Page 4 of Wrap Around (Forbidden Goals #7)

SILAS

I knew training camp would be tough, but I never thought I'd struggle this much to get through it without losing my mind.

Fit in. Show up. Keep my head down. Earn my place.

That's all I have to do. Or at least that's what I tell myself every morning when I lace up my skates for the warmup. And then I walk into the locker room, where Gideon, or "Shep" as the rest of the team calls him, won't so much as look at me.

Everyone on the team seems unsettled with their teammate’s aversion to me, and because of that I haven’t made too many friends yet. But that’s okay. I just got there. I have to prove myself. To the coach, to the team. To him.

Our first preseason game is this Sunday in Seattle.

My first game playing for a real-life professional hockey team.

And a farm team for the NHL at that. I fucking made it.

Against all odds, I’ve found myself on sanctioned ice.

I should be focused on that. I should be focusing on impressing the coaches, making good plays, and proving I deserve to be here.

But all I can think about is the silent fury two lockers down from mine .

I was prepared for the cold shoulder, but I didn’t expect to be thrust right in front of him quite this much. Making him uncomfortable wasn’t ever the plan. Hell, I don’t know that there really was a plan. Or if there was, it got knocked right out of my head the moment I laid eyes on Gideon.

In an attempt to smooth things over, I tried talking to Coach about switching up the lines. I made a case for Gideon working better with Landon, which isn’t a lie. They’ve got solid chemistry, and they read each other well. But Coach wasn’t having it.

So now our whole line is stuck here after every brutal practice, running the same passing drills like it’s rookie camp. Coach barking from the sidelines while we cycle and reset, over and over.

Landon doesn’t say anything, but I can feel it. There’s an edge in his movements, a clipped tone when he calls for the puck. He doesn’t need to come out and say I’m the reason we’re stuck here.

Gideon won’t even look at me. He passes too hard. Skates too wide. Like I’m contagious, or a dangerous animal he can’t trust.

I’m trying. I really am. But his avoidance is getting to me.

The locker room is quiet after everyone leaves.

I've taken to calling Lily while Gideon showers so I don't have to subject myself to the tension of being in the same space naked. The temptation to look, to trace the lines of abs and ink and drink in his presence is too much. Not to mention the seething anger is so thick in the air, it’s hard to breathe.

I'm leaning back against the lockers with my phone propped up on some of my discarded pads on the bench.

"Things are going great. The team is great. I'm getting along with everyone."

She tilts her head and gives me a look. One that says she smells my bullshit. "What's wrong?" she asks. "I'm not buying this ' everything is great' crap. You say the same thing every time, Silas. And every time I ask about my brother, you deflect and change the subject back to me and Addy."

I smile. "But I like talking about Addy."

"Silas," she warns.

"Fine." I huff a breath like a petulant child.

"He won't even look at me," I admit, rubbing a hand over my face.

"Won't talk to me, won't acknowledge me, won't even pass me the puck.

It's the reason I've been held back after practice every single day.

Coach is on us about not playing like teammates, but I don't know what to do about it, and it’s starting to affect my relationship with the other guys on the team. "

I take a moment to press the heels of my palms into my eyes. "I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this."

Lily sighs. "I'll try to talk to him when I get there.

He can't ignore me," she says, soft but firm. I hope she’s right.

She does have a presence about her that makes you want to listen.

And they were always so close growing up.

"I don't get why he's still got his panties in a twist about this.

It's been years. We did what we had to do. You’d think he'd forgive you and be glad you did the right thing. "

She doesn't know the whole story or the real reason why her brother hates me so much. I've told her that he considered our announcement the ultimate betrayal, but since I can't tell her Gideon's secret, I can't explain why it broke him the way it did. Why it broke both of us.

Lily did everything she could to comfort me after we figured out he'd left for good.

She held me while I sobbed without an ounce of judgement.

She even pushed back my hair while I cried so hard I vomited, even though she was struggling with morning sickness at the time. She's always been my best friend .

One more week. That's all that's left before she and Adaline move up here and we're all together again.

I miss my girls. I miss holding my daughter at night, playing toddler floor hockey with her, kissing her soft baby hair.

I miss her tiny voice calling me Dada, and the way she tries to shove cheese-flavored fish crackers into my mouth with her chubby fists.

I haven't seen enough of them these past two years, even though I made every effort to fly down to see them every chance I got, and call or send video messages every single day.

I'm grateful for this life. For the chance to provide for them. It's more than I could ask for, and almost everything I ever wanted.

Gideon walks through the locker room just as I start making ridiculous kissy faces in the camera and laughing at Addy's squeals of delight. "I love my girls!" I say, then make some more kissy faces before I end the call.

He's standing stock-still, wearing nothing but a towel, thick arms crossed over his chest while beads of water and rage roll down his body. His glare could melt the rink. He bares his teeth and practically growls. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck, like a dog getting its hackles up. I’ve tried to be understanding and give him space, but this is getting ridiculous.

"Is there a problem?" I say, my tone clipped and annoyed. I get to my feet, heat rising in my chest and trickling up my neck to my face. It’s time I stand up for myself. I've let him steamroll over me for weeks and I can't stand it anymore.

He stalks up to me, so close I can feel the anger pouring off him in waves of heat, eyes burning.

"A problem?" he sneers. "Yes, there’s a problem.

You're my problem, Silas. You're the worst kind of person there is.

You make me sick." He bends down and swipes my pads and phone to the floor, then steps over the bench to loom over me.

I step back and freeze, realizing that it's just us here. Everyone else is gone, and Gideon is crowding me back against the lockers. He doesn't stop, getting closer, louder, and angrier with every heaving breath.

"It makes me sick, hearing you talk to her like that.

Like nothing happened. Like you didn't betray her even worse than you betrayed me.

