Page 33 of Unsteady

“We talked about—” he starts, before realizing that I’munlacingmy skates, eyebrows climbing his forehead. “What are you doing?”

I shake my head, frustration, anger, fear swirling to the point that my eyes are stinging.

This isyourfault. You kissed him. You got distracted.

You left them alone.

“I can’t.” Shaking my head, my teeth grind together until I’m sure my jaw will break. “I have to go.”

“Sadie,” he snaps, gripping my arm as I try to maneuver past him. “You know the rules. You’re on probation still. You can’t miss—”

“I know.” I shrug out of his grip, not bothering to look behind myself as I sprint outside and to my car.

“Sadie,” a voice calls, just as my hand grips the handle to my driver’s side door. “Wait—where are you going?”

Eyes closed tightly, I snap out a quick, “Leave me alone, Rhys.”

“We should talk—”

“We don’t need to talk.” I toss my bag into the passenger seat. “I need to go, and you need to relax. You’re coming off as clingy, hotshot.”

I hate this version of myself—the desperate, fear-driven and hateful girl who wants everyone and everything away from her because it’s too much. But he needs to see this, so he realizes what a mistake that moment in the locker room was.

And all I hear is Liam’s little voice like a record looping in my head.

Slamming my door and locking it, I try to start the car, only to hear the grating scream of my engine refusing to turn over.

“No,” I huff, tears stinging my eyes. “No, no, no!”

Again and again.

Nothing.

There’s atap tap tapon my window, before the hockey golden boy with the sad eyes is plastered to the side of my car, gesturing for me to roll down the window. I want to ignore him, but that heart-pounding fear has my hand reaching for the handle to manually roll it down.

“What?”

He sighs, running a hand through his long, beautiful hair in a way that’s irritatingly distracting. “I know you said we’re not friends.”

I’m being ridiculous, but I can’t stop myself from spitting, “Well-established point there.”

A strange laugh etches from him, and it almost sounds like it's causing him pain.

“Right, well, you’re the one who stuck your tongue down my throat, kitten, so your brand of not-friendship is one I can handle, I think.”

“Kitten?” I spit out, before I can even let the embarrassment of his crass comment overtake me completely. “Watch it. Gray was bad enough.”

“It’s the eyes.” He smirks, and for a moment I can see him, from before. Maybe our paths have crossed before, because right now he looks every bit the campus hero, hockey golden boy and exactly the type of one-night-stand I’d be rolling around with.

He holds his hands up, like a quick surrender. “I’ll pick another nickname for you, then.”

“No nicknames,” I barter. Nicknames seem too familiar.

He snorts. “Says the girl who keeps mocking me as the hockey hotshot. Trying to give me a complex?”

“Hard to give you something you already have.”

In truth, Idon’tknow him. In fact, everything I’ve seen from him this far should only prove that he isn’t the hockeyhotshotI’m so fond of calling him. In the month I’ve skated with him, he’s either been heartbreakingly sweet or devastatingly panicked and sad.

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