Wasted Time (The Steel City #1)

24. Penny

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

penny

I arrive at the hotel at the same time as the guy with the pizza. Before he can knock, I pay for the three, large pies and send him on his way. His eyes are full of concern as I thank him, and I really can’t blame him. My eyes are bloodshot, my mascara is smeared on my cheeks despite my best efforts, and my nose is a bright, blinding red.

He doesn’t say anything. The poor boy just thanks me and smiles sympathetically, as if he’s afraid I'll shatter into pieces if he moves too fast. He slowly makes his way back to the elevators, looking over his shoulder every few steps.

Sighing, I force myself to keep it together and knock on the hotel room door. It swings open before my third knock.

I peer over the big, white boxes at my friends, but before I can even take another step, Avery is rushing forward and taking them from me, her short body vanishing behind them, and Seth is pushing a full glass of wine into my hand instead.

Well, I could get used to this.

“Are they outside?” Wyatt asks, fishing out his wallet.

“Who? ”

“The person who handed you those pizzas. Unless that’s where you were for the last half hour. Cooking them.”

“Oh,” I say, sipping my wine. “No, I took care of that. Thanks for ordering.”

“ What?” Avery snaps, whirling around. “You can’t buy your own break-up pizza. That is sacrilegious.”

Seth rolls his eyes.

“You guys drove eight hours and helped me move. The least I can do is pay for the pizza. Just shut up and eat.”

Avery stares at me, her arms crossed in front of her, but the guys don’t need any further persuading. Wyatt rips open each pizza box, one after another. Seth dives for the meat lovers, but Wyatt takes one of each.

I linger, watching my friends, feeling more grateful than I can convey. My army. I can’t believe I considered doing this alone.

“Are you okay?” Avery asks gently.

I meet her eyes, thankful that I had my meltdown in private. I don’t want them to spend the rest of the night feeling sorry for me, or feeling like they need to coddle me. They’ve done enough for me tonight. More than enough.This wasn’t easy for any of us.

“I will be.” That’s the truth.

“Did you get it all out on the way here?” she says, keeping her voice quiet for my sake.

I hate the way my lip wobbles at the question. Acknowledging how wrecked I had been on the drive here makes it feel fresh again. It’s like when you’re on the brink of losing it and someone asks if you're alright. I don’t want to fall apart. Not again. The last time took everything out of me.

Either Avery can see the evidence of my tears all over my face, or she just knows me far too well. It was much, much worse than a couple of tears and a self-published pep talk. I hold everything in until it suffocates me, so when it comes to the surface, it’s never pretty.

“I think so,” I say, and I nudge her toward the pizza with my elbow.

Avery works up an appetite when she’s running high on any emotion. I know it took all her self-restraint and Seth’s ability to hold her back to keep her from ripping into Gavin tonight. She is dying to have a slice right now.

Instead of turning to feed herself like I urged her to do, she wraps her fingers around my forearm and pulls me in for a hug. I stumble into her, not expecting it. Her head bumps my shoulder with the height difference, and comfort floods me at the feeling.

We both squeeze each other once, twice, and a third time.

Always three.

When we let each other go, she appeases me and spins around, picking up two slices of pepperoni. She grabs another plate and adds one cheese and one pepperoni, shooting me a stern look when she pushes it into my hands.

The instructions are clear. Eat.

“Game starts in fifteen. You guys cool with watching it together, or do you want twin time?” Seth asks, wiping sauce from his lips.

Avery glances at me as she nibbles the end of her slice.

I pause momentarily, and her eyes soften—but I’m not hesitating because I need a shoulder to cry on. I’m hesitating because I’m an idiot. I called Declan when he had a game in just over an hour? His pre-game ritual is critical to him, always has been, and I just threw a wrench in it.

I don’t think I can explain to you just how bad that is.

All three of them are staring at me now. Avery is half off the bed by the time I shake my head and motion for them to stay sitting. They all relax, but look wholly uncertain if they should trust asking me what I need right now.

