Page 13 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

SIX

BODEN

There were few things worse than department meetings.

The coffee was garbage, the topic was guaranteed to either make me want to cry or put my fist through a wall, and nothing was ever solved.

I wasn’t really sure what I’d expected when I took the job as an academic advisor for the community college.

I envisioned sitting in my office and, you know, guiding kids toward their successful futures.

Instead, it was convincing students that no, you can’t actually drop your class two days before the midterm and not take an Incomplete, and that yes, you actually do need some sort of mathematics course in order to graduate with a STEM associate’s.

The rest was paperwork and doing my best to keep up with the ever-shifting requirements for various degrees.

Not exactly what I planned to do with my life, but there was a point, six months before I was set to walk the stage for my master’s, that I realized I wasn’t going to fulfill any of my big dreams.

I’d taken the whole Paralympic ban in stride, especially with Tucker and Ford in my ears telling me that it wasn’t a big deal, that I could come back from it. But as a few years passed and no offers were coming in—not even for the goddamn minor league—I realized this might be it.

I had to do something with my life. I couldn’t live off the good graces of my parents while waiting for one of them, or my granddad, to croak and leave me their minuscule fortune.

Grad school had been a way of appeasing my mother. I didn’t think I needed to do anything with a psychology degree. I didn’t want to be any kind of therapist. My own problems were bad enough, and frankly, I had very little patience for people.

Tucker and Ford thought my career path was hilarious—and maybe it was. I didn’t think any student had ever left my office feeling particularly inspired. Occasionally, they used a grumpy selfie of mine as a meme in our group chats: Boden’s Disapproval and shit like that.

I didn’t mind.

But days like today were tough. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to give a shit about who was doing what and when and why. I couldn’t care less about the budget for the next year or what department was getting absorbed into the other .

And I certainly didn’t give a shit about the stack of notes that Jake handed me after the meeting.

“You really should learn, like, ASL or something,” he said. “Then you could have an interpreter.”

I actually did know a decent amount of LSQ—Quebecois sign language, which was damn close to ASL. I wasn’t fluent, but I was conversational. But that was beside the point.

“If I did that, I’d have to pay attention,” I told him, dropping the notes on my lap before digging into my wallet. I passed him a twenty, and he grinned, shoving it into his pocket. “Promise me you’re not going to buy drugs.”

“Dude, if you think I’m getting through the rest of this day without at least a gummy bear, you’re out of your mind.”

I grinned at him and wished I could join him, but those days were over for me. Not to mention that weed and my brain didn’t get along. I’d tried it a few times with Ford—he had his medical card, so he got the good, strong shit, and that was when I learned that I didn’t calm down at all.

I calmed up. Right to the fucking heavens. The first night he’d given me half a gummy bear, he had to sit on me until I fell asleep.

The second time, he shoved me into a warm shower and made me sit there until every inch of my skin was wrinkled. I wasn’t looking for a repeat, especially at my office. And especially not on a day I had to go meet with Hugo alone for the first time since the hotel .

“You have appointments today?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not here. I have to see about some hockey bullshit in…” I grabbed my phone out of the little pocket hanging off my chair and grimaced. “Half an hour. Fuck, I’m going to be late.”

Hugo was not going to be happy about that, and as much as I wanted to pretend like I didn’t care, I couldn’t.

I had zero chill about this. Not only did I have to eat about six pounds of crow in order to admit that the guys were right and Hugo was good at his job, but I also had to deal with the fact that the night that had literally rocked my world was nothing to him.

It was less than nothing.

It wasn’t even a memory.

Bile rose into my throat, and I cleared it away. “Catch you later?”

He gave me a salute and wandered off as I headed toward my car.

I was pretty sure a couple of people called my name as I dropped from the curb onto the asphalt, but I didn’t bother looking back.

I didn’t want to get waylaid by this bullshit job I wanted to quit on my way to the other bullshit I kind of wanted to quit.

What I wanted was to roll into Hugo’s office and find him on his knees, an apology falling from his lips as he begged me to forgive him for being such an asshole.

