Page 27 of Ruthless Game

Everything, my brain supplied.

I ignored it, gritting my teeth, lowering and lifting, appreciating the burn in my lats, traps, and deltoids. I didn’t manage to entirely shut down my brain, but at least I had redirected the blood elsewhere. Stupid. My dad had always called me stupid, and it took me years to realize I wasn’t. Right now, it would be really nice to be an idiot, because I wouldn’t be beating myself up over what had happened at the pool.

You’re so smart. Don’t you realize that? Your dad’s jealous. Max, I wish you could see what I see in you.

Emma had said that to me so many times. I’d wanted to believe her, and even though I’d tried to banish her voice over the years, I’d never succeeded.

Instead, I’d pushed her so hard she’d fallen in the pool.

Asher wasn’t about to leave me to my self-flagellation. Instead, he grabbed the barbell, stopping me.

“Bro,” I warned.

“Bro,” he mimicked. “I saw her, by the way. Pretty. Great curves. Blonde curls you could pull on while you’re fucking her from be⁠—”

I was on him before I realized it, backing him against the mirror and shoving the barbell against his throat. The weight hit the glass, shattering it. A spiderweb of cracks spread, same as the ice on the pond the day I’d drowned. Shards of mirror began to rain down around us, but Asher didn’t even blink.

“Yeah, she’s not just ‘that girl ’ is she? Not if she has you this wound up. Not if she fucked up your game this badly. Not if easy-going Dave Lawson has become this volatile. She’s back now, and you’re no better off than you were when you left to get her. So tell me, Lawson. What are you going to do to get that head on straight? That was the point, wasn’t it? Get your head back in the game so you don’t fuck up the team and your future? So what are you going to do?”

I backed up, the weight suddenly heavy enough to drag me down to the depths of the darkness within me. I didn’t want to be the guy that Isaac and Jack had been, ever, but here I was, coercing Emma back into my arms.

Before I could drop the barbell on my feet, Asher reached out and grabbed it, steadying me. There was a look in his eyes, an understanding I had never expected, didn’t deserve, and frankly didn’t want.

“I get it, man,” he said quietly as he took the weight from me and slowly lowered it to the floor. He straightened, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I get being so fixated on something, on needing revenge so badly, you can’t think about anything else. Can’t eat, can barely sleep, you’re so obsessed with eradicating that shit burning feeling inside you. It’s okay. I mean,” he laughed, “it’s fucked, but it’s still okay. Human, or whatever. So, Lawson, tell me—how do I help?”

How do I help?

The only people who’d ever helped me were the Schwartz’s. And I’d never been able to ask. Had always felt like a drain on their resources, a burden. It was the thing Emma and I had in common—her because she was adopted, me because I was the kid they’d taken in so he could play hockey, a poor interloper in their happy family.

I couldn’t think about that right now. If I did, I wouldn’t do what I needed to do with Emma.

“Here’s what I need,” I choked, each word as painful as a shard of mirror stabbing my skin. “I can feel myself wavering, even now. Her parents are good people, and Emma … she’s a betraying bitch, but I still remember the girl I thought she was, and it keeps getting in my head and making me doubt what I have to do. I need you to remind me the purpose of this, to keep me on track, so when I feel like a dick and want to back off, I⁠—”

“Stay the course.” Asher nodded, a dark look in his eyes. “I’ve got you. I’m going to need the same from you at some point.” He held out his hand to me. “I can’t block a puck for you but I can help you block the ‘nice guy’ doubts. Cool?”

I shook his hand. “Cool.”

“Alright, let’s clean this shit up, before Coach or the team shows up and wants to know what the hell happened.”

He left the gym, probably to find a vacuum or broom, and as I turned to follow him, I glanced down at the shards of mirror around me. The man they reflected back at me was angry, shattered, unholy, and unwhole.

A man who looked like my father.

9

Emma

Unknown: Meet me at our spot, Angel

Istared at the text. It didn’t matter that I didn’t recognize the number. I knew who it was. No one else called me Angel. I’d blocked Lawson years ago, but of course he had a new number. I tried to ignore that little part of me that leapt at the knowledge that he still had my number.

It was only a few days after swim class, and I was still recovering from our confrontation, while adjusting to the new university and getting settled in my classes. My child psychology classes were the perfect combination of interesting and challenging, but public policy was so different in the States than it was the UK, and I was more than a little out of my depth. It didn’t help that I was the new girl as a senior, with only one friend so far, and temporarily living at home with my parents. Lawson hadn’t followed through on his threat to make me live with him, and I ignored the tiny, disappointed feeling in my chest that he’d changed his mind about me so quickly. I told myself I was relieved, that being with my family was enough, but I missed my social circle at Oxford. I felt homesick, even though I was technically home.

What did Lawson want, anyway?

I shivered, debating whether to respond to his text or delete it. I knew what spot he was referring to: there was a big rock halfway down the hiking trail to the gorges we used to sneak away to. Lawson wouldn’t go all the way down there, worried that one or both of us would slip and fall in. But I’d convinced him back then that it was really the only spot where we could have privacy. I hadn’t thought about that rock in years, but I could still picture it, the feel of the smooth, cool stone beneath my back as we introduced each other to what it felt like to kiss someone, to have someone’s lips on yours, and the closeness that came with it.

Nothing like the way he’d touched me on the plane, only to leave me wanting and desperate.