Page 18 of All Your Pucking Secrets

“Just a name, I swear.” She grins and takes a drink. “No need to be so suspicious.”

“No names. But he was someone from high school.”

“I figured.” She releases me and leans against the wall. “Unless you’ve been seeing someone in secret.”

We drink in silence for a few minutes, and slowly, Anita’s pretty green eyes light with unholy glee.

“What?” I ask, uneasy.

“Your ex…” Her eyes are fixed somewhere behind me. “Does he happen to be a hot blonde hockey center?”

My breathing stutters. I follow her gaze to find Tyler staring at us from the sofa on the other side of the room.

“We need to go,” I say, straightening. The water has sobered me a little, and I manage not to trip over my own feet.

Anita is only a step behind me. “What’s wrong?”

I shift closer to her and lower my voice. “He really hurt me, okay? I can’t be here when he is.”

She nods, and relief makes my knees weak.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she says. “Let’s head there first and then we can go.”

“Can’t you hold it until we get home?” I ask. Anita and I live in the same dorm. “It’s only a fifteen-minute walk.”

Surely, I should be the one with the overactive bladder after everything I’ve drunk.

“Trust me, no. It’s not a number one.” She takes my hand and leads me back down the hall to a door with a poster of Marilyn Monroe in a white dress attached to the front. “Wait here. I’ll be a few minutes.”

I rest my back against the wall and turn toward the end of the hall, where people are entering through the foyer. A group of laughing jocks split in two, with half heading for the living room and the other half going to the kitchen.

A moment later, one of them—a solidly built guy with dark hair and a beer bottle in his hand—reemerges. He glances my way, then does a double take. A cocky grin tugs at the corners of his lips and he saunters toward me in that dude bro way I really hate.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing all alone?” he asks, getting way too close into my space. His beer breath wafts over me and his pupils are pinpricks. Is he on something?

I jab my thumb toward the bathroom door. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

He shuffles closer, caging me between his forearms. “I could keep you busy while you wait.”

“I’m not interested.” I draw in a shallow breath. The air between our bodies seems to press in on me, heavy as lead.

He chuckles. “Sure, you aren’t.”

He grips my hip tightly enough to bruise and flattens himself against my front. Black spots dance in front of my eyes. My thoughts go fuzzy, and I sense myself beginning to detach from my body. I fight to stay in the present, but memories are snatching at me with clawed hands, dragging me back to the past.

TYLER

Echo is drunk.

She never used to get drunk. Is this because of me, or am I giving myself too much credit? It’s been three years since I saw her. She could have changed during that time.

It’s been a couple of minutes since she left the room with her red-headed friend. Anita Wagnor, twenty-one years old, training to become an elementary school teacher. I made a point to look up both of the female friends Echo had been in the coffee shop with the first time I spotted her. I want to know who she’s surrounding herself with these days.

I get up from the sofa I’ve been lounging on, discard my beer bottle even though it’s barely been touched, and head for the hall. Several people reach for me, but I dodge their hands and pretend not to notice. For some goddamn reason, the students here seem fascinated by me.

I guess that’s what happens when you’re a rich hockey god who turns up in senior year and doesn’t like to talk about the past.

“Kinsey!” one of my teammates calls out.

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