Chapter 32: Breakaway: Chapter 32

I DON’T PLAN on going to the game against Merrimack, but Dani, Allison, and Will invite me and Mia, and it sounds like a better Friday night than staying at the library late, so I pull my coach’s daughter privileges to get us seats in the front row, right behind one of the goals. On the way into the Markley Center, we bump into Sebastian and Izzy, who are going to the game with Izzy’s friend from the night of the Haverhill party, Victoria—apparently Victoria hooked up with the goalie, Aaron Rembeau, and they might be dating, but she’s not sure and wants to stake her claim—and two friends of Sebastian’s from the baseball team, Rafael and Hunter.

In a weird twist of fate that I’m almost—but not quite certain—Cooper has nothing to do with, we all have seats in the same row, so by the time the game begins, we’ve morphed from two groups into one large one, ready to party. Rafael and Hunter are twenty-one, so they bring back beers for us to share, and Mia smuggled in not one, but two flasks. As McKee skates out in royal purple, sticks raised to acknowledge the cheers and shouting, I take a big gulp of whiskey. It burns going down, but I’m holding my own… at least until I see the ‘C’ on Cooper’s sweater.

It’s a bad idea, a terrible one, but I jump to my feet all the same and pound on the glass, shouting his name. He sees me—all of us, really—and skates over.

Sebastian gets the question out before I do. “He made you captain?”

Cooper looks dazed, honestly. His hockey sweater is crisp, not a thread out of place. My father had to have just given it to him in the locker room. Cooper and I are friends now. If he knew about this already, he would have said something. He glances down at his sweater, like he’s just noticing the ‘C’ for the first time.

“Yeah,” he says. “Didn’t say much. Just said I earned it and handed it to me.”

“Congrats, man,” Sebastian says, thumping on the glass with his palm. Mia and the rest chorus their congratulations.

“This is amazing!” Izzy says. “Mom and Dad are going to flip!”

“Sounds like my dad,” I say. I’m busy drinking in the sight of him—with his pads on, he looks formidable as fuck, and I want to climb him like a tree and knock the helmet right off his head so I can pull his hair—but then the referee blows the whistle, ruining the moment.

“Enjoy the game,” he says, knocking at the glass with his glove. “Party with you all later, yeah? Don’t have too much fun without me. And Izzy, wait, I want to tell them myself.”

He skates off. I stand at the glass for a moment too long, my hand pressed flat against it. If my dad glances over, he’ll wonder what I’m doing, acting like a lovesick WAG. I need to sit down, to clear my mind and enjoy the game, but I’m stuck in place. I’m ecstatic for Cooper, I know how much this means to him—but when we first agreed to our arrangement, we said we’d keep it going until he made captain.

Now that’s happened, and if his game wasn’t back before, it definitely is now. He’ll be able to have any girl he wants—because who wouldn’t want to sleep with the captain of the hockey team? Combine his status with his reputation, which I know firsthand is worth every word, and he won’t have to worry about relaxing before games for the rest of the season or the next one, and certainly not when he graduates and scoops up the splashy rookie deal he wants so badly. Why would he want to keep up a thing with a girl who hasn’t even let him fuck her pussy yet when he could have that and more, all in one night, from any number of girls who will mob him the moment he walks out of the locker room post-game?

“I’m sorry for what I said the night of the party,” Sebastian says.

I shake my head slightly as I look over at him. “What?”

“I was too harsh to you. I know you care about him.”

I swallow. “Yeah, he’s a good guy. A good friend.”

Sebastian just nods. Pathetically, I want to ask him what Cooper has said about me. I want—need—the answer to be what I just said. She’s a good friend.

Even though I desperately want to keep going through The List with him and him alone, this is the out we both need. And since I can’t bear to hear it from him, I need to be the one to say it first.

MCKEE CRUSHES MERRIMACK 7-0. It’s such a high score for hockey that it’s hard to believe, but the whole team brought incredible pressure in the first period, and just never let up. To Victoria’s delight, Aaron Rembeau made several spectacular saves. I watch as she meets him outside the locker room, and if she had any worry about their status before, the way his eyes light up as he goes to kiss her hello puts that all to rest.

