Page 49 of Top Shelf

I’m interrupted by the sound of Hayden’s idiotic laugh again.

“Congratulations, Sadie Baby,” he says between chuckles. “You went from a house in the hills to a teacher that plays hockey? Really?That’sthe fake boyfriend you chose?” He smiles. God, I hate him. I want to scream at him. It’s one thing for him to talk to me that way. It’s another to talk to the only person who has ever protected me in any way that a person can be protected.

“Oh, what? Gotta stand up for the boyfriend now, Sadie Baby?” he asks again. He lifts his hand slowly, and I see Tyson’s hand ball into a fist.

“If you lift that hand another inch, I will drop you,” he warns. For a minute, there’s complete silence as the two of them stare at each other. Hayden’s eyes jump, and I watch as he mentally weighs his next move. But the thing about narcissists is that they live in a fantasy world. They don’t think there is such a thing as their own demise. But boy, are they wrong.

He lifts his hand around Tyson again, and before I can even blink, Tyson swings.

He hits Hayden so hard that he spins 180 degrees before falling to the floor. I gasp, and Tyson stares down at him, waiting for him to move. Hayden pushes himself up, just as MaryAnn appears at the end of the hall.

“What is going on here?” she cries out, rushing to Hayden’s side. Levi and Lo appear from the locker room door and run to us.

“Lo,” Levi says, “go make sure the door at the end of the hall is still shut, please,” he says. She rushes past us as he gets to us. Levi and MaryAnn pull Hayden to his feet as he rubs at his already bruising face. He raises his eyebrows.

“You’re going to regret that, Calway,” he says. Then he turns to Levi. “Well, sorry about this, Levi, but it appears I won’t be playing in the last period today.” He picks his stick up off the floor as MaryAnn ushers him through the hall, glaring at us as she goes. Levi watches after them for a minute, then drops his head.

“I think you better sit the rest of this one out,” he says to Ty, then turns slowly and walks back down the hall. Lo looks at us with sadness in her eyes before she turns to walk with him. I wait in the hallway for Tyson to grab his things from the locker room, then follow him out without a word.

We get in his truck and drive home in complete silence, and I can’t stand the thick anxiousness that hangs in the air. I can’t believe I brought this all on him. And now on Levi and the league. I can’t believe I—

“Stop, Sade,” he says without taking his eyes off the road. He reaches a hand over and takes my hand off my necklace, resting it on top of mine in my lap. “Everything is okay.”

God, the way he reads me like a book.

“But I—”

“You didnothing,”he says. “Do you hear me?”

He looks from the road, back to me, back to the road.

“I never should have kissed you that night in that bar,” I say. “I’m so sorry, Tyson. I’m sorry I—”

“Please don’t ever say that again,” he says, his voice almost a whisper. “Hedid this toyou.Hehurtyou.And tonight,Ichose to put my hands onhim.You didn’t force either of us to do any of those things. None of this was your fault or your doing.”

I nod as I lace my fingers between his. When I look down at his hand, I notice that his knuckles are slightly bruised. I lift his hand to my lips gently, kissing them.

“I just…I have a bad feeling about this, Ty,” I say, a lump forming in my throat. He pulls my hand to his lips.

“We got this, baby,” he says. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”

As badly as I want to believe him, I don’t.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

tyson

We liein bed that night, her sound asleep on my chest, Odie asleep at my feet. But I’m wide awake, staring blankly at the ceiling.

I keep replaying the last few hours in my head, going through every little detail.

I think about the way Hayden waited for her. He followed her, presumably, to the bathroom, waiting to get her alone. I think about the way he stepped closer to her, making himself bigger so that she’d feel small and alone. The way he spoke to her, the way he tried with all his might to make her feel so insignificant.

And then after I showed up, the way he tried to touch her. Like he still has some sort of claim on her. Not once, buttwice.

I feel bad about Levi. I understand that it might not have been the place or the time. But my brain keeps running through all the different possibilities that could have gone down.

If I hadn’t gone looking for her, how bad it could have been.

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