Page 106 of Cold as Ice

This would need to be enough.

For now, anyway.

Chapter 14

Elliott had been waitingfor this day for weeks now. At first he’d dreaded it, but ever since Mal had started tutoring him, he’d started to find some optimism. Hewouldn’tfail this test or get kicked off the team. Not now that he had Mal in his life.

Maybe he’d been a little over cocky when he’d taken that quiz. A little too certain that he knew what he was doing. But on the midterm, he wasn’t going to make that mistake. He’d taken his time. Madesurehe wrote the right answers down and made sure he showed every single bit of his work getting to that right answer.

Even Mal had seemed confident.

They’d gone to the fundraiser, and when Mal had asked him how it went, Elliott had said, feeling completely confident that he wasn’t fooling himself, that there was no way he hadn’t passed with flying colors.

Mal had nodded and that was that. They’d skated around the rink a few times, even, not holding hands like Brody and Dean, but Elliott had felt Mal’s warm body next to his own and knewthat the rest of the team finding out about them was only a matter of time.

He’d shown up today in Dr. Prosser’s class, almostexcitedto get their tests back.

The fucking joke was on him, though.

Elliott stared, in complete disbelief, at the bright red D scrawled across the top of the paper.

It didn’t even make sense, but it had to be true, because what else could he believe?

Dread pooled at the base of his stomach, and his throat grew tight.

He’d get kicked off the team. This would guarantee it.

He’d let his team down. He’d lethimselfdown.

And ohGod, Mal.

He wouldn’t understand. He’d think Elliott was a fuckboy who hadn’t taken it seriously. Maybe he’d even think he was stupid.

Frankly, maybe he was.

Elliott knew he should stand up and file out of the classroom with the rest of the students, but he couldn’t make his legs work.

If he got up and left, he’d have to tell Mal, who’d texted right before class that he was excited to hear how well he’d scored.

Well, joke was on Mal.

Or on Elliott.

Hard to say which was truer. Or which was worse.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. It was almost definitely Mal, wanting to know how he’d done.

Elliott swallowed his panic and his grief, but somehow that didn’t help.

His whole life, his wholefuture, was suddenly in shambles.

Off the hockey team, and frankly, probably dumped, because Mal would never understand. Mal would blame him, because who else could he blame?

It was his fucking fault.

At the front of the room, Dr. Prosser was looking anywhere but at him.

He couldn’t even blame her, even though there was part of him that was desperate to.

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