Page 109 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter
Oliver is hungry. He kisses me like I’m the first drops of rain after a drought. He cradles the back of my neck while his tongue strokes mine. He tastes me, he groans at what he discovers.
I feel seen.
It’s the kind of kiss that may as well suck out my soul in the process. I want the same from him, though, and when I surge up on my toes and kiss him back, harder, he gives me everything. He tastes like mint toothpaste. His scent is citrus and musk, something that buries in my lungs and refuses to let go.
I trace his chest with my hands and move upward, to the back of his neck, into his hair. His hair. It’s as silky as it looks. He makes another noise in his throat when I tug, so I do it again. His hips shift forward, his erection pressing into my belly.
The locker room door opens, and we break apart in an instant. He runs his hand down his face, while I return to my seat. I duck my head, letting my hair fall in front of my face like a curtain. My lips feel puffy.
“You left pucks,” Dad says. “Ruiz.”
“Yes, sir.” Oliver turns around, somehow a thousand percent more composed than me. He hurries past Dad, back to the rink.
I bury my face in my hands.
Dad clears his throat, and I peek through my fingers.
“No funny business in my arena.” He points at me, frowning slightly. But then he shakes his head and follows Ruiz out.
Well, fuck.
thirty-two
sydney
Maddy has inadvertently become my confidante.
It’s not that I don’t trust Brandon and Dylan. I love our friendship and actually quite appreciate their discretion, but Maddy and I just seem to hang out more. Especially since bonding after the fight.
We’re holed up in my apartment on Halloween night watching scary movies. There was a party—I was invited to it, actually, and so were my three friends—but the idea of being surrounded by people in masks scared me.
I’ve been having more nightmares lately. I’m not sure if I was having them before and simply not remembering, but this week I’ve been waking up in a blind panic, covered in sweat while my heart tried to escape my chest.
Anyway. I finally admitted to Maddy the rest of the story from the warehouse. About Bear. She already knew something was up from Oliver’s behavior at the fight. And Penn’s. But she didn’t question me about it at the time.
Now that she’s all filled in, she heartily agrees that a Halloween party would be traumatic. Even the scary movies are a little hard to stomach.
“Where do you think your mom went?” She returns to the couch with a giant bowl of popcorn, handing it to me while she cocoons herself in blankets. “Did you ever find out where she’d go when you were a kid?”
I lift one shoulder. “Best guess is somewhere like Atlantic City. She’d come back with cash… I feel like that’s where you go when you want to do that kind of thing.”
Whore herself out.
Gamble.
Maybe some combination of the two.
“Maybe she’s there. Stuck like Percy Jackson in that Lotus Flower hotel.”
Another thing about Maddy? She’s secretly into stuff that probably wouldn’t win brownie points with the cool kids. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Greek mythology, Harry Potter… she holds on to knowledge like a sponge, but with the strange ability to spit out random trivia.
It only came out after we’d been hanging out for a while, but it’s definitely gotten more frequent. And don’t get me wrong—I love it. I love the references that I don’t always understand because it means she trusts me to be herself.
And that seems like the greatest compliment after living with someone like Scarlett, who has never been real a day in her life.
Thinking of Scarlett reminds me that she slept with Oliver. Maybe Penn, too. That gives me the major ick. Also, she witnessed some form of my supreme humiliation and did nothing to save me. Which should put her at the bottom of my list of people I’d save in a fire.
Maybe right above Bear and Andi, but definitely below Miranda and Kate.