“Great, let’s hit up Red’s first,” Sebastian is saying to Mia. The two of them have taken it upon themselves to arrange the afterparty. I’m petrified of trying to use my fake ID at a bar my dad could stroll into at any moment, so I’ll be drinking a soda there, but it’ll be worth it to celebrate the win with the team.

Cooper walks out of the locker room with Evan, freshly showered and still looking a little stunned.

When he spots us lingering, he smiles. “How’d you all get back here?”

“Penny sweet-talked her way in,” Sebastian says. He claps Cooper on the back. “How’s the captain?”

“Exhausted,” he says. He played a clean game, no penalties, and showed off his skill set beautifully. I hope an NHL scout was in the stands, or will at least get the tape of this game, because it showed him at his best. Some hockey players, defensemen especially, rely on their physicality to keep the puck away from their guy’s net, but Cooper is a true skill player. When he goes pro, I’d be willing to bet he leads the league in points as a rookie. It’s one reason my father was so insistent that he clean up his act—a player like him needs to stay on the ice, not rack up time in the box, even if he’s ready at a moment’s notice to go fisticuffs.

“You clocked over half an hour of ice time,” Evan says dryly. “Coach couldn’t keep you off.”

“Keeping track now, huh?” Cooper says, play-punching Evan in the stomach. They wrestle for a moment, both laughing; even if Cooper is exhausted, he has more than enough energy for the night ahead. I ignore the flicker of desire that pokes its head up hopefully. It’s time to squash it.

“Hey, when you play, I play,” Evan says. “I was dragging by the end.”

“Great game,” one of the other players, a guy I don’t recognize, says as he passes. Another guy claps Cooper on the shoulder, giving him a nod, but his buddy, who I vaguely recognize as Brandon Finau, scowls. Clearly not everyone is thrilled about the decision to name Cooper the captain.

I can see Dad at the other end of the hallway, talking to his coaching staff, so I tug on Cooper’s sleeve. I’m sure that he noticed me at the game, but I’ll just text him congratulations later; I don’t want to get drawn into a conversation with him right now. Not to mention that he’d flip if he smelled the alcohol on my breath. “Let’s head out.”

Since everyone is a little sloshed already, we just start walking toward downtown. The cold stings less with whiskey in my belly, but I still stick close to Cooper. He’s like a furnace, and it’s magical. He took my hand the moment we left the building, and I know I should pull away—more accurately, I should ask if we can talk—but it’s too nice to steal the warmth radiating from him to want to ruin it out here in the cold. The group, Victoria and Aaron, Dani and Will and Allison, Izzy and Mia, Sebastian, Rafael, and Hunter, and Evan and Jean too, breaks away from us as we turn onto Main Street. I realize this is by design the moment Cooper pulls me behind a bush and kisses me hard on the lips.

Sneaky bastard.

I wrap my arms around his neck, standing on my tiptoes for better leverage as I kiss back. It’s automatic, as natural as breathing. We make out for what must be five minutes at least, his hands underneath my sweater all the while. I shiver, but not from the cold; his fingertips feel like little candle flames. When he eventually steps back, it’s a reluctant unwinding, pulling out one hand and then the other, licking into my mouth one more time before taking a breath.

“Cooper,” I say. My voice feels thick. I’m nowhere near drunk, but for a moment I wish I was. Drunk me would forget what she needs to do. “You made captain.”

“All thanks to you, Red,” he says.

Fuck, his voice sounds tender. I shake my head. “No. This was all you. You’re so fucking talented, you would have gone first round in the draft if you’d entered.”

That makes his mouth twist. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “What matters is now.”

“Yes,” I say, seizing upon that like a life raft in shark-infested waters. Only the sharks aren’t sharks, they’re feelings, and I really, really don’t want to be devoured by them. Not when I know the way out, in the end, is filled with pain. “You got what you wanted. We don’t… have to continue doing this. Don’t feel obligated when I’m sure there are like, half a dozen girls at Red’s right now, just waiting for you to come in.”

He’s quiet so long I almost repeat myself, but then he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and looks at the frosted-over ground.

“Is that what you want?”