Page 94 of The Score

“You want anything to drink?” she asks after she greets me with a quick hug.

I glance at the brown leather couch that Mr.Hayes is slowly lowering himself onto. He tucks the cane on the edge of the sofa and snatches a beer from the coffee table. His hand trembles wildly as he raises the bottle to his lips. When he catches me staring, he scowls again.

“Uh…” I gulp. “A beer would be nice.”

“Coors or Bud?”

“Bud.”

She nods. “Coming right up.”

I’m once again left alone in the clutches of Mr. Hayes, whose blue eyes are now glued to the Lions game flashing on the flat-screen TV. I’ve got about five inches and thirty pounds on the man, but he still fucking terrifies me. I suspect he was a bruiser when he played hockey. He’s got that stocky barrel chest. And the surly attitude.

“What are you waiting for, pretty boy? Sit down already.”

Pretty boy?

Goddamn it. Why did I show up in Ford and Armani? Allie’s dad probably took one look at my expensive getup and decided I was a rich prick.

Very reluctantly, I sit on the other end of the sectional.

Mr. Hayes glances over briefly. “AJ says you play hockey.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Forward?”

“Defenseman.”

“What’re your stats so far this season?”

I pause uncertainly. Wait, does he expect me to rattle off actual numbers? Like goals and assists and penalty minutes? I could probably ballpark it, but reciting my own statistics feels pompous.

“They’re decent,” I say vaguely. “The team’shad a rocky start. We won the Frozen Four last season, though.”

He nods. “Won it junior year. Boston College.”

“Nice. Uh. Congrats.” His face is utterly expressionless, so I can’t be sure if this is some kind of pissing match. If so, I could probably mention I won it the year before too. But I keep my mouth shut. Luckily, Allie is back with my beer, and I reach for it as if it’s a life preserver. “Thanks, babe.”

We both freeze the moment the endearment leaves my mouth. Shit. I hope Mr. Hayes didn’t hear that.

He’s sitting right here. Of course he heard.

I twist off the bottle cap and take a much-needed swig of alcohol.

“So what did I miss?” Allie asks in an overly cheerful voice.

Her father scoffs. “Pretty boy over here was just telling me how he won the Frozen Four.”

Fucking hell.

This is going to be a long Thanksgiving.

Dinner is awful.Well, not the food—for someone who claims to suck at cooking, Allie did a pretty good job with the meal. It’s the act of eating said food that I find excruciating. The conversation is brutal. Mr. Hayes seems to be going out of his way to antagonize me. His preferred phrase of the evening is “of course.” Except it’s spoken in a flat, condescending tone that makes me wish I was spending Thanksgiving in the empty house in Hastings.

When Allie tells him I’m going to law school next fall, he says, “Of course.”

When she mentions my family owns a place in Manhattan, he says, “Of course.”

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