The Not - Outcast

“I’m an entrepreneur, and the one is opening an online, personalized styling service. We met through a business networking venture. I’m also seeing if I want to invest or not, but so far, I’m thinking no just because she’s starting to annoy me. She and her friend are more interested in trying to find where Cut Ryder hangs out after games than trying to sell me on why her business is a good investment for me.”

He hangs out at home.

I knew the answer.

I also knew he liked his downtime after games, and then he’d have a few friends over for a beer in the evening. Or he’d go to a close friend’s place for the same. Beer and chill. One beer. That was it. And now that I was thinking about it, I wasn’t any better than those girls because I knew that fact because I’d cyberstalked my stepbrother.

Chad wasn’t my brother anymore, but still.

Stepbrother that wasn’t a step, but we were extended half-siblings? We were both half-siblings with Koala Man, Hunter. So yeah. That’s how I knew about his routine and all.

Super proud moment here.

Not really.

Maisie and JJ kept whispering about the two girls, but I tuned back into the game. First line was back out, and Cut was doing his thing.

Bam.

He checked a guy.

Another guy was rolling up.

The enforcer.

My stomach dropped because I knew what was coming next, and yep. It was happening as I was internally narrating.

Enforcer guy skated in, grabbed Cut’s pads and pulled him away from the boards. Words were exchanged. The crowd was standing. They were going nuts.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

A chant was starting.

And fists were up.

They were off—going back and forth.

I hated this part.

I knew the culture of the sport, knew this was part of it, knew people loved it, fed off of the physicality, but I hated it. Loathed it, and even more blood was spilled. Not the enforcer’s, Cut’s, and just like I knew it would happen, his teammates got in on the fight. The other team rushed in. Then the benches cleared. The refs were skating back to the chaos.

This wasn’t normal. The crowd was eating it up.

Normally at the time, they’d be wading in to restore order, but nope. They were looking up. The clock was done anyways, and we were at the end of the third period. Game was over. Mustangs won three to one.

Otis leaned around Maisie, who was still turned toward JJ, and caught my eye.

I leaned over.

“We’re going to grab a drink at The Way Station. Would you like to join?”

The Way Station was a popular bar that everyone knew the team sometimes stopped in. I say sometimes because only one or two had been spotted in there, and that wasn’t too common. I sort of thought that was a rumor the team liked to put out there so they could go to their actual spot, or that they just let the bar run with it while everyone went home to their wives and girlfriends, if they had them.

Either way, it wasn’t the first time I’d gone with Otis and Maisie, and today was a day I didn’t want to head home and be by myself. Home would be where I would be alone with my thoughts and those thoughts, as was inevitable, would go to where I didn’t want them to go to: a certain hockey player. I’d come a long way from years of therapy and meds, but my brain still wandered, and no amount of medication or techniques could control that all the time.

So, because of that, I nodded, and because I was nodding at Otis, I didn’t realize what was about to happen. And what was about to happen was a loud screech from behind me.

“CUT, WE WANT YOUR PHONE NUMBER!”

I cringed, shooting both of JJ’s seatmates a glare, but then icy dread settled in my bones because I knew what I was about to be confronted with.

I turned, in slow motion, and he was heading into the tunnel, just below us. His gaze was up. He had stopped, holding a helmet in one hand and his stick in the other, and he was looking up at us.

At me.

Correction. Me. All me.

His gaze was solidly on mine, and as our eyes connected, his got bigger a fraction of an inch at the same time I wished I could’ve shrunk into my seat.

Damn.

Damn!

He was all sweaty and dirty, and fierce.

I felt punched in the windpipes, just looking at him looking at me—and the way he was looking at me. As if he was seeing me naked. Well, he had, but he was seeing so much of me in that moment, all of my truths, that I shifted and ducked my head down.

His gaze narrowed, switching to something beside me, and then he went into the tunnel.