Page 13 of Troublemaker
She laughed. It was a nervous laugh, and had it been in relation to any other man, I would’ve felt sympathy for her. As it was, all I felt was rage and hurt. Coach was going on a date withher? Shewas going on a date with Coach? I’d never known him to go on dates, even though deep down I knew he must be having sex withsomeone. But to be confronted with it, and for it to be my professor…what was he playing at?
“No,” I forced myself to say. Because why did I care? I wasn’t supposed to care. Not anymore. “No, he’s not dating anyone as far I know. We don’t really talk about that stuff, though.”
Relief spread across her face in a sweet smile. “Alright, thank you. Of course, since he’s your guardian and I’m your professor, I know that this is…a little awkward. You’re okay with it, aren’t you?”
No.
Absolutely the fuck not.
Stay away from him, bitch.
But I couldn’t say any of that, so instead I smiled back at her.
“I have no reason not to be. Have fun on your date!” I glanced down at my phone. “Oh damn, I have to go to a study session at the library, but thank you so much again for the information about the program, professor. I’m really grateful.”
“Of course, Lucy.” She squeezed my shoulder. “You’re a good kid and deserve the best of everything. And who knows, maybe we’ll be celebrating together one day!”
Because she saw herself as “part of the family.”
I kept the fake smile on my face as I walked away, only dropping it when there was no one in sight.
It was time to get over Coach Blake Samson.
And I was going to have to do it by getting under someone else.
6
BLAKE
I’d lost my fucking mind.
I needed to call a psychiatrist. Or head straight to the police station and turn myself in.
Because I was currently in Lucy’s dorm room. It was prime class time, and no one was in the building, giving me enough cover for what I’d come here to do.
And what I’d come to do was install cameras and mics everywhere.
I was keeping an eye on her. I was worried about what she’d do next. I was trying to protect her, since she refused to protect herself.
That’s what I was telling myself, anyway. Too bad it was all goddamn lies.
The truth was watching her flirt with my players, flipping her hair, pressing her breasts into their chests and joking with them was driving me up the fucking wall. What was worse was seeing the way their eyes followed hereverywhere. Someone might as well have been ripping my nails off my fingers, one by one,and no amount of making them do bag skates felt like proper punishment.
Watching her flirt with Emory and suggestprivate lessonswhen everyone in the vicinity knew she didn’t mean skating …dread had filled my stomach. I didn’t know if Lucy was a virgin, but I did know that if she ever let that punk’s dick near her, I’d kill him.
Thus, I found myself in her dorm room, hiding cameras and mics where she wouldn’t see them. I’d gotten them from a man named Micah Feldman, who was the older brother of Jack, the captain of our rival hockey team. Micah had smirked when I’d refused to tell him why I needed the cameras.
“There’s always that one woman that makes us lose all sense of control, isn’t there?” He’d laughed and then shown me how to install a GPS tracker on her phone, which I’d done when she’d left her purse alone at practice one day.
I had a problem. I’d always kept a tight tether on my worst impulses. There was a darkness in me, a violence that I’d been hiding since I was an orphaned foster kid lost in the system and fighting to protect my foster siblings, only for no one to protect me. And then the fighting stopped being about protecting others and became a way to express my anger at a world that refused to protect me. That was until Lucy’s father showed up in my life as my Big Brother in that after-school program and introduced me to hockey and a better future.
Since then, keeping myself leashed hadn’t been an issue…until months ago, when a curvy little dynamo sashayed her way back into my life and sent my control haywire. That leash was fraying, and I was pretty sure it was going to snap soon if I didn’t do anything about it.
Maybe I should’ve just let Lucy get expelled. Then she’d be far, far away. Except everything in me rejected the idea of letting her out of my sight.
Just as I placed the last camera in the tiny sliver of an opening between her mirror and the frame that faced her bed, I heard a sultry laugh. It echoed in my ears, a siren’s song…and a warning.
Fuck.
