Page 77 of The Spice Play

Definitely not Sebastian.

I shut the door before the man could see me and shot Seb another text message.

Me:Should I just go ahead and ask for an amber alert to be sent out for Matty?

The opening and closing of a door somewhere down the hall piqued my interest, and I shoved my phone back in my pocket and started for the corner it seemed to have come from.

“You’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up,” a woman’s voice chimed, bright and airy with a hint of laughter behind it.

“And whose fault is that?” A male’s voice, amused butdeep, replied — andshit, okay, that was Seb. “You didn’t need to work it for that long.”

Work it?

“It isnotmy fault you kept writhing uncontrollably,” she chuckled. “Jesus, Seb, don’t forget your shirt.”

His shirt?

A tightness formed in the back of my throat as I rounded the corner, coming to a halt at the entrance of the short hallway. There were three doors, two on the left and one at the end, and the one closest to me was held open by a thin, pale woman who looked about my age. Her auburn hair was tucked up into a neat ponytail, her freckles on full display. Her jeans seemed casual, but it was the Atlanta Fire black and blue hoodie she wore that gave me pause.

She was pretty.Verypretty.

And as a hopping, familiar figure emerged from the doorway, one hand bent down and holding the little loop on the back of his shoe as he tried to put it on while exiting, his shirt off and thrown over one shoulder and his jeans unbuttoned, I felt the sudden urge to throw up.

“Thanks, Zoe,” Seb said, planting his foot back on the ground. His fingers came to the button on his jeans, quickly doing them up.

“No problem. I’ll probably be out to watch you guys in a little bit. I’ve not got anything better to do until after practice,” she chuckled, and a second later she’d ducked back into the room, shutting the door behind her.

I wanted to run. The temptation was there, the ease of it seeming closer in reach than usual, but predictably, all I ended up doing was staying locked in place, dread coiling tighter and tighter in my gut.

What the fuck had I just walked into?

Seb turned in my direction,finally, as he slid his shirtoff his shoulder and pushed his arms through the holes. His eyes went wide the moment he clocked me. “Nell? What are you doing back here?”

“I…” I held up my phone weakly, blinking at him in confusion. “I texted you.”

“Shit, sorry,” he huffed, pulling his shirt down over his stomach muscles and jogging up to me, his right leg hobbling just slightly. He pulled his phone from his pocket and read the messages, breathing out a chuckle. “Please tell me you reminded Luke not to put Matty on the ice.”

“I… did,” I said. I didn’t understand. Had I not just caught him doing something? Had I imagined that? Why was he acting so nonchalant about this? “Seb?—”

His hand came to my cheek as he swooped in, pressing a quick kiss to my lips in the privacy of the empty hall. “Walk with me,” he said, coming around to my side and grabbing my hand to pull me along. “Coach is going to kill me if I’m more than twenty minutes late.”

I followed him blindly.

Had I gone insane? I’d seen what I’d seen, I was sure of it, but why was he acting like I hadn’t just stumbled upon that? A part of me wondered if I’d made it up in my head, imagined all of it, and maybe I’d actually found him coming out of the locker room alone — but I wasn’t sure if that was Morris’ voice shouting at me,That never fucking happened, Nelly!that replayed in my head.

He’d done that to me the first few times I’d caught him and Ruby. Gaslighted the hell out of me, told me it was all in my head, and said I was going insane because he would never do that. But I hadn’t been. I’d questioned myself like crazy, truly considering whether I was actually going insane or not, but it was clear I hadn’t been.

So why did it feel like I was right back in those momentsas we walked in relative silence to the rink? Why did I question myself, why did I wonder if I’d made everything up? Why couldn’t I trust myself?

My stomach churned, raw bile climbing up my throat the moment the doors opened and Seb dropped my hand. I didn’t know how to process this.

————

Matty and I watched from the lowest line of seats, right up against the boards, as the guys ran drills. Over and over again, Luke and Seb moved along the right side of the rink from one end to the other, passing the puck between them as they weaved through cones or teammates pretending to play for another team. Over and over again, they practiced fake-outs before passing the puck to a player in the middle of the rink who Ibelievedwas called a center, and he’d hit it directly into the unguarded net.

I struggled to keep my focus, though.

Matty asked me all sorts of questions, from,Do you think Daddy will let me play when I’m older?to,Why haven’t you tried out your new skates?And I tried to field them, tried to answer them to the best of my abilities without showing anything was wrong.

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