Page 27 of Like a Power Play (Greenrock University: Icebound #1)

Fifteen

Darcy

“ F uck!” I lift my foot, cool air rushing to my skin as my sandal slips off, revealing a sore patch of heel where they’ve been glued to me for far too long.

Squatting down, I yank the damn pine needle from the small hole it's made in my compression socks.

“Fucking trees,” I mutter, scowling at the offending plant.

I don’t mind nature in small doses. Mostly when it’s framed on a calendar or viewed through the safety of a car window. But trekking through it? Mountain climbing? Walking through a forest that looks like it was designed specifically to test my patience?

Not exactly my idea of fun.

My skin starts itching the second I step out, my eyes swell at the mere existence of the breeze, and this sounds childish, but I fucking hate dirt. I can’t stand it. The gritty, powdery texture it leaves on my skin, the way it clings to my socks and stains my gloves.

No thanks.

“You good?” Bailey’s voice breaks through my irritated thoughts.

She’s walking beside me, a giant mastiff— Mr. Bubbles —lumbering along at her side, drool spilling from his mouth and staining his custom green Greenrock University bandana.

Bailey’s brows are furrowed, her brown eyes flashing with genuine concern.

Despite my confusion over the fact that she’s even talking to me at all, I force a smile and lower my foot back down.

“Yeah. Just a pine needle.”

Bailey scrunches her nose, eyes darting to the towering trees surrounding us like something out of a horror movie. “They’re the worst kind of tree,” she mutters, still eyeing the pines. “Seriously, why do trees need needles?”

“I’m pretty sure the scientific answer is water retention, but I’m going to stick with ‘to make us miserable’.”

Bailey nos. “Yeah, that tracks.”

The team floods into the main cabin of Pineview Resort, and Bailey and I exchange a look which I read as:

What in the fresh hell is this?

I’d been hoping the retreat would be at a hotel, maybe somewhere in the city.

Somewhere with air conditioning, Wi-Fi. At the very least, I was hoping for a place not half a mile deep in the woods.

Actually, I was hoping to skip the retreat altogether after I tried to resign.

But my academic adviser made it clear I’d have no chance of getting the credit elsewhere, and the look on my mom’s face when I told her?

Yeah, I was better off suffering in the wilderness.

It’s been a week since the fight on the ice, and neither my mom nor I have been in the best of moods.

She recovered from the silent treatment quickly.

I’ll never forget the wide-eyed terror on Indie’s face when my mom stomped across the locker room that first practice back, yelling about what an embarrassment they all were.

Poor kid looked like she was about to shit herself.

“I hope I get you for my room assignment,” Bailey whispers, surveying the mounted animal heads on the wall like they might come to life. “If I get stuck with Harlowe or Peyton, the only time I’ll see the hot tub is from the top of a cliff.” She shudders at the thought, visibly recoiling.

“Wait, room assignments?” I frown. Bailey looks at me earnestly, patting Mr. Bubbles on the head.

“Two to a room. Didn’t you hear Coach say that on the bus?”

The entire bus ride, Peyton had been sitting in front of me, turning around every few seconds like she was trying to get my attention. I avoided her gaze like the plague. Since that night in the locker room, we’ve hardly spoken.

Or, I guess, I’ve hardly spoken.

Part of me is still pissed—fuming, really—that she’d been so reckless. Another part of me feels this annoying, inconvenient pity. And of course, there’s the… yeah . We don’t need to talk about that.

So no, I wasn’t paying attention to my mom on the bus. I was too busy convincing myself that avoiding Peyton was the right thing to do.

“I kinda zoned out,” I mutter, and Bailey shoots me a proud gleam.

“Look at you, Coach ,” she teases, jutting her elbow into my side. “Doing something rebellious for once. Good for you.”

I roll my eyes, but a smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “Is that good?”

Bailey grins wider, her pale cheeks glowing under the orange light. “I’m a firm believer that rules are meant to be broken,” she says with a wink. “Though, I might spend a little too much time with Peyton.”

My lips purse into a telling line.

Mom claps her hands together, cutting off the murmurs of conversation. The crease in her brow—the one that’s been there since that fight on the ice—still hasn’t budged. I can’t help but wonder if it’s become a permanent feature on her face.

“Listen up!” she commands, her tone domineering. “I’ll be calling out room assignments. No bitching, no moaning, no swapping.”

Harlowe raises her hand, grinning like a villain. My mom doesn’t even look up from her clipboard.

“What , Ayers?”

