Page 18 of The Alternate Captain (Elite Hockey #3)

“Shall we set up for deadlifts?” I ask Liam, reaching for a barbell.

I’m in the gym with a few of the guys and we’re working our way through the free weights, but I leave Liam to set up the weights when my phone pings.

Unknown

Please, can we talk? It’s Sarah.

I was hoping it was Kelly, but seeing Sarah’s name after I’ve blocked her number is like a kick to the stomach. Why won’t she leave me alone?

Liam is staring at me, then he pulls his eyes away as he crouches down to take the dumbbell clamp off the end of the bar, and I know I need to focus on our workout.

“Figured out what you’re doing after hockey yet?” I say, tossing my phone down next to my gym bag .

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he says, fixing the clamp and stepping up to the barbell.

“Because you should have a plan. Simon Pearce had a side hustle for years before he retired.”

“I don’t know who that is, but he can kiss my ass,” he says.

“He was the guy Rodgers replaced. A benchwarmer, but he had his shit together. He had a plan.”

Liam looks at me with a pensive expression. “Actually, I do have a plan—Ryan and I are going to flip houses.”

All I can do is stare at him because in all my years of knowing Liam, he’s never once shown that he’d be keen to flip houses, that’s for sure. I’m about to open my mouth to reply when the light from my phone screen blinks on and ignites curiosity.

Maybe that’s Kelly.

Then several pings follow.

I try to ignore it, stepping up to the bar and readying myself for my set as my phone buzzes again.

“Want me to get that for you?” Liam asks.

“No. No—just leave it,” I snap.

Because if he sees Sarah’s, or Kelly’s, name for that matter, he’ll start asking questions.

He seems to back off, but my phone rings and panic sets in. What the fuck is going on?

“Shut that fucking thing up,” Danny shouts from where he’s spotting Ryan. And it feels like all eyes are on me, willing me to shut my phone up before someone throws it through the damn window.

“You okay, bud?” Liam asks as I reach for my phone. I take a moment to read the screen before I notice it was Wes Smith, Matt Rodgers’ old team captain, who called me. Not Sarah. Not Kelly.

“Um, yeah. Look, I’ve got to head off,” I say, grabbing my things. I’ve known Wes for a few years and he’s not a social-call kind of guy.

A voicemail arrives as I reach the stairs .

“Hey Johnny, it’s Wes. I wanted to call you and give you a heads-up.

One of the guys here, you don’t need his name, said that Rodgers called him a few days ago offering to sell him something.

Nothing came of it here, but I wanted you to know, as he may pull the same bullshit with your men.

Look after your guys, bud. Catch you in a few weeks. ”

Well, shit. That’s something I wasn’t expecting.

I slip my phone away and consider my next move.

I feel like I know the guys well enough to know that they wouldn’t touch anything like that, but then again, I’ve been proven wrong in the past. And since we underwent mandatory drug testing last week, it’s probably going to be another couple of weeks before we have another, which may be a window of opportunity for someone.

I don’t mention Wes’ voicemail to Ffordey when he meets me in the library a few hours later.

Since we’ve both got proposals approved, we’re now cycling through a shit ton of textbooks while we gather enough reading material to write literature reviews.

“How many words do we need to write?” he asks, highlighting a load of text on his screen two hours into our studying.

“Dr Wells told me to aim for three thousand words to allow for editing,” I say.

“Well, fuck. I’ve got, like, three hundred. Words are deceptive.” Ffordey frowns.

“Wanna grab something to eat? We can come back here after if we go to the coffee shop.”

“I’ll eat. But I’m done for the day, that’s for sure. ”

We pack up our stuff and head over to the coffee shop to find that it’s closed, so we walk towards the parking lot to get my car so we can head somewhere else.

As we round the corner, Bettsy’s car comes into view, and my heart stops when I spot Kelly climbing out of the passenger’s seat.

I think she hasn’t spotted us, but Bettsy sticks his head out and yells, causing everyone in a five-mile radius to turn and stare.

“Hey, swots. How’s it going? Wanna grab something to eat?” he says, flashing us a full set of pearly whites.

Kelly meets my eyes for the briefest of moments, then reaches for her cello as the campus warden moves in from behind us.

“You can’t park there, mate,” he says, gesturing to Bettsy to move.

“I’ll park up and come find you,” Bettsy shouts, pulling away.

“Oh hey, Parker,” Kelly says.

She looks at me with so much hurt in her eyes, I feel damn right ashamed of myself. There’s so much I want to say, but Ffordey’s standing right next to me.

“How’s little Bettsy?” he says.

“Stressed. I’m having to perform a duet with my ex,” she says. “And speaking of him—”

Darren’s saxophone case bangs me in the shins on his way past, and I stumble into Ffordey.

“Oh, I didn’t realise you were bringing your boyfriend. Nice to see you again, Johnny.”

He’s a dick. Honestly, this guy is something else. And after the second it takes for me to process what he said, I look at Ffordey, who’s staring at me as if he’s trying to calculate how many rolls of tape he’d need in a season.

He opens his mouth to speak, but I talk over him.

“We’re going, aren’t we Ffordey?” I say, completely mortified.

“We’re waiting on—”

“We’ll leave you to it,” Kelly says, more to Ffordey than to me, nudging Darren towards the entrance of the music building .

Once they disappear, Ffordey rounds on me, and I pray for the ground to open up.

“What the hell was that?” he asks.

“Well...” He stares at me, his stony-grey eyes penetrating mine as if I’ve got less than a second to talk. “Remember when we went to visit Bettsy, and I picked Kelly up—”

“That was the guy?”

“Not exactly.” Well, shit. That would have been a decent lie to tell. “That’s her actual ex, who was also giving her shit, so I filled in again. Honestly—it’s nothing. But I don’t want anyone thinking it’s more than it is.”

I swallow hard, careful to maintain eye contact with him because there’s no way I can tell Ffordey the truth.

“She doesn’t think it’s more than that, right? You aren’t leading her on or anything, Cap? I mean, how old is she again?”

I have to fight back the urge to tell him that despite her age, some of the most mature conversations I’ve had in a long time have been with her. That’ll be me showing my hand. Admitting that I’m actually into her, even if she’s not speaking to me right now.

“She’s nineteen. But no. It’s nothing like that. Just do me a favour, please? Don’t tell Bettsy.”

The last thing I need is Bettsy putting two and two together and figuring out it was me Kelly’s upset with. Besides, I know he’s not as dumb as he makes out sometimes.

“I—” Ffordey’s eyes widen as he looks straight past me.

“Don’t tell Bettsy what?” Bettsy’s voice cuts through the air. I spin around and there he is. “What can’t you tell me?” He asks again, shifting his eyes between me and Ffordey.

I feel sick. The heat rises through my body as my blood rushes. I have to give him something. What the hell can I say? I ramble for a moment about him needing to keep his mouth shut, then something pops into my head. Vicky’s going to kill me, but it’s that, or Bettsy breaks my legs .

“I found out that the real reason Liam and Vicky split up was because Vicky couldn’t deal with the prospect of divorce. She didn’t want to end up like our parents. And—”

“Well, I can’t say I blame her. But I don’t really give a shit about that, mate.”

I flash a glance at Ffordey, who shrugs.

“Are we going to eat then or what?” Bettsy says.

As we head towards my car, I realise I’ve made a huge mistake.