Page 23 of The Players We Hate
Owen raised an eyebrow. “Lift’s not for another two hours.”
“I know.”
“You really prefer sitting alone in a freezing arena over five more minutes with us?”
I shrugged. “It’squieter.”
“Dude,” Rowdy called out, half laughing, “you’ve got more issues thanVogue.”
I didn’t bother to reply. Instead, I grabbed my keys and headed for the door because the rink was the only place left where I could breathe.
And even that was starting to feel like a stretch.
***
The clang of weights rang out in the quiet gym, each one a warning I couldn’t ignore. I dropped the dumbbells onto the mat with a grunt, chest heaving, arms trembling from the last set. Sweat soaked my shirt and slid down my spine, but the ache wasn’t enough. Not where I felt her.
No matter how many reps I burned through or how heavy I loaded the bar, nothing seemed to work.
She was still there.
And now? She wouldn’t even look at me in passing.
That should’ve pissed me off. Instead, it gnawed at me because this wasn’t only about her anymore. Not after what I saw earlier this week.
Coach lingered outside the weight room, shaking hands with a guy in a tailored navy coat, smiling like a damn politician. I didn’t recognize him at first, not until I caught sight of the lapel pin.
The governor.
Her father.
The man who held enough power to rewrite rules and bury reputations. And Coach? He was nodding like a man who knew exactly where his paycheck came from.
It made my stomach turn.
If he had that kind of pull here, if he’d already greased the wheels for his son once, what was to stop him from doing it again? What was to stop him from pulling strings the second things got messy between me and his daughter?
I racked the bar with a clang, arms burning, lungs dragging for air. But it didn’t touch the knot in my gut. The more I tried to shake it, the more it rooted itself.
If her father had that much power and decided to come after me, I needed to be ready. I needed something I could use—proof, leverage, or a way to hold my ground if the floor started crumbling beneath me.
That was all it was, I told myself.
Just playing defense.
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t the whole truth because some twisted part of me wanted to see her again. The real her. The one who disappeared the moment she slipped out my door. The one who let me touch her without regret.
I grabbed my towel off the bench and wiped down the weights, then headed toward the locker room. My arms ached, the soreness setting in now that my adrenaline had burned off. I peeled off my damp shirt and threw it into my gym bag, standing beneath the flickering overhead light with the zipper half open and my mind still spinning.
She shouldn’t matter this much.
I changed quickly into a gray hoodie, dark jeans, and beat-up sneakers, then tossed my gym bag into the storage cage near the back exit. My teammates were still upstairsin the lounge, probably halfway through aMario Karttournament and a box of lukewarm pizza.
Rowdy’s laughter echoed down the stairwell just as the door shut behind me.
“Talon! You playing next round or what?”
I hesitated at the bottom step, my fingers tightening around the railing.
