Page 35 of Ricochet

Stone’s smiling at me after I make a lap around the goal and join him on the other side. Nate skates up, beaming too.

“That’s more like it,” he says, tapping his stick against mine. He looks over at the clock on the wall. “You boys got fifteen minutes left. I’m gonna hit the showers and head home.”

“Hey,” I call after him as he starts skating toward the bench. “Didn’t Coach say we all have to stay an extra hour?”

He spins around, shrugging as he skates backwards. “I only heard him say you two.”

“Prick,” I mutter.

Stone chuckles, and I cut my eyes at him. Clearly, he’s more at ease about being alone together than I am.

Fortunately, he jumps right into suggesting another passing drill. I don’t have the energy to argue with him, so I agree. We kill another fifteen minutes before we head off the ice. I don’t feel much better about the dynamic we’ve been having this past week, but at least there’s beensomeprogress.

When we get into the locker room, Nate’s already gone. Stone grabs a roll of tape from his station and sits on the bench. We both remove our skates, and as I’m taking off my uniform and pads, he gets to work re-taping his stick.

I know exactly what he’s doing, and I wish it didn’t piss me off as much as it does.

If he’s going to pretend like nothing happened while still refusing to look at me, then fucking fine.

Stomping off to the showers, I try to tell myself it doesn’t bother me. That I can forget it all too. That I don’t want his eyes on me again. That I think I might’ve been wrong about the look in them five years ago.

Last week, there were some of those same things painted on his face. Disgust. Contempt.

But I think I was wrong that they were directedatme.

I think they were…forme.

And I’m still not sure how to feel about it.

The easiest thing, of course, is to hate him more for it. I don’t need his fucking pity.

However, there was something new this time too. Something that was a hell of a lot more frightening, something I probably should have ran away from. But I didn’t. Because I wasn’t scared like I should’ve been.

But I’m supposed to be forgetting about it.

Pretending it never happened.

So as I stand beneath the spray in the showers alone, I decide I’ll just go back to hating him. We played better then anyway. Back when I simply accepted the fact that I hated him but had to find a way to play with him for the sake of the team.

We played a hell of a lot better back then than we do when I think I might want him.

Finishing up in the shower, I dry off and wrap the towel around my waist. When I walk back into the locker room, I stop in my tracks as ice rushes through my veins and the air is punched from my lungs.

Stone stands in the center of the room, holding my sketchbook open in his hands.

The one I drew his eyes in.

The one I’ve drawn about a dozen sketches of him in since.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The question comes through gritted teeth. If my feet weren’t rooted in place, I’d charge at him like a fucking raging bull and snatch my book back. Maybe punch him in the face for good measure. But I’m too horrified to move.

“I was sliding your bag down the bench, and it fell out.” He doesn’t even look up at me as he speaks. No, heturns the fucking page.

My chest is heaving as all the sketches I’ve done flash by in my mind like a montage. I’ve done another couple ones of just his eyes. The others are of him in his hockey uniform, pretty fucking clearly him with the number “13” plastered on his shirt.

Horrified might be an understatement.

“You had no right,” I snarl. “Put it back.”

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