Page 19 of Pucking the Team

RYAN

I sit in the locker room, my jaw clenched so tight it aches as I aggressively tape up my hockey sticks with jerky motions. The rough tape bites into my palms as I rip off strips with my teeth. Jerky, aggressive motions fueled by the anger boiling in my gut. I can practically hear the plastic crack under the force of my hands.

Practice ended twenty minutes ago, but I’m still in the locker room, jaw clenched like a steel trap.

Exhaustion weighs heavy on my shoulders, seeping into my bones. Back-to-back away games in goddamn Minnesota. Flying, bussing, checking into hotels at 2 a.m. The grind of the season is nothing new, but today, the weariness feels like lead in my skates.

And it’s not just the travel and quick turnaround dragging me down. It’s him.

Lukas fucking Dvorak.

I see that smug grin flashing in my mind, hear the obnoxious whoops after he dangled and scored top shelf in last night’s game. The way he smirked skating past our bench, so damn pleased with himself.

Classic Dvorak—always needing to be the center of attention, the star of the show. Forget being a team player.

My knuckles turn white around the shaft of my stick as I finish taping the blade.

I know I need to let it go, not let Lukas crawl under my skin and fester. But pushing down the resentment feels like trying to hold a beach ball underwater—it keeps popping back up, mocking me. This shit with Lukas, it runs deep.

Goes all the way back to that cursed weekend in college that soured everything…

As I make my way out to the ice for warm-ups, my mind drifts back to that night, the one that shattered my world.

I had brought my high school girlfriend Madison with me to visit my best friend Slade at college and catch their hockey team play. But what should have been a fun weekend turned into my worst nightmare.

I found Madison naked in bed with Slade’s cocky roommate and teammate Lukas.

She was riding him with wild abandon, her head thrown back in ecstasy, nails raking down his chest as she bucked and grinded on top of him. Low moans spilled from her lips between panting breaths. Her body glistened with a sheen of sweat.

I’d never seen Madison so uninhibited, so hungry with lust and sexual need. Not in all the tender, awkward times we’d made love. But there she was, letting loose for a fucking stranger, Lukas, in a way she never had with me.

The shock punched me in the gut, a brutal betrayal that stole my breath. Then came the scorching rage, a fury that eclipsed everything.

I loved Madison, trusted her completely. I thought we had a real future together. I took our relationship as seriously as I take everything in my life.

And she threw it all away for a quick fuck with some arrogant prick she’d just met.

When Lukas saw me standing there, he just smirked, not a shred of remorse on his smug face. Like getting with my girlfriend was some sort of game he’d won. He’d sweet-talked Madison right out of her panties, not even trying to hide it from me.

Made me feel like the world’s biggest fool.

Rage and betrayal had ripped through me, a sickening cocktail of emotions I had no clue how to handle at barely 18 years old. I stormed out of their dorm seeing red, fists clenched, a roar trapped in my throat.

My skates hit the ice now, and I shake my head, trying to physically dispel the intrusive thoughts. I line up some pucks on the blue line to run shooting drills, the cold air welcome in my burning lungs.

Even now, a decade later, playing on the same pro team as Lukas…I can’t completely escape the scorching bitterness that has trailed me all this time.

The wound has long scarred over, but the flesh still feels raw some days.

Like today.

When all it takes is one of Lukas’s self-satisfied grins to rip it wide open again and remind me that some guys just don’t fucking change.

I slam a puck at the net with more force than necessary, satisfaction surging through me at the sharp crack of stick meeting rubber. But the feeling is short-lived as my gaze drifts across the ice and catches on a scene that makes my jaw clench.

Emma, our social media manager, is setting up her camera by the boards, her face alight with a smile that could thaw the rink. And of course, Lukas is right there, skating over to her with that signature cocky swagger that makes my blood boil.

Lukas leans in close, his mouth at Emma’s ear, and I watch as she laughs at whatever undoubtedly suave bullshit he’s feeding her.

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