Dirty Pucker (Denver Bashers #2)

11. Del

Chapter 11

Del

I ’m barely through the door of the locker room when someone shoves me.

I stumble forward but quickly right myself. When I spin around, I see Theo glaring at me.

“You like blondes, huh?”

He steps up to me, but I don’t back away. I hold my ground.

I glare back. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a fucking problem.” He shoves my shoulder, but I stay upright. “You think I’m an idiot? I saw the way you were looking at my cousin, asshole.”

I grit my teeth. “And?”

Theo’s nostrils flare. He yanks his helmet off his head, revealing a sweaty mop of blond wavy hair plastered to his face. I bite back the urge to call him a pretty boy. I taunted him with that a few times on the ice when we played against each other. He fucking hated it.

But he’s not my opponent anymore. He’s my teammate. And if I want to fit in on this team—if I want to play for the Bashers long-term, I can’t fight him, even though my instinct is to do exactly that.

I need to back off. I need to let him take out his frustration and anger on me and then just walk away.

Because he’s right. I was flirting with Ingrid, and I know just how much the thought of me fooling around with his cousin pisses him off.

“My cousin is off-limits,” he bites. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

Just then Xander runs over and pulls Theo back. He stands between us, facing Theo.

“Chill out,” Xander says to Theo before turning to me. “You should listen to him, Richards. What the fuck are you thinking, flirting with Ingrid?”

I grit my teeth, annoyed and pissed that they think they have a right to interfere with or comment on anything that I do.

I force myself to take a breath and remind myself why I’m here.

To play my ass off for the Bashers so they’ll keep me around long-term.

So I can be closer to my mom and sister. So I can protect them.

Everything takes a back seat to that. Even Ingrid.

Just then, Jason, the assistant coach, walks in. The three of us instantly step back from each other.

“Everything okay in here?” Jason asks, looking between us.

We all mutter “yeah” as we head to our lockers. Jason frowns like he doesn’t quite believe us, but after a few seconds, he walks off.

I shed my gear and grab my towel. On my way to the showers, I stop in front of Theo.

“I’ll stay away from Ingrid,” I mutter.

He looks up at me, his expression hard. “Good.”

I head to the shower, tense and pissed. When I finish, I head to my locker and get dressed. I grab my phone and see a missed call from my mom.

My heart races, even though I tell myself not to panic. It’s only one missed call. And she didn’t leave a message, which means it probably wasn’t important.

Or something bad happened to her and she didn’t have the chance to call me again or leave a message.

Panic rockets through me as I grab my gear bag and call her back. I hold my breath as I count the seconds, waiting for her to answer.

On the fifth ring, she finally picks up. “Hi, honey.”

“Mom, are you okay?” I ask as I quickly walk through the arena.

When she doesn’t answer right away, my pulse rockets.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I try my best to keep my voice even and calm.

“It’s probably nothing.” She pauses again. “It’s just that, this morning when I was watering the plants, I noticed the screen on the back window was pulled out.”

My anxiety spikes.

She sighs. “I’m probably overreacting…”

“You’re not, Mom,” I say in a gentle voice, even though my adrenaline is skyrocketing.

“It just reminded me of when I kicked your father out of the house years ago, after we split up, and he tried to come back…”

Her voice shakes as she trails off. She’s scared and it’s because of him.

Anger pummels through me like a freight train. I think back to when I was eleven years old and our mom had just left our dad.

My dad was pissed. He’d come by the house almost every day, drunk off his ass, and pound on the door, demanding that we let him in. I remember huddling with my mom and sister in the back bedroom as we waited for him to leave. He usually did.

But then one day he got so pissed that we were ignoring him and tried to break in. He broke the window screen in that back bedroom.

I remember how my mom screamed, how she made Dakota and I hide in the closet while she yelled at my dad to leave us alone. I remember how her voice shook as she called the police.

He thankfully didn’t make it inside that time, or the handful of other times he tried to break in. Probably because he was too drunk. He was always drunk.

My stomach twists when I think about how I have more memories of my dad drunk than I do of him sober.

I have endless memories of him drunkenly yelling at us, threatening our mom and grabbing her…shoving her…

That anger inside of me sharpens. My chest goes tight as I clench my fist.

That fucker shattered her sense of security for years. The past fifteen years, things have been good.

But one phone call from him ruined everything, and now he’s back to terrorizing her.

That fucking ends now.

I jog through the parking lot.

“I’m on my way to you right now,” I say. “Just hang tight, okay? Everything will be okay, Mom. I promise.”

She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry to bother you, honey.”

“Don’t be sorry, Mom. I told you to call me anytime you need me, and I meant it.”

“Thank you, honey.”

I make it to my car, unlock it, toss my bag in the back, and jump into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll be at your house in twenty minutes, okay?” I speed out of the parking lot. I pass Xander, who’s walking to his car. He stops and aims a confused frown at me, probably because I’m driving like a maniac.

Whatever. He can think what he wants about me. I don’t fucking care.

All I care about is making it to my mom and making sure she’s safe.