Page 17 of Wicked Ends
“Circle up, now!” Another short blow of the whistle punctuated his command.
I drifted in his direction, skating easily despite my heavy gear and helmet. No one wore as much as the goalie. It was a privileged position, but the loneliest one out there. Ausefulposition.
Coach Williams launched into his plan for the upcoming game in Portland. He was a great fucking coach. There had been a few times in high school when shit had been happening with my family and I’d considered leaving the team, running the hell away from Hade Harbor and everyone in it, but Coach Williams had had my back. Honestly, I was jealous of Cade, my buddy and the coach’s daughter’s boyfriend. Not that I wanted Lily— no, Bug wasn’t my type, too breakable—but because of his relationship with Coach.
Coach called for the start of drills, and we broke. I took off across the ice toward the middle, where my friends were lining up. With me being the goalie, my drills were sometimes a littledifferent than those of my best friends, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to shoot the shit with them. My friends, for as long as I could recall, had been the highlight of my day.
Between us, we made up the Ice Gods. Gifted at hockey, killer instincts to boot, we worked together like a well-oiled machine and were Hade Harbor’s best chance of winning a trophy.
A couple of figures descended the rows of spectator seats and sank down. I recognized the white-blonde hair of Asher’s new girlfriend. Well, girlfriend, or enemy, which one remained to be seen, but his attention was immediately drawn toward her.
“Keep focused, Ash. Don’t forget, you’re the new guy again,” I teased him.
He shot me a look and pushed off when the puck came toward him, easily guiding it on the ice, taking it exactly where he needed it to go.
It must be nice to have a pretty distraction, I mused as I warmed up. The memory of Friday night and the woman I’d taken back to my room at The Clutch returned to me. Arianna. Ari.Birthday girl.I didn’t, as a rule, take anyone back there. She’d been an exception, but then everything about that night had felt different.
Including the fact that despite my plan to fuck her again in the morning, she’d been gone when I’d opened my eyes.
I left the rink and headed for my motorcycle after practice. The air was cool at night. Regardless, my body felt hot and restless, like it had ever since I’d woken up in the back room of The Clutch on Saturday morning—alone.
I’d planned to roll over and press back inside Arianna first thing. She’d still be wet inside, full of me, slick and warm. I’d fuck her a few times, then drive her home.
But she’d messed up those pleasant plans by tiptoeing out the door at some point. It had pissed me off, and I was even more pissed off when I’d asked around about her and come up blank. No one knew her.
As a rule, I didn’t do relationships, or even repeat performances. There was no point in letting some poor girl think I was interested in her beyond a single night of fun. But Ari had done something no one else had ever managed.
She’d lost interest first… and it was infuriating, honestly.
It really got on my nerves.
My phone vibrated with an incoming call, and I knew it was Cole. He wasn’t going to drop this parole meeting idea. He would make me talk to him at some point, and really, who was I to deny him anything? I owed him everything, and I always would.
Fuck, I needed a distraction. I needed a game to play, to take away my worries and strife.
First, I’d find the girl from the bar. That was a game in itself. Then, we’d play together, or I’d play with her… Either way, a new game could begin. It was the distraction I needed.
The weekend that my mother had walked out on us for good, Frank ad taken us hunting. He preferred to be called Frankover Dad. It was the name he was known and respected by as the president of the Harbor Hounds Motorcycle Club.
He’d always cared more about those guys than his actual family, so it made sense.
He was out all night and came home smelling like motor oil and cheap liquor. He dragged me and Cole out of our beds before dawn and into his truck, driving us deep into the countryside.
He’d been drunk by the time we’d gotten to the campsite. Cole had been nearly silent the entire time, brooding, furious, wanting to be anywhere but here.
I’d still been young enough to care what Frank thought of me. Looking back, I had no idea why. I guess I’d wanted one parent to give a shit about me; it didn’t matter which one.
That was the hunting trip where my sweaty grip had cost me my aim, and my father had taken the gun from me and pronounced me useless.
Then he’d had me go and stand over by the cans we’d been shooting.
“Dad,” Cole had said sharply. “That’s enough.”
“We’re just playing a game. Don’t get worked up about it,” Frank had called to his elder son, while instructing me to put an empty beer can on my head.
“Hold still, Marcus, if you don’t want to get any more holes in that Swiss-cheese brain of yours.”
I’d been so scared, I could have wet my pants if I hadn’t been sure my father never would have let me live it down.
