“How could you say that in front of her? Don’t you think you should have at least talked to me before you put it out there in front of her?”
Once again, he’d blown it, and his heart caved. “I was just saying it like it is.”
Lily’s voice rose. “She’s just a little girl! I don’t want her getting her hopes up and having them crushed.”
He frowned. “What makes you think her hopes will be crushed?”
“She’s already lost her father.”
Confusion and frustration ramped up inside him. It’s always about Jack. He felt as though he were fighting his way out of a choke hold that constricted the harder he pushed against it. “Losing her father has nothing to do with me.”
Lily blew out a long breath. “You don’t get it.”
“Call me obtuse, but no, I don’t. Can you spell it out for me?” He tried to keep the grit from his tone.
She rubbed her forehead. “Maybe we should save this discussion for another time.”
“Like when, Lily?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re dodging me.”
“And you’repushing me.”
He put his hands up. “I gotta get to the rink.” With a resigned sigh, he headed for her door.
Another storm awaited him.
Grims was squirting water in his mouth beside the bench. He gave Gage a toothless grin. “Good workout, Admiral.”
Gage had been in the training room when Grims walked in, and he’d invited his captain to join him on the ice. Gage had taken out his frustrations on each and every puck, and now he was cooling down, catching his breath beside Grims. No one else was around.
“Hey, did you ever get things worked out with your MILF?”
Suddenly, Gage was seeing red. Lily wasn’t a MILF. She was … a sweet, mixed-up mom of a little girl he adored as much as he adored her. He knew he hadn’t handled things well, but shit, he just couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let go.
He wiped sweat from his forehead with the hem of his jersey. “She’s not my MILF.”
“Oh. Sorry, man.”
“Yeah, me too,” Gage grumbled. Maybe the red he was seeing was because of the guy standing next to him. He looked at Grims dead-on. “How long have you been juicing?”
Grims’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Who says I’m juicing?”
“I know you get your shit from Bobby, and I know Bobby’s jacking with Hunter because Hunter found out.”
Grims pulled at some tape on his blade. “Hunter’s a fucktard, and you believe him?”
Gage hadn’t wanted to believe Hunter, but after he’d run what he knew through an objective filter, he’d come to the gut-wrenching conclusion the guy had been telling the truth. Which sucked. It would have been so much easier to blame Hunter and keep his image of Grims intact.
Gage puffed out a breath. “I won’t argue that he’s a fucktard, but I believe him, Grims.”
Grims stared at him for several long beats, and Gage could’ve sworn anger, chased by regret, flashed in his eyes. “So, Boy Scout, what do you plan on doing with his story?”
Gage leaned on his stick. “You admit it?”
“I’m admitting nothing.”
Gage nodded. “I’m not sure, Grims.” And that was the truth. Though he’d wrestled mightily with the dilemma, Gage had yet to pick the lesser of two evils—but he needed to decide soon. He was hosed if he did, hosed if he didn’t, and he resented the hell out of being dead center in this cluster-fuck. His choices were to keep his mouth shut and let the team roll into the playoffs with its captain or tell Coach and watch his club implode. Either option made him sick to his stomach. “I just want what’s best for the team.”
Grims’s eyes flicked to Gage’s. “So do I. Where you and I differ, though, is that I understand how one false move could tear this club apart. But hey, don’t let that get in the way of what your conscience tells you, Boy Scout.”
And there, in so many words, was the heart of Gage’s conundrum.
What his conscience told him to do was follow the rules, which included seeing that others did too. A level playing field. No cheaters.
But the right way sure as shit didn’t feel right. If he outed Grimson, shit would hit the fan and cause a ripple the team wouldn’t recover from before the start of playoffs. Everyone would get hurt. Gage would be labeled a snitch, and no one would want to play with him again. On the other hand, letting it go was the same as covering it up. He’d be aiding and abetting, becoming part of the doping problem, making him as dirty as Grimson. And where would it end?
What he really wanted was to un-see everything, but that wasn’t an option. Too bad it wasn’t that simple.
Grims was watching him, his expression sad, weary. Where Gage had been pissed, he suddenly felt a pang of sympathy, even though Grims had brought it on himself. Brought it on all of us. His anger climbed back up.
Quinn walked up the chute, seemingly unaware of the tension. “Hey, you guys wanna grab a beer?”
Gage considered his empty house. He also considered compartmentalizing his anger—for now—for the sake of the team. His club was gonna need all it could get to survive whatever fallout was headed its way. Eyes on Grimson, he said, “Why not?”
“Grims?” Quinn said.
Grims gave Gage another long look. “Yeah, Hads. I’m in.”
Forty-five minutes later, they were halfway through their second round when Grims’s girlfriend, Nicole, walked into the bar, another woman on her heels.
Grims stood to kiss Nicky, who shot him a flinty look—things rocky at home?—before leaning in to kiss the other woman’s cheek. “Hey, Kendra,” he said quietly.
Nicole turned a brilliant smile on Gage. “Hi, Gage. You remember my sister, Kendra?”
He remembered Kendra all right, and despite wanting to run the hell away, he stood and shook her hand. “Good to see you again, Kendra.”
The hot little blond gave him the same man-eater
