Page 8 of Wicked Serve

“This is generous, son.” He stands, too. We’re the same height, so unless I want to look like a coward, I have to stare straight into his eyes. “You’ll graduate from a good university and have another season playing your sport. You’ll tell the NHL and KHL that you’re retiring, take the job, and start your MBA at Columbia. Now, I would have preferred Harvard for your senior year, but I figured you’d want to stay in the same division. There’s a spot for you at McKee University, and the coach is prepared to start you.”

At the mention of McKee, the back of my neck prickles.

Before this mess, I had a good summer. Development camp with the Sharks, time spent with Cricket, and messing around with Isabelle Callahan, who just so happens to be the little sister of Cooper Callahan, the captain of McKee’s hockey team—UMass Amherst’s biggest rival school. I didn’t plan that last one, and if he ever finds out about it, I’m sure to get a punch to the jaw like the season before last, but fuck if it wasn’t worth it.

If I go to McKee, I’ll be on her turf. This time with Callahan for a team captain. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to play with me after what I chirped at him about his girlfriend—even if I didn’t know at the time that they were dating—when we faced each other last fall.

In my defense, it was the first time I ever saw Isabelle. A minute before the puck drop, and I couldn’t stop staring; I blurted out something about her like a fool. Covering it up by taunting Cooper about the redhead he couldn’t stop staring at seemed like a smart decision at the time.

Usually when I play, the audience is a blur, but Isabelle stayed crystal clear. Laughing. Talking with her family. Jumping out of her seat to cheer on her brother, her smile so breathtaking that I wanted nothing more than for it to be directed at me. Her hair hung loose around her heart-shaped face, dark and wavy. Absurdly, she reminded me of a mermaid, maybe because of her eyes, blue like the ocean in a storm. If her last name wasn’t Callahan, I’d have found her after the game and charmed my way into her bed.

I was prepared to stay the hell away from her when I found out she was my mother’s summer intern. I wasn’t even going to entertain it.

But then I met her for real, and I couldn’t resist. Not because her brother would have hated it, but because I knew then, just like I knew the moment I first saw her, that she was special, and special doesn’t come around every day.

I’ve been missing her like hell since we broke off our fling, but I never expected to actually see her again. If I agree to this, we won’t just be in the same city for a few months. We’ll be on the same campus, in the same small town. I can’t risk falling back into bed with her, especially right under her brother’s nose.

“McKee? Are you serious?”

“It’s an excellent school.”

“You can’t force me into anything.”

“No,” Grandfather says lightly. “You’re an adult, you can make your own choices. But I’d implore you to make the right one.”

“You realize that I’m good at what I do, right? It’s my whole life.”

“That’s what worries me.” He clasps my shoulder firmly. “I’m not denying your talent. You clearly inherited many things from your father. But I worry that you inherited too many of the wrong things.”

I blink, hard. My mind spins. I could tell him to fuck off, but I wouldn’t put it past him to block me from every top hockey school in the country, if only to screw me over for not agreeing to what he wants. I could try to play for a junior league until the Sharks are ready to discuss a rookie contract, but there’s a reason why I went the college route. I wanted an education, and I wanted a shot at the Frozen Four. McKee won it last season. Plenty of their core players are still on the team, Isabelle’s brother included. There’s nothing stopping them from winning it again, especially with me on the ice.

Reaching out to Dad isn’t a real option. I never had intentions of playing in the KHL, even if he wasn’t still part of that league.

That leaves a spot at McKee.

One more year.

One more season.

And Isabelle will be there.

“You say you want to be nothing like him? Prove it. Choose a different path.”

Grandfather’s words hang in the air for several long seconds, taunting as they pull me in.

I tell everyone I hate my father, but that’s not true. I still love him, because he made me the way I am, and while some of it is good—hockey has always been the one good thing in my life—I know I’m lying to myself about not inheriting any of the rest of it. I’m terrified of the day I’ll wake up and see him staring back at me in the mirror. It’s a piece of shrapnel in my heart, aching with every beat.

And it’s why nothing serious could ever happen with Isabelle. What if I tried and fucked it all up? What if I hurt her the way my father hurt my mother for fucking years?

I can’t have her, but at least I can have hockey for one more season.

“Fine. Call McKee.”

Chapter 4

Nikolai

I’m barely out of Grandfather’s office before Cricket pulls me into a hug.

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