Page 11 of The Puck Chase

“From the moment I met him and he was treating my room like his own damn palace,” he replies smoothly, staring at me intently, and all that fucking confusion from last night and this morning comes flooding back.

“So youdoremember the night we met,” I toss back, my smirk only getting wider, and the green in his eyes darken even further, but luckily for him my sister comes to his rescue.

“So what’s he like, really?” she asks, cutting both our cakes in half and then switching a piece over, so we can both have some of each. “I mean, I know a bunch of his friends already, but they are his besties, and they are all weirdly close, so of course they sing his praises,” she drones on, referring to Nova and Alexander, and to my surprise, Daemon listens to her intently, smiling slightly at her assessment of me and my friends.

When she stops talking, she shoves some of the cake in her mouth and looks at him expectantly, waiting for a response. Daemon looks back at me now, only this time he is looking at me as if he is seeing me for the first time, and I can’t help but fidget beneath his scrutiny. This isn’t like when he was watching me last night, yet somehow it feels more intimate than him seeing me with my pants down.Again.

“Your brother is chaos incarnate,” Daemon finally starts, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Everywhere he goes he likes to be the center of attention and he doesn’t care what or who he has to do to get there. He’s loud, brash, annoying, and honestly downright infuriating, but he’s good at hockey. He’s quick on his feet and knows how to work as part of a team, and they are invaluable skills to have, and I have no doubt they will take him pro next year.”

It’s the most I have ever heard him speak in all the years I have known him, and I can do nothing but sit there slack-jawed, as I take in every one of his words. Not because of how much he said, but because of how accurate they all are, like he truly knows me, sees me, and it leaves me utterly speechless. My sister is now staring between the two of us, but Daemon and I remain focused on each other, as if all the rivalry and hatred between us was nothing but a shield for something else, yet I’m not sure what.

“Wow, you guys totally hate each other, don’t you?” Aurora finally asks, cutting the tension between us, and I can’t help but choke a laugh, as I look back at her and find her assessing us closely.

“I wouldn’t say hate,” I start, at the same time Daemon says, “Yes.” And my eyes snap to his in outrage.

“And here I thought I was finally growing on you, Forbes,” I tease, enjoying my usual trick of getting under his skin, and to my surprise he smirks, as he reaches for his coffee, and glares at me over the rim.

“Like a fungus maybe,” he mutters, taking a sip, and my sister snorts a laugh.

“Oh my god this is brilliant,” Aurora gleams, leaning her elbows on the table and staring at Daemon like he is her new favorite toy. “Finally someone who doesn’t kiss the ground you walk on,” she adds, tucking into more of her cake, and I noticeDaemon watching her again, another soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“That’s rich coming from the girl who used to steal all my jerseys because she wanted to be just like me,” I accuse, and she looks completely outraged.

“Excuse me, that was Everest,” she scoffs back, before moving her attention back to Daemon and adding, “That’s our brother, he’s a year older than me, and I know what you’re thinking, that our parents couldn’t keep it in their pants, but he’s actually our stepbrother. Our parents divorced when we were kids, and when my mom met David, our stepdad, with him came Everest. He’s also a chaos incarnate-fueled shithead, but like this one we love him anyway.”

My sister only talks this much, which is to say all the time, when she likes someone, and of course she has already decided that she likes Daemon. “Okay, RoRo, I don’t think he needs to know our life story,” I cut in slowly, as Daemon continues to study the two of us closely, but of course my sister ignores me completely.

“Do you have any siblings?” she asks, as I take a sip of my coffee, and I see him flinch ever so slightly at her question, making me pause.

Does he have siblings? It’s at this moment I realize I don’t know him all that well, not considering how long we have been playing together, and sure we’re not friends, but I still feel like I should know something as basic as that about him.

“I have an older brother,” he replies carefully, like he thought about his response before he said it, and my eyes fix on his hands. He is still gripping the pencil he was drawing with when we arrived, except now he is holding it so tight in his fist that his fingers are turning white.

“So you’re the baby of your family like me?” Aurora gleams, desperate to bond with my brooding rival, and I feel like kicking her beneath the table.

“No, Ryan’s the baby,” he replies on instinct, as if he has said it a thousand times before, but then pauses as if he just realized what he said. My sister opens her mouth to respond, but Daemon’s free hand slams into the table, as he abruptly pushes himself out of the booth. “I’m sorry, I need to go,” he mutters, reaching for his bag, and as if on instinct, my hand reaches out and grabs his arm.

I don’t know why I do it, it’s no secret he doesn’t like to be touched, I know that, everyone on the team knows that, yet still for some reason my head is screaming at me to do it. “Forbes?” I say his name in question, and his eyes flick down to where I am now gripping his forearm, yet still I don’t release him, not when I can feel his entire body shaking.

When his eyes move up to meet my own they are almost black instead of green, before he clears his throat, and slowly whispers, “I’m okay, I just really need to go, please.” One word, one plea, and my fingers relax instantly, allowing his arm to slip away, and then one second later he is gone, and I have no idea what the fuck just happened.

“Well, that was intense,” my sister muses, sipping some of her fancy drink, as I slowly focus back on the table, still utterly confused.

“Yeah, he’s like that sometimes,” I reply mindlessly, thinking back to the way he slammed me against the lockers earlier, and I can’t help but think things between us are getting worse, not better.

“Well I like him,” my sister adds, and I look at her even more confused, since she spent about four minutes with him. “What? He’s all cute and brooding, and come on, the sketchbook? That’s a tortured artist if I have ever seen one.”

Now I can’t help but smile at her assessment of him, as I roll my eyes. “Not everyone is a tortured artist like you, Rora,” I tell her, downing the rest of my coffee, and now it’s her turn to roll her eyes.

“I’m not tortured, I’m misunderstood.” My sister sighs, reaching for my plate of untouched cake, as she finishes her own, and I don’t stop her.

Not when my mind is still on my teammate, wondering why he ran away from me.Again.

My whole body is trembling and I can’t stop it. My heart is thundering in my chest, my breaths are coming in short pants, and my hands are shaking. And the cause?Archer Fucking Gray.Rain pelts my body, as I stumble down the sidewalk in the direction of home, with that phantom touch of his hand still burning into my skin. Why does he always seem to find me? I left practice as quick as I could earlier because I needed to get away from him, because I’ve seen nothing but him since that fucking party last night, and I wanted some fucking freedom from the invisible noose he put around my neck.

Four times I jerked off last night, four fucking times. And every single time I tried to imagine something else, literally anything else, all I could hear was his goddamn moan. I picturedthe way his head was tilted towards me as that girl sucked his cock, I saw his body flexing as he thrust into Georgia, and I remembered those fucking smirking blue eyes, as he moaned my name.

Fuck.

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