“Oh, fuck off,” Monroe bit out through clenched teeth. “You want to talk about famous shit? How about the TMZ special on your sex life? Huh? Fucking your teammate’s wife? Classy, Alec. Real nice too. Good job breaking up their marriage.”
“What?” I asked. I didn’t trust my legs to hold my weight anymore. I slid onto the coffee table as Monroe’s words hit home. No.
It couldn’t be.
Alec wouldn’t have done that.
He wouldn’t have cheated on someone.
Please, don’t let it be true.
“You cheated with your teammate’s wife?” I asked, not wanting the truth but knowing I needed to hear it. If he was capable of that, we were done. Over.
After what my dad had done, I would never trust a cheater.
“I’m not doing this.” Alec shook his head and pursed his lips, clenching his jaw so tight, I waited for the crack of his molars to echo through the room. “We’re done. Over.”
My heart broke.
Shattered into a million pieces.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak.
I needed to get out of there.
Shoving blindly past them, I raced to the door and pushed through it, dashing to the lift. I slammed my thumb against the button and pushed it over and over again. I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t face either one of them.
The doors slid open, and I pressed the button for the ground floor.
I stumbled out of the lift once it landed. I needed to get away from it all.
I hated the fighting. I couldn’t stand the tension. Their heated words were like knives, slicing me open. All of it—the accusations, the animosity, the hurt—was far too close to what my parents were doing.
Except this was one thousand times worse.
I’d gone and fallen for them.
twenty
Hux
The practice was a fucking nightmare. Not one thing went right. I was too in my head, too preoccupied with Roe and Cara that I fumbled every pass.
I’d fucked up on every front. First with Cara and Roe—I hadn’t been fair to them. Saying those things to Roe just to start a fight was agonizing. I’d hated every minute of it. Ignoring Cara was just as bad. But it was necessary. I’d needed to pretend she wasn’t even in the room. If I’d dared look at her for longer than a second, I would have broken. I would have thrown in the towel on my fucked-up act and begged for their forgiveness. But that was the whole problem. I literally had days left here. Once I was on that plane, leaving to go across the other side of the world, we were over. We could never work out. I needed to hate them. I needed to cleave them out of my chest so I could survive. They’d slipped in while I wasn’t looking, caught me off guard, and leaving them was going to destroy me.
But as if that wasn't all bad enough, then I managed to fuck up at practice. Even the most basic of drills were a disaster. I didn’tsink a single shot on the net, and it wasn’t even being defended. Thank fucking god it wasn’t a game.
I was my own worst enemy.
Our second and third lines were doing better than the first string, and Coach was pissed.
I was sitting in the locker room, stripped down to my underlayer. Coach’s face was red as he railed me for every one of my fuckups. It came with a warning not to repeat this shit during the game because although they didn’t count for anything points-wise, we were professional athletes. We had pride. We were supposed to be the best. Yet, I’d singlehandedly caused our entire forward line to collapse.
The locker room cleared out. No one else waited around to see if Coach would ream them a new one too. Most of the team headed to the gym to warm down.
When it was just the two of us left in the room, Gauthier sat down heavily beside me.
I steadfastly ignored him. My whole concentration was aimed at stripping off the rest of my padding.
