Page 167 of Make Me Mean It

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

THEO

Ishoot, and the puck sails wide, cracking hard off the backboard with a sharp echo that rattles through the empty rink and settles somewhere behind my teeth.

“Fuck.”

I exhale through my nose and roll my shoulders, trying to shake some of the tension loose before lining another puck up with the blade of my stick. It doesn’t fucking work. Nothing does. I’ve been out here long enough that sweat is cooling beneath my gear and my legs are starting to feel heavy, but whatever’s been crawling beneath my skin for the last few days is still there.

Usually I can skate until my head shuts the fuck up.

Apparently Connor’s found a way around that too.

I push the thought away before it can settle, shifting my grip on the stick and staring down the net. My arms ache. My thighs burn. There’s a dull pull across my shoulders every time I move, the kind of exhaustion I’d normally chase because it means I’ve finally pushed hard enough to stop thinking.

Except I can still fucking see him.

Standing outside the house, looking at me like I was ripping something out of him when I left.

Baby, stop.

I grit my teeth and draw the stick back.

The rink door slams open before I can shoot.

The sound cuts straight through the quiet, followed by heavy footsteps hitting the ice, and I don’t need to turn around to know who it is. I close my eyes instead, dragging in a breath that doesn’t go nearly deep enough before letting it out slowly.

“I’m really not in the fucking mood, Marcus,” I say, tightening my grip until my knuckles ache as I line up the shot anyway.

“What the fuck did you do to him, Knox?”

Everything in me goes still.

My teeth grind together, but I keep my back to him, staring at the net because I already know exactly who him is and I really don’t fucking need Marcus saying his name right now.

“I said,” I repeat, slower this time, forcing each word out evenly as I pull my stick back and shoot, “I’m not in the fucking mood.”

The puck snaps off the blade and buries itself in the net.

It's not enough.

Not for this. Not with Connor still sitting raw beneath my ribs and every thought of him scraping against something I’ve spent the last few days trying not to fucking touch.

“I didn’t fucking ask.”

Marcus’s hand clamps down on my shoulder and yanks me around before I can move.

I slap it off, anger flaring hot enough to cut through some of the exhaustion. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

I step around him, already done with whatever the fuck this is supposed to be, but Marcus follows.

“Do you have any idea how fucked up he is?”

My steps falter.

Barely fucking anything, but Marcus knows me too well not to catch it.

I keep moving, tightening my grip on my stick as guilt sinks its claws into the same place it’s been digging at since I rode away from Connor.