Page 9 of College Hockey Bully

“One thing to note, though,” she goes on. “You must complete your assigned daily tasks, or you’ll lose those hours.”

She sees the alarm on my face and shrugs. “You can thank your wayward predecessors for that rule, I guess. Are y’all decent in there?” she calls after inching the door open.

“Come right in and find out, won’t you?” someone replies. A round of gruff laughter follows.

Melissa shakes her head and goes inside. Taking in a deep breath, I follow her, stepping into the Wolves’ locker room. Or lions’ den.

The laughter stops abruptly. About a dozen pairs of eyes look right at me. Twelve surprised expressions that quickly transform into deep scowls. Twelve reasons to hightail it out of here. Trying not to fidget, I lift my chin and look around, staring each of them dead in the face. I’m not going to let them intimidate me. I did nothing wrong to them—

“What the fuck is she doing in here, Mel?”

Oh, God.

Make that thirteen.

Aiden comes striding into the room, fresh from a shower, a towel wrapped around his lower half and another drying his dark hair. He lowers it now, glaring at me, then tossing his scowl back to Melissa.

“This is Scarlett and—”

“We know who she is.” Aiden closes the space between us, his frown deepening. “What. Is. She.Doing in here?”

A flicker of disturbance crosses Melissa’s face while I try to remain grounded. “Scarlett’s our new intern,” Melissa explains cautiously, triggering a loud uproar.

“Like hell she is,” Aiden thunders, his deep voice booming over the noise. My feet start moving, backing toward the door. Melissa reaches out and grabs my hand.

“Okay, guys, pipe down!” she yells.

“Pipe down?” Aiden asks. “How about you get her out of here?”

“What is your problem?” Melissa asks, which surprises me. I thought the entire sports department knew about the Wolves’ issue with me.

“You haven’t been here long enough to know about the stunt she pulled. This bitch is a fucking traitor,” a brown-haired guy replies, pulling up beside Aiden. He’s a few inches shorter than the captain and not as muscular, but Aiden’s expression resembles a puppy dog’s compared to him. A chill runs up my spine, similar to the sensation I experienced with Tabitha yesterday. Shuddering inside, I avert my eyes to Aiden’s firm-looking torso, then quickly shift them to the tiled floor.

“Maybe you can enlighten me some other time, but unless you plan on grabbing your own towels and shit, she’s staying,” Melissa snaps. She’s almost six feet tall with a strapping body. The uproar dies down, dwindling to subtle murmuring.

One month and a half to go.

Aiden backs off, staring me up and down, the glare in his eyes a sign that it might be a month and a half of living hell.

Chapter 4

Aiden

“Sit down, Aiden, you’re making me nervous,” my best friend Cameron says as I pace in his game room.

I stop, throwing a glare at him lounging on the futon couch. “How can you be so calm at a time like this?”

“Because he’s a bleeding heart,” Noah grinds out from his place by the pool table. “He pities that bitch. I bet he wants to fuck her.” He grins. “You have a thing for charity cases, don’t you, Cammy boy?”

Michael, Odean and Simon, our other teammates, burst into a raucous laughter.

“Fuck you, Noah,” Cameron snaps, red-faced. Noah blows a kiss at him. Cameron rolls his eyes, then directs his attention to me.

“You’re overreacting,” he says, getting up from the couch. “I told you that in March and I’m telling you now.”

“Or maybe you’re just still naïve; have you ever thought of that? I find it odd that she picked our department for her internship. She’s not even into sports,” I reply.

“How do you know that?” Cameron asks, raising a brow.

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