Secret Obsession: A Dark Hockey Romance (Hockey Gods)

I’m upside down. I touch skin, tracing the smooth warmth. It’s almost funny, being this close to it, I don’t know what I’m looking at—but I know it belongs to Miles. Know it from the scent of him and the way he hit my ass.

It still stings.

Oh, yeah, my ass.

I wiggle. He’s been torturing me the whole fucking game, turning that stupid plug on and off, repeatedly, until I could barely keep a straight face. And just when I was on the cusp of coming, he shut it off and never turned it back on.

Asshole.

I paid him back by drinking double what I’d normally have, chugging a drink up in the hallway outside of the concessions and then going to bring another one down to my seat. Over and over. Even more in the lulls between periods.

The world shifts again, and my feet touch concrete. I barely get a chance to balance—well, balance is probably the wrong word—before he’s pushing me face-first into a wall. He yanks down my pants, and his fingers grip the plug.

“Oh, fuck,” I mumble.

He snarls and yanks it out without warning. My ass hurts, and I don’t know what I want. I certainly don’t want him to fuck me. Not wherever we are. But then he’s guiding my jeans back up, closing them for me. I stay against the wall, breathing hard.

There’s a rushing sound, and then I’m dragged sideways.

I see the full sink a split second before Miles’ hand grips the back of my head and forces me down.

My face submerges in the cold water, and I choke. There should be some sort of instinct to hold my breath, but all I get is a nose full of water. He pulls me up, and I sputter and cough. He waits a moment, then dunks me again. My whole head is doused—but I don’t inhale water.

And it helps clear a little bit of the fog from my mind.

Not a lot. Cold water isn’t a miracle worker.

He manhandles me again, forcing me away from the sink and crowding into me. I stumble away from him, although that’s fucking pointless. Finally, my feet stop moving, and I just hold on to the front of his shirt. With my other hand, I swipe my hair away from my face.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I yell in his face. “You don’t have to be such a dick about it.”

“I’m trying to save you,” he yells back. He picks me up the nice way, an arm under my knees and the other behind my back, and he carries me through what I can only guess is a commercial food storage area. There are boxes on metal wire shelves lining the walls.

He stops when we reach the back, and he sets me down.

He yanks open the giant metal door and uses a hand on my back to propel me inside.

I whirl around as a dim light flickers on overhead.

Miles watches me with pity. “You’re killing yourself, Willow. Whether you realize it or not. And your friends aren’t just going to stand by and let it happen. So, you wanna die? Go ahead.”

He steps back, and the door swings inward.

I jump to stop it, but I’ve gone in too far. It slams in my face, and I grasp the lever to release myself.

It doesn’t work.

There’s a bone-grinding click of a lock engaging, and then… nothing.

I stand there for a second, staring at the door. Waiting for Miles to open it up again, to say: Just kidding!

He doesn’t.

I try the handle again, but it doesn’t budge.

I shiver.

Wait.

I look around, and my stomach knots. It isn’t just a room that he’s locked me in. I go to the shelving and tip the closest box toward me. Frozen balls of pizza dough roll around the bottom of it. I move along, wincing at the bite in the air.

It’s only going to get worse.

Does he just want to play hero?

I laugh at that, then kick a box. It’s full of something hard and heavy, and it barely moves. My foot, however, feels the effects. I howl and hop away, cursing the box and Miles. Like, what the fuck is his problem?

I exhale a visible cloud.

Fuck.

My drunkenness is wearing off faster as I pace. I’m not in dance condition anymore. I haven’t been working out since before Amanda booted me off the team. Where I used to run and take enjoyment in the weight room, it just felt too hard to go there by myself. Especially sad.

Sometimes it’s easier to do nothing than one tough thing.

No, it’s always easier to do nothing.

I watch my breath puffing in front of my face, the cloud rising and dissipating. I had a jacket when I arrived, but I lost that somewhere between my seat and here. Beer usually makes me hot, which means I definitely shed it on purpose.

Stupid.

I lean against one of the shelves and slide down it, wrapping my arms around my legs. My fingers are cramping from the cold, but the worst part is my hair. My head is like an ice block. When I touch a lock of hair, it’s crisp. Freezing already.

Do I have my phone?

No. It’s in my jacket pocket.

I close my eyes and bury my face in the crook of my arm. My mind spins, trying to figure a way out, but all I can think of is the burning cold.

And Miles’ last words.

That I’m self-destructing? That I want to die?

Maybe I do.

Would that be the worst thing in the world?

“Yeah, it would,” I say out loud. Surprising myself.

Is this how I want to go? Because he could just leave me here and then I really would be toast. I’d be a frozen corpse by the time anyone came by, which probably wouldn’t be until next week. For the next game. Or I’d traumatize the delivery or stock person. Poor unfortunate soul.

Dying hasn’t been my plan.

But I can see why he thinks that’s my path. I’ve been… self-destructing, as he said. Refusing to connect with my emotions.

I hate that he’s right.

I hate that the cold has snapped some clarity into me.

The more pressing issue is how long Miles is going to leave me here.

I unlock my arms, but my fingers are numb. And my legs won’t seem to work. I stand and fall right back to my knees.

Now you want to fight? a long-lost voice in the back of my head whispers. The voice that I used to listen to all the time. The voice that Knox slowly shut off. The voice that told me when I deserved better than what I had. The voice that I muted because I didn’t want it to be right.

I need to fight. It’s not a question anymore.

And not just to survive.

I want to feel things again, dammit.

I cough and claw my way forward. My nail breaks, but I don’t feel it. I just hear and see it, register that there should be pain, and keep moving.

Although moving is a stretch. I’m inching across the icy, metal floor. The little bumps, meant to make it not slippery, dig into my palms.

I’m shivering like I’ve never shivered before. My teeth are chattering. The cold has seeped through me and into my bones, and I have no idea how long I’ve been in here.

A minute?

Five?

An hour?

The room spins around me, and I rest my cheek on the floor. It’s easier to just stop moving. In fact, it’s kind of warmer like this. I pull at my shirt, dragging it up my stomach. It doesn’t help the sudden prick of heat through my body.

I groan and close my eyes.

The shivering stops, and everything goes quiet.