and I couldn’t blame them for being disappointed in me.

I wasn’t the captain they needed, the one they deserved .

Shit, I was the most disappointed in me of all.

I’d let a girl work her way so deep under my skin I couldn’t see what was important anymore. I was wasting everything I’d lived for up to this point, and for what?

Celeste and I didn’t have a future. She was my TA for one thing, and a distraction for another. This should never have been a question, let alone an issue. Why couldn’t I just let it go?

That very reason stood outside the door to the rink, chewing on her bottom lip as we all approached, gear slung over our shoulders and jaws set. She was literally the last thing I needed right now.

I tried to blow past her, but Griff elbowed me hard, blocking my path and nodding at her. “She deserves a few words,” he said.

“Fuck.”

“Different words,” Griff suggested.

The guys filed inside and I was left alone, facing Celeste.

She straightened up, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes narrowed, and while I still fought my attraction to her, there was something else—foreboding. Celeste looked pissed.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she asked.

Fantastic. One more person to explain myself to. I set my jaw, trying to contain the three million responses that flew through my mind. Being an asshole right now wouldn’t help.

“A bar fight?”

“It wasn’t a fight,” I said, my mouth beating my brain to the punch. “I just punched him.”

“That makes it so much better, Shepherd. Why would you do that? Doesn’t that put your position in jeopardy with the team?”

“Why do you even care?” The words fired out of me, angry, full of hurt, full of wanting her so badly I could barely keep from lunging at her and wrapping her in my arms like she was the only thing in the world that could fix any of this.

For a second, something like pain flitted through her dark gaze, then her lips pressed into a hard angry line before she spoke. “This affects me too. Ethan is basically my boss now. You just made my life a hundred times harder.”

I shook my head. “Your boss? What?” That’s what he’d been bragging about last night.

She blew out a breath, as if she was annoyed she had to explain this to me. “He offered me a research assistant position.”

“And you took it?” The last thing I wanted was her working closer with him.

“Of course I took it. The pay is better, the hours are better, and the work is the kind of resume building I need. It’s an amazing opportunity—especially for a first year grad student.”

“And did you take it to be close to Ethan?” I couldn’t even meet her eye as I asked the question.

“You don’t get to ask me that.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

For another second, we just stood there staring at each other, the tension between us a physical force, an animal stalking warily back and forth with every muscle coiled.

“Look,” she said, shifting her weight and running a hand through her hair. “You made your choice the other morning. You made everything perfectly clear. And this is me respecting your decision. I’m not TAing your section anymore, so let’s just agree to keep our distance from now on.”

“Is that why you’re here? You’re keeping your distance?”

Celeste’s beautiful eyes held mine. “I came to be sure you were okay.”

As she turned and walked away, I realized I was about as fucking far from okay as I’d ever been.