“Stay! Stay! I just didn’t know that he had a game tonight.”

“Yeah, he’s in Montreal,” Seth says.

“Oh,” I say, forcing a smile. “Let’s watch him win then, shall we?”

Wyatt sinks back into the pillows, shoveling his pizza into his mouth at record speed.

Avery slides in next to Seth on the bed closest to the door, so I scurry over and crawl in next to Wyatt. I begin to scarf down my pizza, almost giving Wyatt a run for his money. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, but being so anxious that I skipped breakfast, lunch, and road trip snacks must have caught up with me. Downing this meal with wine makes it taste even better.

Wyatt eats his whole plate of pizza by the time I’m finishing my second slice, and even jumps up to get some more. I’m not sure where the hell he puts it. He’s built like a damn house. Tall and sturdy and rippled with muscles. He returns with another slice of cheese on top of his own and slaps it on my plate.

I groan at the thought of another piece but dance a little in my seat anyway. I’m a tad bit grateful I’m not the kind of sad that makes me lose my appetite. I’ll happily eat my slices snuggled in bed with my friends, watching our other friend kick some ass on the television.

When the game starts, the drinks begin to flow. Wyatt and Seth are already two beers in by the end of the national anthem. I search for Declan, but I don’t need to look very hard. Since the fans love him, the broadcasters treat their viewers with a close-up of him staring up at the flags.

His mouthguard is hanging out of his mouth. His eyes are hyper-focused, jaw clenched as he twirls his guard between his teeth. He’s swaying from foot to foot, slapping his stick on the ice.

“Shit,” Seth mutters.

“Someone’s in a bad mood.”

I glance at Wyatt, but he’s smirking like this is a good thing. He rubs his hands together excitedly.

“We should place bets on how long it takes him to get a penalty.”

“Four minutes,” Wyatt says confidently.

“Ten,” Seth counters.

“Twenty bucks on it?” Wyatt wiggles his eyebrows, taking a sip of his beer.

“You’re on, bud.”

“How can you tell he’s in a bad mood?” Avery asks.

His mouth.

“You’ve never noticed that thing Dec does with his mouth when he’s pissed off?” Wyatt asks, glancing over at her. She shakes her head. “He bites the inside of his cheek over and over like it’s the only way he can calm himself down. It’s his tell. He’s out for blood tonight.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Avery asks.

“I don’t know. I tried to call him earlier to chat, but you know he doesn’t answer the day of his games. Can’t mess with the ritual,” Seth says.

My blood turns to ice. Right. Can’t mess with the ritual.

Everyone’s staring at the screen as the puck drops. I am so tense I feel like I’m going to need some WD-40 to move my joints by the end of this game. I’m watching the screen, but I’m not really watching. I can’t think about anything besides what the hell I just did.

He answered my call today. He broke his pregame ritual to answer my phone call.

I then proceeded to ignore him. Again. He broke that ritual even further by texting me repeatedly. Besides my one-word reply, I ignored those, too. I thought that made me less selfish, refusing to drag him back into my chaos. Turns out, I was wrong.

I wince at myself. A fight is one thing. Ignoring him after we sleep together is another. Messing with his career without a thought for anyone besides myself? That’s unforgivable.

I sink into the pillows, hiding my shame in a room full of people who don’t know what I’ve done.

Wyatt reaches over and rubs his fingers messily through my hair. He slings his arm around my shoulders. He’s checking in, just in his own way. He thinks I’m upset about Gavin. About tonight. If he only knew what I’ve actually done.

Three minutes and four seconds into the first period, Declan is being hauled to the penalty box.

Wyatt screams in triumph, shooting off the bed with his fist in the air. He nearly drops his twentieth slice of pizza onto the white bedding.

Seth groans as Wyatt does a victory dance around the bed with his hand outstretched, wiggling his fingers, ready to collect his winnings.

