Page 62 of The Players We Hate
Practice had been brutal since our fourth loss of the season, and today was no different. Drills were faster. Hits harder. Every missed pass felt like taking a check into the boards. It wasn’t just pressure from the coaches either. The whole team had started looking over their shoulders, like we all sensed something shifting beneath us.
I coasted to a stop near the bench, gulping air as Rowdy tapped his stick against the boards behind me.
“You’re tight today,” he muttered. “Pissed or focused?”
“Both,” I said, tugging off my glove just enough to swipe sweat from my forehead.
He nodded toward the far end of the rink. “She’s back.”
I didn’tneed to ask who. My eyes scanned the ice and found Wren right away.
She stood just past the plexiglass near the tunnel, clipboard tucked under one arm, a travel mug in the other. She wasn’t talking—just watching.
Even from across the rink, she looked out of place. Her brown hair neat, slacks pressed, boots that probably cost more than my gear. But today she looked off. Too still, like if she moved the wrong way, she might come apart.
I caught the cracks anyway—the way she shifted her weight like she couldn’t settle, the pen on her clipboard bending under her grip.
“Man, what is she doing here?” Owen asked, skating up beside me during the water break.
“It’s the third time this week,” Rowdy muttered, shaking his head.
I grabbed my bottle and took a long drink before answering.
“I think she’s interning with the athletic department,” I said, though the words sounded weak even to me.
“That’s what they’re calling it?” He scoffed. “First, she’s hanging around practices, then Gavin goes down, and Kade’s truck gets trashed. You don’t think that’s suspicious?”
I didn’t answer. Mostly because I’d been thinking the same thing. The timing lined up too well. Everyone had started looking sideways at Gavin—missed plays that didn’t make sense, injuries that didn’t add up. Kade had picked up on it early and started digging, trying to piece together the inconsistencies.
Coach had already come down on Kade once, accusing him of betting, which only made him more restless, more convinced something wasn’t right. While he was out at the cabin with Willow—his stepsister he’d been around a lot lately—he came back to find his truck window smashed. A puck shot through it, Gavin’s number written across the tape. The message was clear as day: back off.
Owen leaned closer, dropping his voice. “Word’s spreading. About her brother.”
My jaw tightened. “What about him?”
“He lost his scholarship. Quiet transfer. Some DII school clear across the state. Nobody’s saying it outright, but it’s not hard to figure out why after what happened with Tatum.”
My throat tightened. It wasn’t out in the open yet, but I wasn’t shocked that the whispering had started. Nothing about the Perrys stayed quiet for long—not when people were always waiting for their perfect image to crack. Reed had done his thing behind the scenes, digging just enough to put Wells under without leaving a trail back to him or Tatum. It hadn’t happened all at once, but piece by piece, it added up until Wells was done.
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
Owen’s eyes followed Wren for a moment. “Just feels off. Her brother flames out in a scandal, she disappears for months, and now she’s suddenly in our space, hovering like she’s got a badge. You know how this looks, right? Guys are starting to talk.”
I didn’t have to ask who. I’d already overheard them in the locker room.
The governor’s daughter has got front-row seats now, huh? Wonder who she had to sweet-talk for those.
She’s here to make a name for herself, not to help us. If someone sneezes wrong, she’s gonna call it a violation.
She’s probably keeping a list already. First Kade’s truck, now Gavin’s out? She’s digging. I say we don’t make it easy for her.
That last one came from a freshman who hadn’t even earned a starting spot but still felt bold enough to talk shit. No one corrected him. Not even me.
And I hated it. Not because I believed Wren needed defending, since she wouldn’t have wanted it anyway, but because the version they carried around in their heads wasn’t who she really was—Or at least not the person I’d come to know.
I’d seen more than they ever had.
I remembered when she told me about Tatum and her brother, how she hadn’t known anything about it the first time we met. She’d said that night wasn’t about family drama, it was about how I made her feel—like someone actually saw her.
