Page 139 of Wicked Serve

If he actually quits hockey, he’ll be ruining his life.

I might not be getting through to him, but there’s someone else who can.

I pull out my phone. She should have been here tonight. I asked her at the dinner party if she was going to attend, and she shook her head and said Nik wouldn’t want her there. Bullshit.

“Katherine? It’s me, Izzy.” I look in the direction of the locker room. My heart quickens. “We need to talk about Nikolai.”

Chapter 66

Nikolai

Isabelle is waiting, just like she said she would, when I arrive at the dorm.

I’m exhausted, completely and utterly. The guys jumped on me as soon as I entered the locker room, and protested when I said I didn’t feel up to drinks, but a look from Cooper silenced them. He cornered me before I left, made sure I was going to be with Isabelle.

I don’t deserve his friendship, and I definitely don’t deserve Isabelle’s love. Tonight finally made that impossible to ignore. I might’ve told Dad to get out of my life—for real this time—but he still won, in a way.

Blood is blood. The moment I looked into my father’s eyes and realized how deeply I wanted to take a swing, it all clicked into place. I’m no different from him. I might give up hockey, I might try to keep a tight lid on my emotions, but that doesn’t change a damn thing about who I am at my core.

Isabelle rises from the bed. Without a word, she wraps me into a hug. I don’t lift my arms; they feel like bricks. She sniffles as she steps back, blinking her red-rimmed eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“That was a lot.”

I rip off my jacket and toss it on the desk chair. Push up the sleeves of my sweater. Isabelle fusses with my hair. I gently pull her hands away, stepping around her to sit on the bed. I groan, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

In the locker room, and in the car, I kept the panic at bay. I breathed through my nose. I counted to ten. All that bullshit. Now, though, alone with Isabelle, the too-tight, panicky sensations rush to the surface. It’s as if someone welded iron around my torso. I rub my sternum as she curls next to me.

Normally, her presence helps calm me. Right now, I feel like one wrong move—from either of us—could set me ablaze.

“Breathe,” she murmurs as her hand squeezes my knee.

I’m sure she means it to be reassuring, but I flinch away from her. I have no idea where my father slunk off to, but his words won’t stop echoing in my mind.

You can’t change blood, Kolya.

I stand, pacing the small room. Isabelle says my name. My fingers tingle. I curl and uncurl them, but they’re on the verge of going numb.

You will always be my son.

My stomach lurches.

Panic and rage, entwined in a violent embrace. I pushed, and he showed his true colors. Whatever hope I had that he was different now, that he had really changed, faded the moment I smelled the vodka on his breath. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Even harder than protecting my mother, finally, after years of being silent. And why couldn’t I have said it? Why couldn’t I have told him that I hate him, to complete the break between us that started the moment he lifted his hand in a fist?

“It’s going to be okay,” Isabelle says. She doesn’t leave the bed, but she watches as I pace like a caged animal. “But Nik—you have to know that you don’t have to quit hockey. No one believes you’re anything like him.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I think I do.” She catches me as I pass the bed. She must have washed her face, because there’s no glitter on her petal-soft cheeks. “Look, if you’re not going to listen to me, at least listen to your mom.”

I laugh shortly. “What?”

“I called her. Told her about the offer to join the Sharks. And... and your panic attacks.”

I wrench myself away. “You did what?”

---