Page 68 of Puck My Life

I shake my head. The last thing I want to talk about is my failure on the ice.

“How about we talk about the guy?”

She goes silent. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Why not?” I snarl, clinging to it simply because she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Because it and he are none of your business.”

She walks off, but I’m not done, and I’m not okay with this. I follow her out the front to her car, where she pulls out a couple of bags of groceries and brushes past me.

“Stop and tell me!”

My voice has the edge of a bark, not enough to force her to listen to me, but a warning all the same.

She stops, her shoulders tightening. She doesn’t turn, just stands there, anger pouring off her.

I can’t let it go. I wish I could, a voice inside me is screaming to stop, but I’m so angry, so frustrated, so tense.

“Did you fuck him?”

I don’t even know where the question comes from. It just pours out of me, unleashing a tirade of poison.

“Coming back here was a mistake.”

My rage, the simmering river, ignites into fire, and I see red. It’s all snowballed, and now the door is ripped open, it’s coming out, whether I like it or not.

Vae

PAST

The beta hands me her dirty plates and gives me a look up and down.

“I just don’t think it’s natural that you’re spending all your time around them. Don’t you have any pride?”

She’s got a purple bob and hot pink lipstick on, with a pleather skirt, and she’s just wearing a bikini top. Jazzy is a particularly nasty girlfriend, but if they stay true to trend she will be gone in a week.

I grit my teeth. “Fuck off, Jazzy.”

She hisses. “I don’t care if you are grieving. Remember your place.”

“My place?” I say loudly. “My place is here. Right here. So get out of my face.”

“Hook, calm down.”

My temper shatters.

“Get your two-bit whore out of this house, Mal, or I will break her face,” I roar.

The three of them stare at me like I’ve gone insane.

“Vae, no-”

“It wasn’t a fucking request. Get her out of this house, and she doesn’t come back. Fuck her in the gutter where she belongs.”

Raynor cocks his head to the side, watching me intently.

Deacon hesitates. “Fine. But we’re talking about this later.”