Page 131 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

It’s probably the most expensive thing I own.

My phone lights up, and I snatch it because I’m a glutton for punishment.

Carter

FSU library?

Second floor.

I’m not sure why I’m telling him where I am. Especially since he can’t just stroll onto campus… I drop my phone and bury my face in my hands. That gossip page gets a lot of traction, especially when it comes to me. Every post they make with my tag—yes, I have a personal hashtag—gets hundreds of comments and thousands of likes.

Blocking it out, I open my laptop again and get back to work.

I try to anyway. I’m still staring at the same paragraph ten minutes later when Carter drops into the chair next to me. His black cap is pulled low, and he has a black hoodie on under a thin jacket. There’s a dusting of snow on his shoulders and the brim of the hat.

He slowly closes my laptop.

I lean back in my chair and blow out a breath.

“What would they say if they knew we had sex before the FSU game?” he asks.

My lips flatten.

“What would they do to you?” He shakes his head. “They’d say everything, Syd, but they wouldn’t do anything.”

“Easy for you to say,” I snap. “You watch from afar. I was taped to a toilet at the first FSU game I tried to go to. I was there with my stepmom, the coach’s wife, and that did nothing.”

That humiliation still rattles me.

He stares at me in shock. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It was Oliver’s…” It wasn’t really his idea. I can’t say that. “He told the girl who orchestrated it that I was at the game.”

He stands. “I’m going to break his pretty face and you’re going to fucking watch me.”

My stomach flips.

“Sydney. Now.” His tone is dark.

I jump up and shove my stuff into my bag, following him out. He doesn’t so much as glance at the student worker behind the desk or the librarian shuffling papers behind him. We get outside, and he grabs my hand, dragging me down a shortcut to get off campus property.

“I thought you knew. I told you about the girl with the black eyes—” I’m in shape, but he’s moving fast. And I have too much stuff in my bag to be rushing.

He pauses, seeming to register it, and takes the backpack from me. His fingers thread through mine, and although we move at a slightly slower pace, his long strides eat up the sidewalk.

“You didn’t say anything about being taped to a toilet. That’s where those bruises came from?” He eyes me. “Fucking hell, Sydney. Why didn’t you say anything?”

I don’t have an answer except one: supreme embarrassment. Why would I ever admit something so… bad?

“Did you play this weekend?” I ask, trying to divert attention away from me and my lingering humiliation.

He smirks. “Friday night, dream girl. We won.”

“Naturally.”

We arrive at the arena. Of course he’d know they would be here. And he doesn’t hesitate to go through the doors he’d enter through if it was SJU’s time on the ice.

I’m ninety-seven percent sure Oliver and Penn are on the ice right now. They must be. Or in the locker room with the rest of the team.