Page 123 of The Chase

“Hunter,” I say flatly.

“What?” He raises his hands in a gesture of innocence. “We’re roomies. Sometimes roomies watch each other fuck.”

Summer exits my room without a backward glance. I don’t blame her. I see the tight set of her shoulders, but I know she’s not pissed at me. Hell, she’s probably not pissed at Hunter. If anything, that’s nothing but sheer embarrassment tensing her body.

“Hello to you too, Blondie,” Hunter calls after her, but gets no response. Shrugging, he stumbles back to his feet.“Didn’t waste any time, did ya, Fitz? How long after I dropped her home did it take for you to dick her down?”

I bite back my anger. He’s drunk. And as much as I hate to say it, he has a point. “Let’s talk when you’re sober, all right?”

“Let’s not.” He shakes his head, continuing to laugh under his breath as he weaves toward the door. “You and Blondie do your thing. I’ll do mine. And they all live happily never ever. I mean, after. Happily ever after.”

I frown at his retreating back. “Hunter.”

“Mmmm?”

“Are we good?” I ask warily.

He glances at me over his shoulder. “No.”

__________

I do my best to keep my distance from Hunter after that, especially around the house. It’s the least I can do. On one hand, Summer and I didn’t do anything wrong—it’s not like she was officially dating him. But Hunter had made his intentions clear to me. He’d staked a claim, and I’d trampled over it. But at the time, I hadn’t thought Summer and I were possible. I thought I’d been friend-zoned.

But that’s neither here nor there. You can’t change the past. You can only try to better the future.

In this case, it means giving Hunter his space, which Summer and I both agree is probably for the best right now.

If it were Hollis or Tuck, maybe I’d handle the situation differently, talk to them, try harder to fix shit. But Hunter and I, while friends, aren’t super close. He’s got a great sense of humor and he’s fun to be around, but the truth is, I don’t know him very well.

So I maintain the distance. I thought it’d be harder to do, considering we live together, but Hunter isn’t around much in the days following our confrontation. I can’t completely avoid him, though, because we’re forced to interact during practice.

Harvard is still leading our conference. We play them again in a few weeks, so Coach Jensen and Coach O’Shea are working us even harder these days. On Wednesday morning, we run several one-on-one drills, followed by a three-on-three mini-game—Jesse, Matty, and me, versus Hunter, Nate, and Kelvin.

Hunter and I take center. As he gets into position, I glimpse his determined expression and know this ain’t gonna be pleasant.

I’m not wrong. He gains possession and skates off. When he tries to pass the puck to Nate, it’s intercepted by Matt, who snaps it over to me. I fly toward the blue line and dump the puck, catching up to it again behind the net. I barely get my stick on it before I’m slammed into the boards. The hit is harder than necessary, and so is the elbow to the ribs, courtesy of Hunter.

He flashes a humorless smile and steals the puck from me. Then he’s gone.

Motherfucker, that hurt. But fine. Whatever. I let it slide. He has a right to be angry, and it’s better he let out his aggression on the ice rather than off it.

Here in the arena, it’s controlled violence. Which is one of my favorite things about hockey. It might be stupidly primal, and maybe it makes men as dumb as women claim we are, but sometimes it’s nice to release our pent-up aggression in a place where we can’t get in trouble for it.

As practice continues, the encounters between me andHunter get more and more physical. Our teammates start to notice. Nate whistles softly when I give Hunter a bone-jarring crosscheck. I swear I hear the breath leave Hunter’s lungs.

“Save it for the game,” Nate urges after the whistle blows.

We line up for another face-off. Hunter’s eyes are blazing at me. He didn’t like that check. Well, I didn’t like his elbow in my ribs, but what can you do.

This time I win the faceoff. Jesse and I flip the puck back and forth as we plan our attack. Lazy and predatory. Hunter’s line doesn’t like being toyed with, and just as they go on the attack, Jesse snaps the puck to me and I take my shot. Corsen stops it with his stick, then passes to Hunter.

I chase after him, and we wind up behind my net. Elbows are thrown. One hits me in the center of the throat. For a second I actually can’t breathe. I gasp for air, but my windpipe isn’t working. I feel like I’m choking.

Hunter doesn’t care. He gives me a shove as he skates away, and I manage to catch my balance before I fall. That throat move? No way.

I skate after him, the game all but forgotten. “What the hell was that?”

A hush falls over the rink. I hear the hiss of Nate’s skate blades as he comes to a stop a few feet away from us.

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