Page 6 of Weak Side

I shot him another look. Aasher knew why I wasn’t living in an apartment off campus. Sure, I was at Bexley U on a full scholarship, and I had basically built the hockey team from my freshman year up until now, but it wasn’t like Bexley U paid me a salary for playing. My name was known, but I didn’t have a paid scholarship as a college student, and under no circumstances would Ieverallow my parents to pay for me to live off campus just so I could get away from the girls who were desperate for a way to fame by hanging off my arm or being naked underneath me.

“Or…I don’t know. Maybe these girls need to have more self-respect.”

He laughed, beginning to remove his pads in the locker room along with the rest of the team. “Can’t blame them. You’re the Wolf.”

“Ow oww.” Landon took his towel and slapped my padded ass, and I grabbed it out of his hand and threw it in his face.

“That’s not the whole reason I’m annoyed, though. On top of this chick being naked in my bed, there was another girl in my room too.”

“I heard. It’s all over campus. Not one buttwopuck bunnies in your room on move-in day.”

My upper pads were off, and I sat down to remove the snow from the blade with my fabric skate guards before putting them in my stall. “Oh, is that what people are saying?”

“Who was that, anyway? The other girl? The one who walked down the hall and didn’t look a single one of us in the eye?” I glanced up to Dax, who stayed a few rooms down from mine. “She didn’t seem like a puck bunny. I’ve never seen her before.”

“Was she hot?” Aasher asked.

Dax answered, “She wasn’t just hot. She was the type you took home to Ma and Pops.”

I interrupted Dax and Aasher’s conversation. “She isn’t a puck bunny. She said she’s my new roommate, which is exactly why I have to go talk to Coach. I guess admissions fucked up and switched her last and first name.”

Nearly every one of my teammates laughed. Landon blew a breath out of his mouth before smirking. “I would room with her. Wanna switch roommates? I’m down.”

“Down to fuck,” Aasher grunted.

“If you saw her, you’d say the same.”

Like a rubber band being snapped, I glared at my teammates. “How about this is our senior year, and instead of thinking about fucking girls, you think about winning the championship.”

“Wolf!” I turned at the sound of Coach’s voice bellowing out my campus nickname. “Let’s go. I’m late for dinner, and you know my wife hates it when I’m late.”

I finished throwing on my regular clothes, pulled my black beanie down on my head, and walked into Coach’s office. “What’s the problem, Wolf? Is this about the puck bunnies? I can’t do anything about that, and honestly, maybe it would do you some good to let off some steam, son. Not that I don’t enjoy you flinging pucks like you have your own personal vendetta against them, but you seemed distracted today.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised at how quickly the news spread around Bex U. This was my senior year, and it had been like this ever since we won the championship three years ago. Butfuck, it had only been a few hours.

“No. Well, yes.” I flung myself into the chair at the foot of his desk and glanced at the whiteboard behind his head with his messy dry-erase scribbles all over it. “One of them wasn’t a puck bunny.”

For the second time in the last ten minutes, I explained the situation to Coach, and he immediately called the dean and set up a meeting. Then, he called his wife and mademeexplain the situation so she wouldn’t yell at him for being late to dinner.

I understood the logic. Karen loved me and the team like we were her own sons.

“Stop at your room and grab the girl. I want her there for the meeting so we can sort this out.”

“I believe she’s at The Bex, working.”

Coach didn’t even look at me as he began pulling on his Bexley U windbreaker. “Well, then go get her. I’ll meet you both at the dean’s office.” Coach was a no-bullshit type of guy. He got the job done when it needed to be done. That was why he was ranked as one of the best coaches in the NCAA hockey division. Before leaving his office with his keys in hand, he turned and looked at me. “We will get this sorted. I have a good angle for this problem. The dean isn’t going to let our star hockey player get distracted.”

“I don’t get distracted that easily,” I countered, agitated that he even implied such a thing.

“Let’s go, Wolf.”

Sighing, I jumped up from the chair, adjusted my beanie, and followed him out the door.

4

Claire

Ballet dancers were usedto being on their feet. I’d been a dancer since I was old enough to walk, and although it wasn’t my dream to become a professional ballet dancer or to be on Broadway one day, my mother ran with the idea and pushed me into every dance class the studio offered, even if it did cost us an arm and a leg—and oftentimes, the electric.

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