Unloved: Chapter 2

I let out a groan of pure pain from my killer headache, only made worse by the classical music blaring through the house, currently only occupied by me and my awake-and-active-at-the-crack-of-dawn goalie, Bennett Reiner.

“Reiny, ,” I cry into my pillow, flopping onto my back and covering my entire face and ears.

As if the heavens have heard my plea, the music cuts off and I sigh, until my door abruptly opens, letting in a tall, leggy blonde in one of my shirts and nothing else. Her face is flushed, her back pressed to the now-closed door as if she’s hiding.

“Morning, Candice,” I drawl. “You wouldn’t happen to be the thing that woke the bear downstairs, huh?”

“He was happy that I went down there,” she sighs, depositing two yellow sports drinks and two bottles of water onto the bed. “But worth it.”

“I’ll say.” I grab one of the bottles and drain it almost instantly, smirking at the way she seems to need the rehydration as much as I do.

Knowing she’s pleased, that she had a good time, is enough to cancel the bad mood and headache Bennett’s annoying morning routine started.

She sips lightly on the remnants of her water bottle for a moment before gathering her stuff into a little pile, slipping her own clothes back on and tossing my shirt into the obvious dirty pile in the corner of my “organized mess” of a room.

“Headed out?” I ask, not bothering to put anything on as I stand fully naked and stretch my arms out with a yawn. Her gaze tracks over my body again, hovering longer on the morning wood I’m sporting as I strut toward the small en suite bathroom.

“Unfortunately, I’ve got Panhellenic meetings all afternoon. But this was fun.”

“Fun?” I say, reaching for her waist and spinning her until I’m pressed to her again, my nose running along her jaw. The burst of her giggle feels like praise, and I want to bask in it. But it’s still not enough. “Just fun? I think I can do better than that if you stay for a little.”

Her gaze fuzzes over but she smirks, shoving away from the heat of my body and gathering her purse.

“It was than fun the first time, Freddy,” she says, blowing me a kiss. “You’re incredible. I’ll see you around?”

Biting down on the desperate response waiting to roll off my tongue, which I know will come across as pathetic, I try not to bristle too much at her departure.

.

I salute her with two fingers before heading into the bathroom to wash off the night’s activities before my preseason check-in with the full coaching staff.

“Rhys comes back this week,” is the first sentence Bennett has granted me all morning. I talked nonstop as we ate one of his quick breakfasts over the countertop, and again as we rode to the arena in his truck, but the surly giant didn’t grant me even one active-listening sentiment the entire way. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

I want to razz him over this stoic silence, but I know that Bennett doesn’t joke about our captain, his best friend, Rhys Koteskiy.

I’d like to say I’m part of a trio, but I’m the third wheel if anything. Reiner and Koteskiy have been skating side by side since they were in diapers. Private hockey academies, retired NHL player dads—who also happen to be iconic best friends—Bennett and Rhys are as tightly bound without being blood-related as two people can possibly be.

“Have you guys talked?”

“No. He texted me a heads-up.” He clenches the steering wheel a little harder. “Fucking stupid,” he grumbles beneath his breath.

Our captain took a brutal hit on the ice during the Frozen Four last spring, delivered by defenseman Toren Kane, known throughout the NCAA as a complete psychopath. The guy should’ve been barred from team eligibility after his performance at Junior Worlds. Still, he managed to stay on a team while continuing to wreak havoc, throwing illegal hits and fighting, going as far as getting removed from two teams in the last three years.

The hit had nearly killed Rhys; he left the game in an ambulance, and besides the occasional “He’s fine” from our coach or Rhys’s parents, we hadn’t heard from him since.

I knew he probably needed the space—that, or he was hurt badly enough he might not come back. But Bennett took Rhys’s icing us out harder, because Rhys wasn’t just his captain.

His best friend had completely shut him out. For four .

“Well, that’s good. We need him.”

Going through our usual preseason activities felt a little wrong without our fearless leader. And after having to opt out of summer intensive camp with the guys for academic recovery classes, I’m antsy to get back on the fucking ice.

Being back in the Waterfell Arena makes my entire mood lighter.

Until Coach Harris decides to burst all my bubbles with his withering look as I take a seat across from him in his office.

The two assistant coaches left before I entered, which nearly made me want to spew up my breakfast as the sinking feeling that I’d done something wrong settled in my gut.

“Coach.” I nod, bouncing my knee and rubbing my hands together. “Good summer?”

“Got to spend some time with my wife uninterrupted by a bunch of hormonal adolescents, so yeah, pretty good,” Coach Harris says dryly.

“Right.” I laugh, but the nerves make it choppy and short.

It doesn’t help when Coach sighs, long and loud.

“Listen, Fredderic—”

“Last name only.” I cut him off, grinning widely. “Guess that means I did something wrong.”

He shakes his head. “I talked to Gavins. Heard you reach out to him, or the agent I sent you the contact for.”

Jeff Gavins, the GM for the Dallas Stars, the NHL team I’m signed with. Coach Harris has been on my ass about getting in touch with him and the agent he set me up with, trying to give me an early out. I know it’s because he sees how much of a struggle the academic side of college is for me, but it’s hard not to feel like he’s trying to get rid of me.

But he doesn’t understand.

There’s a reason I’m here, and it’s too important to let it go now. This is the one time I won’t take the easy way out.

“Gavins signed me for postgraduation. I’m thrilled to play for him, Frozen Four.”

“Freddy,” Coach Harris mutters softly, rubbing a hand over eyes that don’t look like they’ve gotten any rest in the last two months off. “Seriously, college isn’t for everyone. You could’ve been playing in the NHL as an eighteen-year-old.”

Key words.

The back of my neck itches suddenly, my knees bouncing higher and faster as I nod.

“Yeah, but I need to do it my way.”

It’s the same response I’ve given him every time we’ve had this conversation in the last three years. I’ve made it to senior year by the skin of my fucking teeth—at this point, I need to prove to everyone that I can do this.

“All right,” he sighs. “I’ve got two freshman wingers for you to keep an eye on. And as long as you and Dougherty do your usual bullshit, I think we’re in for a good year.”

The slight praise is enough to have a real smile etching its way across my face.

“Happy to be as disruptive as possible.”

Coach Harris shakes his head at me as I stand, but I see the beginnings of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.