Page 50 of The Wildest One

And he had every right to be disappointed in me.

Fuck me.

I turned my gaze to the end of the hallway and pulled off my helmet, the sweat releasing from the top of my head and pouring down my face. I used my padded arm to wipe it away, and when I reached the locker room, I took a seat on the bench.

I took my gloves off and threw them across the room. “Fuck!”

Towels were thrown in response. Sticks were broken across players’ knees. Equipment was shredded off and dropped with enough force to make one hell of a noise.

It was only a matter of time before Coach came in and chewed us apart for the way we had played, and I’d have to hear about the disappointment all over again.

Landon took a seat beside me. “What happened out there?” He was removing his skates.

“We fell apart.”

“Bullshit.”

I slowly glanced at my goalie. His question was sitting in the center of my chest, gnawing a hole around my heart.

He saw the game from a completely different angle, not even the same one that Coach did.

“We both know you were off tonight. Why?” he questioned.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do, Beck. Tell me what’s going on with you.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “You set the tempo for everygame. You’re the nucleus that holds us together. When the nucleus is off, nothing works right.”

“There are three other lines, Landon. The guys on the second, third, and fourth—what about them? Why didn’t they have it together? Why didn’t they score? Why didn’t they stop the puck?—”

“Beck, come on, my man. You can bullshit the media when they ask—and they will ask—but you can’t bullshit me.”

My elbows went to my knees, and I held the top of my skull, the steam coming off my skin like I was in a sauna.

“Where’s your head right now?” he asked.

Where?

That was a good question.

I was tired. We’d been on the road for over a week. I craved the routine I had at home, one that helped my body feel its best. I needed a break from hotel rooms and to sleep in my own bed.

I needed some of Walker’s cooking.

But I was used to this lifestyle and being on the road for a majority of the year, and I accepted that traveling this way was part of the gig.

But that wasn’t the reason I felt lost tonight.

It was something else.

It was a feeling in my chest. A fucking emptiness. A sensation so foreign that I didn’t know what it was at first. And then, hours ago, once the game started, I realized what it was.

And that was when I first found myself looking up at the stands, scanning the faces of the audience.

Something I never did. Even when I was near the glass, I was too focused to notice who was sitting on the other side of it.

Nothing affected my concentration during a game—not the music, the clapping, or the cheering.

But from the beginning of this one, something had pulled me toward the seats; it had forced me to study the hair of eachwoman, looking for those wild red locks, wondering why, after everything she had said in her messages, she hadn’t wanted to go to Africa with me.