Harlowe clears her throat. “Is moaning allowed if I’m fuc—”

“Don’t. Say. It.” My mom’s voice is ice-cold, and Harlowe shrinks back dramatically, but not before winking at me.

I glance at Bailey, startled. “Did she just—”

“She does that to everyone,” Bailey says, waving a hand dismissively. “Ignore her. She acts like a top, but—” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “she really isn’t.”

Harlowe glares at Bailey, who just shrugs, unfazed. My mom continues, refusing to acknowledge the stupidity of the conversation.

“Because this is a team retreat, and you all want to fight like a team—” She pauses dramatically, the corner of her mouth twitching, reveling in her own cleverness.

“I’ve paired you all strategically, with people I think you need to spend more time with.

This person will be your buddy the entire weekend.

Where they go, you go, until I say otherwise. ”

Oh . She’s not pairing them with who they want to room with. She’s playing some twisted matchmaker game to fuel her own agenda.

I can’t say it’s a terrible strategy. Tension has been building in the team since the Glacier game. Caydence and Harlowe can’t stop butting heads, Lena is mad at Bailey for tripping her by accident.

I’m lucky. At least the coach is my mom, so I get to room with her and avoid the chaos.

“Ayers, Jones,” my mom calls, tossing her head at Harlowe and Caydence. “Room 206. Cunningham, Brady—”

“Dammit,” Bailey mutters, low enough that only I catch it.

“Room 207. Clarke, Cole—” I freeze, looking at Peyton, whose eyes snap to mine like she’s been electrocuted. Mom clears her throat. “Darcy Cole, Room 208.”

Every drop of blood in my face evacuates. My pulse is pounding so loudly I can barely hear my mom continuing to call names.

She didn’t .

She wouldn’t.

My mind races, replaying every word, every touch from Peyton and I's last conversation. The way her gaze cut through me like daggers, how her eyes welled with tears, how her breath felt so close to mine, how her hand gripped my jacket.

Peyton and I haven’t even been able to tolerate each other during practice. How the hell are we supposed to survive a weekend sharing a room?

My breath catches in my throat, and I force myself to swallow it down, trying to ignore the rising panic in my chest. Peyton’s gaze stays glued to mine, and for a split second, I see the same disbelief mirrored in her eyes. This has to be a joke. A bad one.

My mom does have a dark sense of humor.

But she just keeps calling out names. I’m barely hearing any of it, plotting a way out. There’s no way we can survive this. She has to know that, right?

When she finishes broadcasting assignments, and the team begins to spill out of the lobby, I march right up to her, nostrils flaring.

“You’re joking, right? I’m staying with you?” I manage to keep my voice steady, but inside, I’m anything but calm.

She looks at me like I’m any other team member. “No, Darcy. I’m not joking.”

I open my mouth to argue, my brain scrambling for something to convince her to change her mind. But she cuts me off before I can speak.

"Clearly, there’s a rift here. You two have the weekend to fix it, or you’ll lose your job, and she’ll lose her title” she says.

I pull back, brows furrowing, heart sinking. “But if I lose my job, I won’t graduate on time.”

Her gaze settles on me, softening just slightly. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. But this has gone on long enough.”

Head floods my chest as I stare at her in disbelief. She pats my shoulder with a quiet finality, then strolls away.

I just stand there. Contemplating.

I could do it. Plenty of people don’t have college degrees. My dad never graduated, and he turned out to be a great… stay-at-home father.

Oh god. I do not want to be a mom.

No, no, I could do something else. Plumbers make good money… though I have a strong sensitivity to human fluids. Okay, scratch that. A realtor? What do I care about houses? I’ll never afford one. A mechanic? A pilot?

My gaze flicks to Peyton. She’s watching me with an indecipherable expression. Something in her eyes sends a hot jolt through my body, and I hate it.

I hate that when I look at her, every memory of me in Minnesota floods back.

No matter how badly I want to quit, I can’t.

It’s like trying to stop my heart from beating.

Trying to stop my lungs from breathing. Quitting is foreign to me.

I’ve never been able to do it. Not until the doctors told me I had to, and even then, I fought.

Persistence is woven into my DNA—so fundamental that to erase it would take rewiring my entire brain.

I could walk away from the ice. Hell, I could run. But I’d just keep running in circles, always ending up right back where I started. It’s why I’m still here. Why I still have that damn clipboard.

I snatch my bag off the floor, and without another word, storm off toward Cabin 208, cursing myself. My stupid DNA.