Page 50 of Puck Happens

Unreasonably, it hurt worse than the puck to the ass.

It made sense though. He had to keep his distance. Hadn’t I been the one to tell him that he couldn’t keep charging to my rescue because of how it would look? I just hated that he’d actually listened to me so well.

Emotions and logic battled inside my head for a bit. On the one hand, I was butt hurt. Literally and figuratively. On the other, if the guys suspected we had feelings for each other, it most likely would cost me my job here, as well as future job prospects.

The worst it would do to Dillon was…nothing.

Absolutely nothing. He was a big time hockey star, after all.

In the immortal words of Taylor Swift: Fuck the patriarchy.

I’d been getting up off the ice on my own since I was five years old. I shrugged off Cody’s offer and climbed back onto my blades.

“You sure you’re okay, Coach?” Cody asked me.

“Fine,” I said, and resisted the urge to put my hand on my ass to feel for a welt.

Coach McKay blew his whistle. “Let’s take ten and come back and work some battle drills. Coach Branch, we won’t need you on the ice when we get back.”

Thank God, I thought.

I made my way toward the edge of the rink, my ass seriously throbbing, when I felt a giant looming behind me. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know it was Dillon.

“You sure you’re good?” he muttered it under his breath as he skated by me.

“You sure you care?” I snapped back, then immediately regretted it.

In the grand sum of things, we’d only spent a few days total together. That’s it. Which meant none of this should matter so much.

I didn’t matter to him and he didn’t matter to me. That’s how it had to be.

Also, I was reminded of the most important lesson I’d already learned once.

When I fell, it was a solo effort.

10

Liv

“Honey, can I just say again you don’t need to do this?”

I was driving back to my shitty apartment, in my shitty car after a shitty day, and for some reason had thought it would be a great idea to call my parents. My mom of course heard the defeat in my voice and pounced.

At the red light I rested my head on my steering wheel.

“Mom-”

“No, hear me out,” Mom cut me off, which only proved how frustrated and worried she was. “You come home, you live with me and Dad, you can go to college. We’re only talking four years. Or maybe less if you double up your course work. School and grades were never a problem for you.”

She was right. They weren’t. I wasn’t afraid of going back to college because I couldn’t handle the course work or because I would be older than all my peers. I didn’t want to go back to college, because I had no idea what I wanted to do that wasn’tthis.Exactly what I was doing.

Also, having to live with my parents again? Hard pass.

I loved my parents, and I had a lot of friends who still lived with theirs because Seattle was so expensive. But being able to live independently again after my accident had been a major milestone in my overall recovery. Moving back now, would feel like taking a step back.

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it.

“I agree,” my dad said, obviously they were on speaker phone. “You belong home with us. Do you think they intentionally hit you with that puck?”

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