Page 13 of What If I Hate You (Anaheim Stars Hockey #6)

CHAPTER NINE

BARRETT

F uck.

If there’s a record for ruining a night out in under two minutes, I think I just broke it.

The door to the women’s bathroom swings shut behind me, and I stand there in the dumb, echoey corridor, not quite sure which primitive urge is going to win out.

Punch the wall or run until my lungs collapse.

Instead, I settle for standing like an idiot, cemented to the tile, the flush in my face burning so hot I could set off the smoke alarms.

Her slap still tingles, a perfect outline across my cheek.

I’m pretty sure I deserved it—hell, I know I did—but that doesn’t slow the sick knot spooling in my gut.

I try to replay what just happened, see if there’s a version where I don’t fuck it up, but the tape always ends the same.

Me, mouth running, brain trailing somewhere ten feet behind, and Rivers looking at me like I just sliced her heart wide open.

And dammit, she looked so pretty tonight in that little black dress. It hugged her curves in ways a man has wet dreams about, but could I tell her that? No.

Fuck.

I should have never called her a bitch.

That’s not me. That’s not who I am.

What was I thinking?

Hell, I wasn’t even angry. I just wanted to get under her skin the way she gets under mine.

It’s no excuse, I know. I shouldn’t have stooped so low.

And now all I see is her face when my mouth said the words and it’s fucking crushing me.

I march down the hallway back into the bar in search of her but there’s no sign. Not at our table, not at the bar, not even on the second floor where the pool tables are.

Shit.

Where did she go?

The guys are still posted up at the big booth, faces lit by the glow of the neon sign over the bar.

There’s a fresh pitcher of domestic on the table, and the mood, at first glance, looks unchanged, raucous and loud, like nothing’s happened at all.

But I know my team by now, and every seasoned player knows when the energy in the room takes a hit.

Even the rookies can spot blood in the water.

Harrison glances up at me, one brow arched, beer hovering halfway to his mouth. “She gone?” he asks, like he was expecting this exact outcome.

I shrug, roll my jaw, and try to keep my hands from shaking. “No idea.”

“She texted me and said she wasn’t feeling good,” Marlee states, her eyes tracking me with a hawk’s predatory interest. ”Said she was walking back to the hotel.” Her arms fold tight. “So, what the hell did you do, Bear?”

“Nothing. We just…we had an argument. That’s all.”

Yeah right.

That’s all.

I mean I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to slay her with my words or turn her around and fuck her up against the goddamn sink but it’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.

Griffin gives me a look that’s two parts pity and one part pure you’re-a-goddamn-idiot. “You good?” he asks, voice low so the girls at the other end of the booth won’t hear. “You don’t look good, Bear.”

“Yeah,” I snap, but it comes out too sharp, then softer, “I’m fine.” I gulp down my beer draining half of it, wishing it would do something to the raw, live wire feeling buzzing between my ribs.

It doesn’t.

Not even close.

For a minute nobody says much, which is a miracle with this crew.

August, for all his shit-stirring, is studying me like he’s waiting to see if I’m going to tip the table or just implode.

Maybe there’s a pool going. Wouldn’t put it past them.

Griffin, for once, minds his own business, but even he’s got a wary eye on me.

Like he can sense my every emotion and is just waiting for me to snap.

Then Ledger, quietly running point as always, picks up the slack. “Want to talk about it?” he asks, voice as neutral as a Swiss bank.

“No,” I say, but it’s a lie so obvious Oliver snorts into his drink.

“Maybe let him finish his beer before you make him relive the carnage,” Bodhi murmurs, but he’s not the kind to let a story die, either.

I reset my jaw and look at my hands. “I said something I shouldn’t have,” I admit, and my voice cuts through the table before I can rein it in.

Ledger nods, like this is the answer he expected, but waits. So does everyone else. Harrison cocks his head, like I’m a particularly tricky crossword clue.

I catch Marlee’s glare, razor sharp even over her half-empty sangria. “Whatever it was, you should apologize,” she says, simple as Sunday school.

Except I never went to Sunday school.

I take a long drag of my beer, considering Marlee’s suggestion.

I know she’s right. I also know that if I try to talk to Blakely now, while I’m still burning hot with embarrassment and regret, I’ll just make it worse.

I sit in the goddamn booth and let the churn of guilt eat at me until it’s just another scar with her fingertips on it.

