Page 2 of Spite Crush

“Is he looking at me?” I asked, my gaze now locked on the floor, myhands clasped tightly together in an attempt to get them to stop shaking so violently. I could feel a familiar tightness blooming across my chest and wondered for a moment if I could have a panic attack from worrying about having a panic attack.

“Oh yeah,” Craig said, leaning forward and bending completely across my lap to wave at Zak Dempsey.

“How does he look?”

“Pissed.” I could hear the smile in Craig’s voice and I was tempted to reach over and punch him, but I hadno idea where the cameras were currently pointed and didn’t want to see myself on the big screen again, so I just sat there, my leg now bouncing from anxiety.

After a minute, a loud knock sounded next to my head and I blew out a sigh as I turned to meet the bright blue gaze of Zak Dempsey, who was standing up, staring down at me. He flipped me the bird then exited the box to retake his place on the ice.

“You’re going to make a Hockey Tonight highlight reel,” Craig said, knocking his shoulder against mine.

“Fantastic,” I said. “You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me,” he said as he wrapped one arm around my shoulders and opened his phone with his other hand. “You just sold out the last thousand tickets for the show tomorrow night.”

“Because of that?” I asked in disbelief. “It was a ten second blip that happened two minutes ago.”

“Word travels fast, Kellen. You want your hat back?”

“I want to leave,” I said, sliding down in my chair and resting my feet against the boards in front of me. Now that the attention was off of me, I could feel the tension easing from my body and I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly before turning to look at Craig again. “I want to not use a professional sports team full of guys that could beat me up for my own publicity.” I groaned as another fight broke out in front of us, leading to Dempsey once again being sent to the principal’s office. “And I want to not sit here anymore.”

“Fuck Ref, it’s a whistle not a dick, try to keep it out of your mouth for a minute!” Dempsey shouted before slamming the door and dropping hard onto the bench.

Once again the camera panned over to him and once again I was included in the shot on the big screen over the crowd, who once again went insane.

“Hey, pretty boy!” Dempsey shouted, banging on the glass next to my head. “They’re cheering for me.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I shot back, forcing myself to turn and glareback at him. I was glad to hear that my voice was firm and steady because clapping back doesn’t work so well when you sound as terrified as you feel inside.

Dempsey grinned then winked at me before jumping to his feet with the rest of the crowd, slamming his stick against the boards as the Inferno scored.

The penalty clock expired and once again, Zak Dempsey flipped me off before climbing back onto the ice.

Honestly, I was thrilled that we’d sold out our show. I’d been nervousabout the remaining tickets, because a sold-out show sounded a lot better than, you know,nota sold-out show. And it was hard to keep calling yourself the biggest rock band in the world if you couldn’t sell out a one-night arena venue in Michigan.

But this wasn’t how I’d wanted to accomplish it. And the whole ‘no publicity was bad publicity’ thing was crap if I was going to be a highlight on Hockey Tonight for embarrassing myself at the game.

“Craig, you’re fired.”

“Shut up and watch the game,” Craig insisted. “You might actually find something to like about it.”

I highly doubted that. Though, I had to admit, Zak Dempsey was really hot. And I liked that quite a bit.

Chapter Two

~Zak Dempsey~

“Nice fuckingWboys!” Coach Sutherland said as we settled into the locker room after the game. “Dempsey, pulling the game winning goal after five penalties. I’d like to congratulate you, but I’d really rather just punch you.”

“Hey!” I complained. “Two of those penalties were bullshit.”

Actually they weren’t, and everyone knew it. But still, I got thegame winning goal so I earned the fucking praise.

“Well, tell it to the press,” Sutherland said. “Shower and change, they’re waiting for you.”

“Come on,” I whined. “I don’t want to do press tonight. You do it.”

“They don’t want me,” Sutherland said. “They never want me.”

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