Page 28 of Twisted Play

I couldn’t afford the distraction, not after I was suspended for several weeks last season for fighting, and definitely not during my senior year, when one more wrong move would end any chance at an NHL contract when I graduated.

Fuck.

Tristan’s heavy hand on my shoulder reminded me how close I was to getting kicked off the team. “We all have off days,” he said.

“Cole doesn’t have the right to off days anymore,” Massi sneered. “You better come ready to play tomorrow.”

I shoved past him, checking him with my shoulder, well aware he wouldn’t fight back, ignoring the stares of my teammates as I stormed off to shower.

“Fuck!” I yelled as I waited for the water to warm up. The sound echoed off the white tiles. I needed to focus, but how could I when I didn’t know where she was, that she was safe? The urge to find something to take the edge off clawed at my throat. I wouldn’t give in, but fuck!Eva!

“Easy,” Tristan murmured, standing beside me as the water poured over us, washing off the sweat and misery from the morning. “I meant what I said.”

“That we all have bad days?”

He tilted his head back to wet his curls then reached for his shampoo.

“Wash day?” I asked curiously.

“Hair appointment this afternoon.”

Water trailed down his umber skin, sliding into the divots of his rock-hard abs, not a single tattoo or scar to mar the perfection of his physique, and I had to look away before I embarrassed myself. My best friend didn’t need me perving on him, not after everything we’d been through together, not after everything he wasstillgoing through.

“We all have bad days,” he repeated, not allowing me to deflect the conversation. “Even Cole Carter.”

“I’m fine,” I said as I soaped my body down.

Tristan allowed me the lie, and we finished our shower in silence, lingering to avoid the rest of the team. By the timeI stepped back into the locker room, I’d regained my equilibrium.

I felt his eyes rake over me as I dressed, but when I looked over, his expression was bland.

“You skipping weights today?” I asked.

“He better not be,” Coach said, startling the shit out of both of us. He loomed at the end of the row of lockers, his arms crossed over his chest, intimidating as shit.

“I’m not,” Tristan said. “Getting braids after.”

“Good. And you,” he said, turning to me, “get your head on straight. I don’t want to see another performance like today’s.”

Even more than not letting the team down, I couldn’t bear to let Coach down. He’d taken me under his wing as a freshman and never blinked an eye at my escapades, even bailing me out of jail once when my parents didn’t pick up the phone.

They’d been vacationing in the Maldives.

Well, Mom had been vacationing. I was sure Dad spent the entire trip hunched over his laptop with his phone glued to his ear as the two of them played into every fucked-up stereotype of the world’s richest couples.

“I will, Coach, promise.”

Coach nodded once, the movement as sharp and polished as everything else he did. I exhaled and slumped back against the lockers the moment he was out of the room.

“Fuck.”

“You’ll be fine,” Tristan said. “C’mon, let’s go grab breakfast.”

“Oh yeah, can’t wait for one of your disgusting smoothies,” I snarked. “No thanks.”

He laughed, well aware I’d drink it anyway, just to makehim happy, and then follow it up with junk food for lunch. What was the point of being young and hot with a thousand-mile-an-hour metabolism if I couldn’t enjoy it, at least until the true preseason started?

Tristan rubbed my head affectionately and took off, expecting me to follow. But when I did, a flash of red hair from the corner of my eye distracted me completely, only for Eva to slam into me a second later, her body pressing against mine for a moment before she stumbled.