Page 48 of Punchline
Or, well, about twenty seconds of the game. And the five minutes I’d spent in the box. And how much I’d wanted to die when I’d confirmed that Jake was still in the stands. And the horror when I’d looked up later and realized he was gone.
Oh, fuck. Had he bailed? Had he watched me fight and decided I was a lost cause as both a student and a boyfriend?
No, Ethan. No, that wasn’t what happened. He’d gone to the locker room with Carson toward the end of the third period, just like we’d all planned. I’d remembered that when I’d walked in there myself seconds before Carson was proposing to Marek.Just like we’d all planned.
Maybe that asshole had punched me harder than I thought and I needed to go on concussion protocol after all.Except, no, I didn’t have any concussion symptoms. My neck hurt and my cheek hurt, but my head was fine. I hadn’t even hit it on the ice when we’d gone down.
Which was good, since I hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
Because he’d knocked it off my stupid head.
And then I’d tripped over it.
Did my boyfriend-slash-fighting-coachhaveto be here for that? Did he really? Could he have maybe come to literallyanyother game in the season besides tonight?
But he wouldn’t have missed tonight because he was helping Carson propose to Marek, and I’d just been the dumbass who’d picked tonight to drop gloves with someone twice my damn size.
Fuck my liiife.
And there was no going home and wallowing either. Carson and Marek were in an understandably festive mood, and they wanted us to join them to celebrate their engagement.
What was I going to do? Say no?
“We’ll meet you guys there.” Carson was beaming as he held his fiancé’s hand on the way out of the locker room. “Whoever gets there first, grab a table for four?”
“Whoever gets there first.” Marek scoffed, his eyes dancing with mischief even while he still had that dopey in-love expression. “You say that like your lead foot won’t get us there ten minutes before?—”
“That’s enough out of you.” Carson let go of Marek’s hand, wrapped his arm around his waist, and kissed his cheek. “Brat.”
They exchanged a few words in Czech, and I was glad I couldn’t understand them.
“God, you two are so gross,” Jake said, wrinkling his nose. “Get a room!”
They both flipped him off, and the four of us laughed as we continued toward the parking lot. The lovebirds left in Carson’s car, and Jake and I got into mine.
“They’re just going to leave Marek’s car?” Jake gestured at it, still parked beside Mags’s truck.
I shrugged as I started the engine. “Eh, they might come back for it later. Or one of us will give Marek a lift to practice.” I chuckled quietly and added, “God knows he’s driven half the team in when they’re hungover or still drunk.”
“Hungover? Still drunk? Atpractice?”
Grimacing, I nodded. “I don’t know how they do it. I did it one time—neveragain.”
Jake shuddered. “With as loud as it is when the pucks hit the walls—fuck, my head hurts just thinking about it.”
“Yeah, it’s not fun.”
Silence fell, and I chewed my lip as I drove. I could feel Jake watching me, but I didn’t dare so much as glance at him to confirm it. For all I knew, he was staring out the window and not paying attention to me at all, but was I rational tonight? No. No, I wasn’t. And now I was alone in the car with the man who was probably disappointed in me as a fighting student and trying to come up with a tactful way to tell me he was no longer attracted to me after?—
“How’s your face?”
Without thinking, I flicked my eyes toward him. Yep, he was watching me. Adjusting my grip on the wheel as I stared at the road ahead, I murmured, “It’s okay. Probably looks worse than it is.”
“Didn’t look too bad. You’ll probably have a bruise in the morning, but it’s not swollen or anything.”
I couldn’t read anything into his tone. If he was disappointed that I’d had my ass kicked by someone who hadn’teven hit me that hard? If he was trying to segue into what a pathetic loser I was? No idea.
“I’ll ice it later,” I muttered. “It’ll be fine.”