" His voice drops, low and raw and dangerous.

"You made me part of it. You made me betray her, too.

And I had no idea she was…" he trails off, but doesn't back away.

He crowds me backwards until my spine hits the lockers.

I open my mouth, but close it again. There's nothing I can say. I can't tell him the truth, the same way I can't tell Lily his.

He's too close, too hot, too angry. His breath fans across my cheek and I try to press myself harder into the cold metal of the lockers to escape the heat of him.

Now is not the time to realize just how much my body still reacts to his. How every hair and pore feels like it's reaching for him, even though I'm leaning away. Now is not the time to count the days since we were this close. Or to think about his lips on mine…

But I do.

And he notices.

His gaze drops to my mouth, eyes flickering with something that looks like pain and lust and betrayal all over again. His fist pulls back.

I brace for the hit, but flinch instead when he drives his fist into the metal of the locker an inch from my head. The metal rings, reverberating in my brain. And in my heart.

Then he turns and walks away without a word.

I don’t move for several minutes, pulse pounding, lips burning, jaw clenched tight enough to crack .

He'll never stop hating me unless he knows the truth. And I can't ever let him find out.

I stare at the ceiling in the dark, trying not to count Gideon's breaths. If I pay too much attention to his presence, I worry he'll know I'm thinking about him, and it'll set him off again. His reaction to getting our room keys and finding out we’ve been roomed together was worrisome.

Brent, Landon, and Franks had to coax him outside to walk it off.

Everyone looked concerned, eyeballing me like I might have the answers to why their typically stoic, cool-headed defenseman was acting like an overgrown toddler.

And yes, that's exactly what it looked like.

I would know, I have a toddler. And she happens to favor her uncle quite a bit, so it's even easier to imagine his six-foot-three, two-hundred-something-pound body lying on the ground and kicking his feet because he doesn't want to go to bed.

Coach responded to his tantrum by putting his foot down even harder and mandating that we room together during all away games. Which is bullshit, because now I’m getting punished for his behavior.

Ridiculous.

This whole trip has been ridiculous. We somehow pulled off a win, but it sure as hell wasn’t because of our line.

Gideon wasn’t openly hostile, but he didn’t play with me, either. He avoided passing to me like I wasn’t even on the ice, and more than once, I swear he let Seattle’s defense get to me on purpose.

Thankfully, he’s good enough that his attitude didn’t tank the game. But it could’ve. We should have dominated the ice tonight .

A local sportscaster called us a disaster in the making. They're not wrong.

Why the hell Coach thinks it's a good idea for us to share space off the ice as well as during away games, which are already stressful, is a mystery.

"You don't have to like each other," he barked. "Just make it work."

So now we're here. In a too-small hotel room with double beds that almost touch and air conditioning that rattles in the vent. Lying four, maybe five feet, apart in total silence. The kind of silence that's too damn loud.

The tension is unbearable. I was more comfortable sleeping on a cot at my temporary billet house when I was getting transferred around the junior leagues.

My muscles are too tight to sleep, and I can tell from the shallow rhythm of Gideon's breaths that he's not sleeping either.

And just knowing he's awake, makes it that much more impossible to sleep.

This doesn’t bode well for the split-squad games tomorrow night. It’s our shot, my shot especially, since it’s my first season, to show what we’ve got and earn our place.

And I just know Coach is going to keep us on the same line. We’re going to look like idiots in front of everyone when we can’t connect on a single shift.

Blow a trial game like that, and we’ll be lucky to crack the roster at all.

I didn't come all this way, leaving my family, sacrificing sleep and time, and hundreds of nights of baby snuggles while Adaline grew from an infant to a toddler without me, to sit on a goddamn bench.

If Gideon wants to keep up his bullshit, fine.

Maybe it's time I match his energy.

Sure enough, from the first puck drop, Gideon pretends like I don't exist. He doesn't pass to me, doesn't call for the puck, doesn't even glance my way unless it's to glare. Which he does, a lot.

Because I'm not letting him have this anymore. I’m done playing nice.

He doesn’t need to worry about passing to me if the puck never even reaches him. I’m not usually a puck hog, but tonight I’m taking control, and I'll do what it takes to make this work for me.

If there’s one thing I understand, it’s hockey. I read plays before they happen. I know where the puck’s going and how to get there first. And I’m fast. I think fast, react fast, and move even faster.

Plus, I’ve spent most of my life playing with and against Gideon Shepherd. I know how he skates. I know how he thinks. I know how he likes to fake left and cut right, how he drops his shoulder before he takes a shot. I know every tell, every twitch, and every habit he’s never managed to break.

I play the game—and him—like a goddamn fiddle.

He tries to pass around me? Intercepted. I catch the puck clean and act like it was meant for me. Grinning, I call, “Little to the left next time.”

I can’t help but laugh when he tries to outpace me. He should know better. Maybe in the last few weeks of me keeping quiet and holding back, he forgot who he’s up against.

I’m skating circles around him and the other team. Outplaying them both .

I’m on fire.

The lamp keeps lighting up, and by the time the buzzer sounds, I’ve got my first hat trick, even if it’s only preseason. I skate off the ice to back pats and cheers from my teammates, feeling like one of them for the first time. Even Coach Dempsey looks impressed.

Gideon looks like he might snap his stick in half.

He doesn’t say a word. Jaw tight. Eyes sharp. He’s fuming, and I know why. He can’t retaliate, not without making himself look petty or hurting the team’s momentum. And I’m not giving him an opening.

Not tonight.

After the game I rush through the showers, toweling off in record time. For once I'm the one ignoring him. And my heart is thudding with something other than anger or stress induced adrenaline for once.

Lily and Adaline are here. Finally.

My girls are waiting.