Page 33 of The Score

Beau snickers. “Can you repeat that, please?”

“My dick is being difficult,” I explain irritably. “I tried to jerk off to porn last night, and swear to God, damn thing wouldn’t get hard. Then I thought of All—this girl,” I correct myself, because I promised Allie I wouldn’t tell anyone about our night together “—andbam” I snap my fingers. “Hard as a rock.”

Beau eyes me thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think we’re dealing with a Bella’s-magical-blood situation here.”

“No?”

“No. I think you’ve imprinted on this girl’s pussy.”

A choked cough sounds from behind me, and I turn in time to see our waitress walking by. Her cheeks are red, lips twitching as if she’s trying not to bust a gut.

I turn back to Beau. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re facing a Jacob quandary. You imprinted on her pussy, and now it’s the only pussy you can think about. You exist solely forthispussy. Like Jacob and that weird mutant baby.”

“You fucking asshole. You’ve totally read those books.”

“Nuh-uh,” Beau protests. He gives a sheepish grin. “I’ve seen the movies.”

I decide to save my taunting for later becausethere are more pressing matters to focus on. “So what’s the cure, Dr. Maxwell? Go on a fuck spree and hope I un-imprint? Or keep working the charm and hope I wear her down?”

My buddy snorts loudly. “How would I know?” He raises his pint glass. “I’m drunk, dude. Nobody should ever listen to me when I’m drunk.” He drains his glass and signals the waitress for another. “Hell, nobody should listen to me when I’msober.”

8

DEAN

The second game of the season is an unmitigated disaster. No. Scratch that. It’s a goddamn bloodbath.

Nobody says a word as we file into the locker room, the humiliation of the loss creeping behind us like a puddle of tar. We may as well have yanked our pants down, stuck our bare asses in the air, and cheerfully asked the other team for a spanking. We fucking handed them the win. No, we handed them ashutout.

As I whip off my jersey, I mentally replay every second of the game. Every mistake we made out there tonight is burned into my mind like a cattle brand. Losing sucks. Losing at home sucks harder.

Damn, there are going to be a lot of disappointed fans at Malone’s tonight. I’m not looking forward to seeing them, and I know my teammates are equally upset. None more so than Hunter, who hurriedly strips out of his uniform as if it’s covered with fire ants.

“You got some nice shots on goal tonight,” I tellhim, and it’s the truth. Our scoreless game wasn’t for lack of trying. We played hard. The other team just played harder.

“Would’ve been nicer if one of them went in,” he mutters.

I stifle a sigh. “Their goalie was on point tonight. Even G couldn’t get one past him.”

Garrett takes that moment to lumber up to his locker, and he’s quick to reassure the frowning freshman. “Don’t sweat it, kid. There’s plenty more hockey to be played this season. We’ll bounce back.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Hunter is unconvinced. We don’t get the chance to offer more encouragement, because Coach Jensen strides into the locker room, tailed by Frank O’Shea.

Coach wastes no time delivering one of his brief, post-game speeches. As usual, it sounds like he’s talking in point form.

“We lost. It feels shitty. Don’t let it get to you. Just means we work harder during practice and bring it harder for the next game.” He nods at everyone, then stalks out the door.

I’d think he was pissed at us, if not for the fact that his victory speeches more or less go the same way: “We won. It feels great. Don’t let it go to your head. We work just as hard during practice and we win more games.” If any of our freshman players are expecting Coach to deliver epic motivational speeches à la Kurt Russell inMiracle, they’re in for a grave disappointment.

O’Shea lingers in the room. My shoulders instinctively tense when he trudges toward me, but he surprises me by saying, “Good coverage in thedefensive zone tonight. That was a solid block in the second.”

“Thanks.” I’m still suspicious of the unexpected compliment, but he’s already moved on to praise Logan for successfully killing the power play in the third period.

I toss my gear in one of the huge laundry bins, then head for the showers and wash the stench of failure off my body. I hate losing, but I don’t allow myself more than ten minutes to dwell on it. My father taught me that trick when I was eight years old, after a particularly demoralizing loss on the lacrosse field.

“You have ten minutes,” he told me. “Ten minutes to think about what you did wrong and how bad you feel right now. Are you ready?”

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