Seth fishes for his wallet with a roll of his eyes, slapping a twenty-dollar bill into Wyatt’s awaiting palm.

Yet, my eyes are still glued to the screen.

Declan throws his hand up before he enters the penalty box, his eyes full of fire. He’s screaming at someone, his dark brows furrowed and his glove violently moving in the air. He inches forward toward another player, but he’s quickly pulled back by his teammate.

With one, clear ‘fuck’ shouted at the top of his lungs, he steps inside of the box and slams the door shut. He whirls around, smacking his stick on the bench over and over while fans gawk at him like an angry fish in a tank.

Wyatt shimmies back to his spot with a fresh beer and a fresh twenty-dollar bill. He shakes his head as he falls back onto the bed, cracks open the can, and lets out a happy sigh.

“Brace yourself, kids,” he says, reaching up to put one hand behind his head. “Dickhead Dec is on the ice tonight.”

I slide under the blankets and pull them up to my chest. I ditch the glass and start drinking the wine right out of the bottle. By the end of the game, I’m nuzzled into Wyatt’s side, and he has one arm loosely hung around my shoulders.

I’m petrified by what I might have caused.

This game is chaos.

Avery fell asleep half an hour ago. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.

I debated texting Declan during the first intermission to apologize. His game is off, and I don’t have the ego to blame that entirely on myself, but his routine has always been a big deal to him. He’s in his own head because of that phone call, and I have to take ownership of that.

He’s losing control of the puck more than he should be. He’s shooting wide and he’s mouthing off, which is entirely out of character for him on the ice in his professional career. He takes his job very seriously. That means he keeps his head down and gets goals.

Yet, here he is, being a completely different type of player.

He shoved a player from the opposite team at one point, and he actually looked excited when the big oaf came barrelling toward him with the promise of a fight. Declan’s teammate, the big guy—Forkerro, maybe? Forkerro came out of nowhere and smoked the guy that Declan wanted for himself.

For a split second, the four of us held our breath. The look Declan gave his teammate was lethal. It looked like he was going to sucker his own guy right in the face for getting in the way.

That rage is something I have never seen from him before. I decided not to text him. Mostly because he wasn’t going to check his phone in time, anyway. If he lost and saw my name on his phone after a game like this, it might backfire all together.

They lost.

They lost pretty damn badly.

Even as somebody who doesn’t know all the ins and outs of hockey, but enjoys watching it, it wasn’t difficult to see that their loss was directly related to Declan’s behaviour. He was making a lot of dumb, selfish mistakes that caused the team to suffer.

At the final buzzer, Wyatt and Seth slowly turn to look at each other. Unease spreads through the room, all but Avery aware of how much of a shitshow that had been. Declan played the way EJ used to—selfishly, temperamentally, and with a chip on his shoulder as big as this planet.

“I’ll text him,” Seth mutters, and immediately grabs his phone.

I don’t want to be here for this conversation.

“I’m going to have a shower and get to bed. I want to get out of here early tomorrow.”

I begin to collect the garbage around the room, suddenly desperate to get them out of here. Declan can say whatever he wants to his friends, but I don’t have to stick around and witness it. He can have that refuge with the boys. He doesn’t need an audience.

Wyatt scrambles up from the bed to help me, downing the rest of his beer.

Seth gently tucks Avery into the bed she fell asleep in. She wants to stay with me tonight, which I desperately need, so Wyatt and Seth agreed to take the room next door. I don’t think it was ever really a question, to be honest. Sometimes, it’s like Seth and I have joint custody over her. Tonight, she’s mine, but he will have her back tomorrow.

As the highlights slide through the room, we pretend to clean, but it’s obvious we’re all listening carefully to see what the world has to say about Declan’s performance.

It was bad. Really bad. Like the worst game since he entered the league kind of bad.

I regret a lot of things in life.

I regret moving with Gavin. I regret drinking a fifth of cinnamon whiskey freshman year and puking all over the dancefloor at that frat party, but I regret nothing as much as I regret making that call.