Bad Intentions: Chapter 30

When the final buzzer sounded, I’d never been so relieved. After talking to Lily outside at intermission, I’d gotten my head back in the game. We’d been down, and it had taken every second of coordinated plays, sweat, grit, and luck to scrape a one-goal victory.

The rink exploded into cheers from the Hade Harbor side as soon as the buzzer sounded. My teammates hugged me, cheering, just as relieved as I was. I stared at the scoreboard, unable to process that we’d managed it.

Coach had sweated right through his polo, despite the cool temperature in the rink. His smile could have lit up the entire place. My eyes searched behind him for a flash of satin red. Lily stood beside her mother, clapping like everyone else. A small smile lit her beautiful lips. I didn’t deserve that smile. I hadn’t deserved her inspiring words, and yet she’d given them to me anyway.

“Fuck, that was close.” Marcus took off his goalie mask and wiped sweat from his eyes. He looked exhausted, and I knew how he felt.

“Too close,” I muttered, feeling responsible. I’d let Tyler Owens get into my head. It wasn’t the first time I’d played the Volcanoes, but it was the first time I’d ever been on the winning team. My team in Midnight Falls had never made it far on the strength of one good player. Well, two if you counted Chase Elliot, which I preferred not to.

Tyler had barely goaded me, in all honesty. It was the fact that he knew Lily that had thrown me. He’d touched her, made her laugh. She was close with him. Thick, black possession had crowded my head like smoke, and I couldn’t see clearly through it, not even when we’d started the game.

Fucked up as it was, considering the chunks we’d ripped off each other, Lillian was mine.

Mine.

“So, are we celebrating?”

“Fuck yeah, why not? It’s Friday, we won…what’s not to celebrate?” Marcus was all easy smiles at my elbow.

My gaze fell on Tyler Owens, skating toward the coach’s bench. Lily waved to him and stepped down the stairs to speak to him. Another gut punch of possession and jealousy like nothing I’d ever felt before roared through me, followed by a wave of aggression I knew I couldn’t act on.

I had no right. I’d given it away.

“Cade, man. You down to party?”

I jerked my head back toward the other Ice Gods and then shook it. “I’m beat. I’m gonna head home early tonight, I think.”

“Seriously? You’re going to go to bed without getting your dick sucked after that amazing comeback?”

I clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “Look, man, you’re nice and all, but you’re not my type.”

He simply grinned wider. “Yeah, well, a guy can dream.”

Beckett cut in with some comment about where to go, and Asher headed toward the locker room, too. I trailed behind them, tearing my eyes from Lily and Tyler with difficulty.

Lily let Tyler drive her home. He had a nice, shiny new truck. He probably had parents who gave a fuck if he lived or died. He made her laugh, not cry. He was a better person than I was. Despite knowing it all, I sat in her room and waited for her to come home.

Her parents were out celebrating. It was quiet, and the room smelled like Lily. I could have sat in there for hours in the dark, breathing her in and pretending that I didn’t break everything I touched.

The journal I’d bought her for her birthday laid on her desk, untouched. I sat on the edge of her bed and grabbed a framed photo sitting on her nightstand. In it, she and Eve were laughing about something, bent double at the waist. Lily wore shorts, and her slim thighs drew my eyes. I could remember how they’d felt in my hands. I could remember the freckles sprinkling her inner thighs.

I took a deep breath and stuffed my feelings down where they belonged, in the dark, with the rest of my ugly soul. I reached for the journal and flipped to the first blank page. My hand closed on a pen. I didn’t think about what to write. I didn’t think she’d ever read it. This journal was a present that reminded her of how terrible I’d been to her. Threatening her, blackmailing her with her secrets, exposing her when she’d disappointed me.

My hand moved over the page, the ballpoint scoring deep into the unblemished surface. A scribble destined to never be seen, and the most honest thing I’d ever written. I tucked the diary into my back pocket to take back to my room. The confession in it was too damning.

After, I lay down on her bed, my entire body aching after the game. Tyler Owens packed a mighty punch when he slammed you into the boards, and I knew I was going to feel it for days. The smell of Lily rose around me, and I turned my face into her pillow and breathed deep.

She came home exactly an hour after the end of the game. I tried my best not to think of where she’d been with Tyler that whole time. It didn’t work. I left her room as untouched as I could, slipped back into mine, and closed the door just as she came down the hall.

She didn’t pause outside my door. I took out the T-shirt that I’d stolen from her room. It was from some science summer camp she’d gone to and was huge and shapeless. Regardless, it smelled like Lily. She often slept in it.

I lay down on my bed and put the T-shirt next to my face on the pillow. If I closed my eyes and let my mind drift just right, it was like she was there.