Page 42 of Coaching Prince Charming

“No,” I said flatly. That was not an option. I wasn’t leaving Nate.

Dad pressed his lips tightly together and glared from me to Nate and back.

My left hand moved slightly through the air, seeking Nate’s, but he had pulled himself against the kitchen island and clutched its edge for support. Looking at him hurt me in ways that had nothing to do with cuts and bruises.

“There’s no reason for violence,” I said tightly.

“You don’t get to talk, Carter,” Dad snapped. His voice had always had a way to control me. He used that now, taking away my words, tying my tongue with the firmness in his tone. “You,” he said to Nate. “I should have known. All those years we played together, lived from one hotel to the next, and you never had a girl over like the rest of us. I should have realized. And now, you’re sleeping with my child. You’re his coach, you perverted motherfucker.” The fact that my father had cheated on my mother didn’t fly over my head, but it was also something there had been whispers about for ages. Mom had spent most of Dad’s time with the NHL selectively blind, just happy to be the big guy’s wife. “Oh, I see,” Dad said, nodding to himself. “You’re not technically his coach, are you? You got him to drop out so you could f…” He choked on his words, probably remembering he was talking about his own son. “How could you do this?”

“He didn’t do anything,” I insisted.

“Shut up, Carter. It’s not your turn.” That tone again, the dominance and the command. But I distracted him, and he looked at me now. Hurt, angry, ready to punish me. He’d already smashed my guitar and beat the man I had given my heart to. He couldn’t punish me much more than this. “You’re coming home with me, Carter. After flying here to discover what the hell you’ve been doing in bars like a goddamn clown, I found out that you’ve walked away from everything we gave you. No team will take you this late, but I’ll find you a coach to keep you sharp until next fall.”

I shook my head. He was getting it all wrong, but that shouldn’t have surprised me. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll study music, and I’ll see whoever I want. You can’t stop me.”

That was a mistake. A childish thing to say. I should have known better.

Dad nodded to himself, lips pursed as his cold glare cut from me to Nate. “Tell him to leave, Partridge.”

Nate stood straight, all his muscles bulging with tension.

“I know you can control him,” Dad said as if I weren’t even here. As if I hadn’t heard all the bullshit while I was in the bedroom. How I had wanted to be gay. Why was my heart still breaking over the fact that my father didn’t love me? “Tell him to come with me, and he’ll listen. Tell him,” Dad taunted Nate, but he didn’t step any closer. Frankly, few people would have dared to stand in Nate’s way now. The darkness that gathered in his eyes and on his face was scary enough without the smeared blood and the spreading bruise. “Tell him you used him, Nate. Tell him it means nothing. Tell him it was a mistake.”

I wouldn’t believe a word of it. Nate was too noble and too kind to use me. It had taken me weeks of struggle to even get a shot at him. And he knew I wouldn’t believe it, his lips tightening.

Dad shrugged. “Alright. If I can’t convince you, your ethics board might. Or the press. It can’t be that hard to find paparazzi near your building, huh? Think about it, you sick fuck. A washed-up forty-year-old coach seducing a student…” Dad shook his head, and my heart hammered. He wouldn’t dare. Not with the amount of whoring around he’d done in his day and was probably still doing on those long trips to resort hotels. Not with his boozing up and all the flirting with cocaine everyone whispered about. He wouldn’t talk to those fucking vultures. “I’ll tell them everything, Partridge, and you can kiss your clean name goodbye. When will they stop? When they bring you down? Your nephew?” Dad glanced at me. I would be caught in the crossfire. He was threatening with the nuclear option. If he didn’t have it his way, we would all suffer the consequences. “Carter, too,” Dad said. “You must think it’s fun getting exploited by a man in power, just like Bill Clinton’s staff. Is that what you want for him?”

“I can take that,” I said. He brought up the example of the worst of human impulses. The worst of the exploitation that our media had done for profits. I doubted I would be nearly as strong as Monica Lewinsky if all the world mocked me the way they had bullied her. I doubted I would have her courage, but I wouldn’t bow to my dad either. And I would stand with Nate till the end. He wouldn’t abandon me to the press like that.

“It’s your call, Partridge. Give me the boy, or I’ll serve you to the paparazzi on a silver platter. Your job, your reputation, your legacy — all gone. I’ll burn you to the ground, fucker.” When he spat the last word out, Dad stepped back as if he didn’t care either way.

This was no longer about me. This was pure spite.

I looked at Nate, but he didn’t look at me. His gaze was on my father, then on the floor. A moment ago, his eyes had been wide open with anger, but his eyelids drooped down as something went out of him. “Carter…”

“No,” I protested. “Don’t. Don’t do this.” Panic spiked in me so abruptly that I could almost taste the sudden injection of adrenaline on my tongue. “Nate, don’t listen to him.”

He shook his head, his downcast gaze hollow, the corners of his lips dragging low. “Carter, he’s right.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said, anger concealing the fear.

Nate still didn’t look at me.

“You’re just saying that to protect me,” I accused.

Nate clenched his teeth and lifted his gaze to meet me. He looked scary, for sure, but I wasn’t afraid of him. The beastly appearance he and my father had worked together to create on his face couldn’t deter me. “It’s not just you,” he said in a voice so cold that it raptured my chest. “It’s Beckett, too. And me.” He added the last bit selfishly, lifting his quivering chin up. “I’m nothing without hockey, kid.”

I snapped my fists closed and stood my ground. He was just hurting me to make this easy. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t.

“Hockey’s all I have, Carter,” he said tightly. “If they take that away from me, I’ll be no one.”

Could he be serious? I hated that the worm of doubt drilled into my heart.

Nate took a step back, shaking his head regretfully. “I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t realize how much I couldn’t lose that until now.”

“Shut up,” I threatened him in an airy tone that wouldn’t have scared a kitten.

“We risked too much,” he said, almost like it was nothing. It wasn’t worth it, he implied.

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