Page 57 of Unsteady

A wave of nausea hits, the massive lump in my throat is the only thing holding back my breakfast from spewing.

Toren Kane.

Massive defenseman for Michigan’s hockey team. Top NHL prospect for three years running, but consistent fuck-ups have prevented him from making it onto a roster. The player who’d nearly killed me last spring.

And he wants me to play with him—not just on my team, but on my goddamn line?

“Are you fucking serious?”

It isn’t me that speaks, but my father, his voice a menacing whisper while his hands white-knuckle the arms of the chair.

“I know—”

“Are you out of your damn mind?” His voice is louder this time, rising over my coach’s. “Youknowwhat he did to my son, Harris. He’s a goddamn nightmare.”

Harris looks as if this is the last argument he wants to have, and I know the words coming before he says them.

“It was a legal hit, Max. He’s a talented de—”

“He’s a liability is what he is. His entire team agreed with us, wanted him suspended.”

“Max—”

“There’s a reason he didn’t go to the draft, remember? Multiple times. That scandal waseverywhere!” My father’s voice rises again, the light edge of his accent sharper as he mixes Russian curses into his shouting.

“Max—”

“Thousands of kids will come after this one, better than him—but youneedhim? At what cost? We’re talking about myson, this team’s captain!”

Coach doesn’t raise his voice or attempt to calm my father down, only nodding and flickering his gaze from me to my father, and back again.

I stand abruptly, accidentally knocking my chair back. They both pause for a moment, but the room keeps shrinking until I’m convinced I’ll suffocate if I stay in here for one moment longer.

I stalk out, ignoring their calls to me in both English and Russian, taking the corner by the door too quickly and clipping my shoulder. The halls are empty, my head down even as the pounding starts to overtake it. I try to concentrate; to do the grounding techniques I’ve learned to stop the real panic attack before it starts.

My body slams into someone and I barely mutter an apology before heading off, my vision hazy and tunneling as I stumble forward.

A hand grabs my wrist hard, little fingernails nearly pressing into my skin and I almost moan because I’d know the feel of her skin, even if I were blind.

I spin easily, letting her back me into the cool blue painted brick behind me. She looks so powerful like this, never mind the fact that I’m physically towering her—she just seems so in control, like she can calm me with a quick press of her skin to mine.

I realize, as my gaze tracks across her face, that she’s speaking to me.

“Sorry.” I breathe, just as pathetic and shaky as always. Apparently this is to be my new normal. I’ve never been the aggressive one, always controlled on or off the ice, but now I want to put my fist into something.

I can't help the self-deprecating chuckle that slips free.

God, no wonder she doesn’t want me.Pathetic.

“Rhys, what’s wrong?” she asks, in a way that makes me sure she’s asked it already, and I’m freaking her out acting like a psych patient in some catatonic state. “You’re shaking.”

“I—”

I’m not scared—not of Toren Kane—I’m pissed. I feel betrayed by someone who’s had my back since freshman year, someone that has never once treated me like I was just some mini clone of my father; that stuck by me through my injury. It doesn’t matter that I know my team will have my back, why would he bring him here?

My team screamed dirty hit, and so did his team, but the officials said it was clean. So he’s cleared—it doesn’t matter he might’ve cost me my career if I can’t get this shit under control, or that he stole everything from me; and he’s got the nerve to show up on my team, at my school?

I’m not thinking anymore because everything in my head is swirling around like water through a drain, leaving me with that eerie numbness leaking into my fingertips.

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