The voices blur together, the bar crowd fading in and out around me, and I wonder how the fuck anyone ever fixes a thing they’re born to ruin.

It’s not like there’s a protocol for this, no goddamn goalie drill that teaches you how to handle the aftermath of your own stupidity.

You just eat it and pray you don’t make it worse next time.

Around midnight, the team starts peeling off in pairs, walking back to the hotel, or heading down the block for late-night tacos. Only Harrison and I remain, two wolves too stubborn to call it. He props his feet on a nearby stool and stares at me over a glass of something brown and expensive.

“You’re not as big of a dumbass as you pretend, Bear,” he says, eyes calculating, voice flat. “So, what gives with the Rivers thing? You both clearly want to kill each other, but you keep gravitating back. Something is there between the two of you, so what is it?”

I resist the urge to check my phone, to see if maybe she’s texted.

Like that would ever happen.

Does she even have my number?

Would Marlee give it to her?

“Doesn’t matter. She’s never going to talk to me again.”

He shrugs, swirling his glass. “That’s not how it works, and you know it.”

“You don’t know her.”

“Maybe not,” he says, “but I know you. If you didn’t care, you’d have let her take the first swing and be done with it. But you let her in.”

“She slapped me. Like physically slapped me.”

“And you’re still here, moping over it instead of doubling down. That’s progress for you, Bear.” The sarcasm isn’t even thick, just a thin coat, expertly applied. He leans in. “What’d you call her?”

I don’t answer. The word makes me want to dry heave just thinking it. Harrison studies me, then nods, like he’s connected the dots.

“Did she deserve it?” he asks quietly.

Fuck no. She didn’t deserve it.

“Does a woman ever deserve to be treated that way?”

“Then fix it.”

I drain my bottle and scowl, but it’s not at him. It never really is with Harrison. “She’s asleep by now. I doubt she wants to see my face.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” he says, and then tips his glass back, draining the last of whatever overpriced drink he’s ordered. “Don’t let it fester. You’re already an asshole. No sense in being a coward, too.”

He stands, claps my shoulder, and leaves without another word. I sit alone at the table, finishing the beer, but my appetite for self-destruction is gone. All I want to do is rewind to ten minutes before I detonated and make myself invisible.

But I can’t, so I pay the tab and slip out into the frozen dark, following the drag of shame all the way down the street.

The night air stings a bit, sobering the edge on what’s left of my buzz.

I walk, hunched and hating myself, past guttering bar lights and trash bins glinting in the moon.

My boots scuff the salt-dusted sidewalk, every step a reminder that nothing ever comes clean when you want it to.

The hotel lobby is empty, just an expansive room with fake marble and the buzz of an overpriced sleep.

I take the stairs because I can’t bear the idea of small talk with the overnighter at the desk.

Third floor, all the way at the end. I know Blakely’s room because the front desk gave us the assignment sheets at check-in, not that I’d ever tell her that.

I pause outside her door and listen for movement.

Nothing.

Good.

She’s asleep.

She deserves to sleep.

I, on the other hand, can’t sleep at all.

I lie in my hotel bed and stare at the ceiling, replaying the night over and over, each time wishing I’d bit out my own tongue instead.

Even though it’s past two, I don’t let myself check my phone.

I don’t text anyone, not even my brother, who used to let me call in the middle of the night when I needed to drag my head out of a dark hole.

Some things are too ugly for even the people who love you.

I finally roll over and shut my eyes at three, but all I see is Blakely Rivers, face bright with anger and disappointment, eyes hard but also hurt.

I wonder if she’s lying awake, too, or if she’s already filed me into the same bin as the rest of the men who never learned how to talk to girls without breaking something.

My alarm goes off at six. No snooze button, no mercy, just an airhorn of regret.

My head pounds, probably just as much from the booze as the shame.

I hate that I can’t just take the day off, but that’s not what you do when you’re being paid more in a single season than most people make in a lifetime.

You show up. You block pucks. And you pretend you didn’t completely fuck up last night.

Downstairs in the breakfast lounge, the whole team is already halfway through an All-American cholesterol orgy when I walk in, ball cap pulled low.

The minute I set foot in the room, I hear Marlee murmur at Ella, “Told you he’d look like a kicked puppy.

” Bodhi hoots and waves me over, so I quickly survey the table hoping Blakely isn’t sitting anywhere close.