Page 6 of Wicked Serve

“No.” My stomach squirms at the lie, but this is easier. I never should have mentioned Nik to them, even vaguely. “Nothing going on. I need to focus on volleyball. Keep my grades up. All that good stuff.”

When I manage to escape to my room after dinner, I give my phone another helpless peek. Nothing but that unfinished text thread.

You’re a beam of light in a person, Isabelle

So fucking beautiful

Were they lies, or just half-truths? Flimsy, throwaway compliments, good to use on any girl?

Something tells me I don’t want to know the answer. If he meant to give me a real goodbye, he would have.

I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip and delete the thread. Summer has slipped into the rearview mirror, and I need to look ahead. If I’m not focused this semester, I have no chance of convincing Alexis to play me at setter, and that’s more important than a fling that never had a future. I might not be on the level of my brothers, but it’s unacceptable for a Callahan to fade into the background of her own sport.

I doubt I’ll ever see Nik again, but if I do, we’ll just be strangers.

No matter what that does to my stupid, silly heart.

Chapter 3

Nikolai

“Any property damage, other than the window?”

I’ve faced a lot of lectures over the years, but no coach—Dad excluded—comes close to the intensity of my grandfather when he’s pissed off. And right now? He’s focusing all of that energy on me.

I clasp my hands behind my back. As soon as I staggered into Mom’s apartment earlier, carrying half the shit I own, she made me change into a suit and sent me to Grandfather’s. Like showing up in a collared shirt will do a fucking thing to make up for the fact that I just got expelled from college.

Yet here I am. This morning, I was the team captain of UMass Amherst Men’s Hockey. Now I’m not even a college student.

“No, sir. We only broke one window.”

Grandfather snorts, drumming his fingers against the arm of his chair. I force myself not to fidget. He has yet to shoot a puck at my face guard and call it training, but in a way, his disapproval is worse than Dad’s. It radiates throughout the room like poison. To him, I’m sure, this situation is confirmation of what he already suspects: that I’m the same kind of bastard as my father.

“But this Grady Szabo—”

Donna, his assistant, leans in and murmurs, loud enough I can hear, “One of Nikolai’s former teammates. A freshman, new this year.”

She smirks as she calls Grady my former teammate. Fuck you too, Donna.

“Thank you. Mr. Szabo is still in the hospital, correct?”

I didn’t visit Grady in the hospital before I left Massachusetts. A lifetime of playing hockey means I’m no stranger to injuries, but the thought of Grady in that hospital bed—all because I didn’t handle my team the way I should have—makes my stomach roll with guilt. Even though I didn’t tell Grady to get fucked up on blow and try to head-butt some idiot from the football team through a second-floor window, I could have done more. Grady is just a freshman, and now instead of taking reps in practice, he’s dealing with a broken leg. Thanks to the shrub he fell into, he avoided a head injury, at least.

“Right,” I manage to say. “The rehab will take a long time, but they think by next—”

“Did you know about the drugs?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Nicholas.”

I grit my teeth. I know he hates the way my name has the unmistakable mark of my father, but still, it’s my name. Nikolai, not Nicholas. “I’m not lying. I had no idea someone brought drugs.”

“The university didn’t seem clear on that.”

I hesitate. “I needed to be loyal to my teammates.”

“So, you knew and lied to them.” He sighs, pinching his nose between his fingers. “No wonder my offer of a very generous donation was met with silence.”

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