Page 48 of The Prince and the Puck
“Are you okay, son?”
Shit. The last time I’d seen Coach, he smiled at me. And now he was calling me son? I had finally found the place on the team I was looking for. He finally trusted me—was beginning to rely on me even.
And I was running away. Because I had to.
“Kind of. Not really,” I said, hesitating. “The thing is, Coach, I’m gonna have to go away for a little while.”
“Deck, it’s the middle of the season.” He didn’t have to say anything more. Any committed player knew that leaving in the middle of the season wasn’t an option.
“I know, and I’m so sorry. My dad… my—” My voice actually cracked as I tried to say the words, as I tried to tell Coach the only truth I thought he’d understand. “My dad is really sick. I don’t think he’s gonna make it. I haven’t seen him in five years, and I need to go home.”
Coach was silent, and I imagined he was working through all the things he might say. For a man who leaned toward gruff and unapproachable, he’d already shown me that he had a sympathetic and rational side. And that’s what he brought out now.
“I understand, son. You take the time you need. The Wombats will be—what the hell?” I didn’t know what washappening. One second, Coach sounded like he was going to be okay with me taking some time, and the next, he was screaming into the phone.
I heard a string of profanities laced with words I would never have put together myself, but which I filed away for creative cursing later. Every third word was Wombat, and I began to wonder if maybe Lizzy’s mascot had finally arrived.
“This thing is an ankle biter!” There was some shuffling and grunting on the other end of the line, then a door slammed. A moment later, Coach came back on. “We have a mascot now, Deck. Did you know that? They’re calling her Wilma. But she’s a freaking terrorist. The thing keeps getting loose, and it’s been trying to burrow into the carpet in my office. Whenever I try to stop it, it bites my ankles.”
So Wilma had arrived. I was bummed I wasn’t going to get to see her.
“That’s not good.” I was trying really hard not to laugh. I didn’t think laughing at his predicament would make Coach more sympathetic to my situation.
“It’s not.” Coach took a few deep breaths, and I waited. Then he said, “Look, Deck, I have to get going here. This place is a fucking zoo, and I’m not saying that figuratively. You take the time you need, and just get back here as soon as you can. But family first, son. Always.”
The line went dead.
So I hadn’t told him the truth. I hadn’t told him the whole truth, but I had told him as much as I could. Some part of me was certain I’d be back. Because I couldn’t fathom giving it all up when I had worked so hard for everything I had.
Still, I knew who I was. I knew what I’d been born into. And even though I had outrun those expectations for more than a decade, they had finally caught up with me. I shoved my phone back into my pocket just as the plane taxied for takeoff.
Lizzy didn’t get up and join me in the back of the plane, and I didn’t move to sit with her. I needed some time.
I needed time to understand my feelings about her. About her lie. About why she lied. About my own future. Nothing was what I had thought it was, and to say I was feeling disillusioned would be a massive understatement.
Once we were airborne, I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. Soon, we would be in Murdan.
And I would be the prince again.
And possibly the heir.
CHAPTER 28
LIZZY
WILMA IS A DUDE.
As we beganthe journey back to Murdan, I felt a shift between Declan and me. I was no longer just Lizzy, the PR girl, and he was no longer Deck, the hockey player. Suddenly, he was my sovereign prince once again, and I couldn’t disregard the many layers of society that stood between his place and mine. True, I had lived and worked in the palace my whole life, but that did not make me royalty.
Aside from the structure of society itself lodging between us like a wall, I felt a coolness from Declan that I hadn’t before, and I knew it was anger. He felt betrayed, confused, hurt—that I had been operating in his country’s best interest without his knowledge.
My own loyalties were confusing. I wanted him to trust me. I wanted more than that from him, if I was honest. But hadn’t I betrayed his trust through my very loyalty to our country? I didn’t see any way around the paradox. I could not be loyal to both my king and to Deck Gillespie, the hockey player. And so, whatever lay between Declan and me—whatever intimacy, whatever... relationship?—was at an end.
My heart felt heavy as I pulled my phone from my pocket. The best thing about private jets was that you could use yourphone throughout the flight, as long as you had signal or Wi-Fi. And I still did. I dialed.
“Hey, Lizzy,” Joey answered after the first ring.
“Hi, Joey. How is everything?”