And yes, I was well aware that I was technically the asshole in this situation, but a little prostrating would go a long way to me forgiving him for blocking out what we’d had together. That felt like the bigger crime to me than my bad attitude on the ice.

Something that felt a little too close to guilt plagued me on the drive over to the rink. When I pulled in, I recognized his fuck-ass pearl Range Rover in the back lot and swore quietly to myself. I’d been hoping he wanted to forget all about this little meeting. I wanted to be not worth his time.

But I also wanted to be entirely worth it too.

I hated the feeling of being split in half, and he seemed to be the source of every moment I’d felt it this decade.

Pulling up beside his car, I hesitated. I was already late, so what was a few more minutes?

Maybe he’d give up on me, and we could call it a day.

Let him take away the fucking C. Let him take my entire team.

It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t change who I was or what my life was going to end up looking like.

I stared at my phone, then snatched it from the holder and sent a text to Jonah.

Me: Tell me not to burn my entire future career to the ground.

Jonah: What did Coach Dipshit do today?

Me: He called me into a meeting.

Jonah: The horror. What a fucking bastard! I can’t believe your coach wants to have a meeting about your crappy plays. Set him on fire.

Me: This isn’t a joke. I don’t want to be here.

Jonah: Get your head out of your ass, Bode. Be a man, grab your balls and hold them in your hand, then talk with him.

Me: That is a horrific mental image.

Jonah: No eyes, can’t relate. Now stop fucking texting me about your identity crisis, tell your coach that you have a permit and can do whatever you want, then call it a day. We can go drink our sorrows away tomorrow night.

It didn’t sound like the worst idea, to be honest. Alcohol ravaged my body harder than others—as I was experiencing right now since I still hadn’t managed to shake the hangover. But drowning in my sorrows felt almost worth the pain.

Which reminded me. I needed to shout at Ford.

Me: Hey, dickhead. I still feel like shit.

Ford: Sucks to be you. I know you’re sitting in the parking lot. Go inside and talk to him. I’m putting you on ignore until you do.

I hated them all. All of my friends were fucking traitors. I was going to move out and buy some plot of land with a pond and a cave or something and just live there. I didn’t need any of these assholes in my life.

If they weren’t going to stand by my entirely irrational decisions, then what was the point.

Throwing open the door, I managed to put my chair together faster than I expected with my aching limbs. I was grateful for my joystick and the full battery on the motor as I headed inside and felt the familiar, icy breeze coming off the rink.

It was comforting—soothing. It was a piece of my childhood that I could keep that didn’t feel like it was suffocating me. It reminded me of a time before I realized how different I was from everyone else. Before I realized what a disappointment I was to my father for just existing.

Back then, we’d laughed a lot. He commissioned tiny sleds for me, taught himself how to play, then taught me. I lived on the mini rink he’d set up in his backyard. I dreamed of Stanley Cups and the Conn Smythe and the Hart trophies.

It took me a long while to realize those would never be mine .

There were others now. There was the Reid Martin, and the Basker trophies, and the Ryder Cup—our own version of the Stanley named after the first goalie in the PPHL to have three shutout games in a row.

I also had the gold medal hanging on my bedroom wall, which was proof I was worth, you know, something . But ditching my past mistakes wasn’t easy, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, Hugo was right. No one was going to take a risk on me if I continued to behave like this.

I had to figure out how to get out of my own way. I needed to find a way to vent this uncontrollable, angry energy that lived in my chest all the time.

Taking a breath, I swiped my badge and rolled into the hallway.

Part of me wished I wasn’t in my chair, but I was also grateful that he wouldn’t have the reminder I was so much smaller than him standing on my feet.

My upper body was strong and muscular, and with the shadowy beard across my chin, I didn’t look like I was twelve.

And okay, yes, I still got asked if my parents were home by dickhead sales people, and once when I was shopping by myself by a well-meaning dipshit at the supermarket, but I was confident Hugo would look at me like the man I was.

No matter how pissed off he was, he would at least respect that I was a grown adult.

My gaze flickered up to the name plaque on his door, and my stomach twisted, sending waves of strange, unfamiliar emotion through me .