Chapter 2
Grayson
KIERAN ASHFORD you’d think being the big fella you are, you would be able to handle your liquor
*video attachment*
GRAYSON is that…?
KIERAN ASHFORD you strip dancing on a pool table?
Yes, yes it is
GRAYSON and that’s all over the internet I’m presuming?
KIERAN ASHFORD the puck bunnies have already made a thirst trap of it
two million views and counting
you’re trending Daddy Crawford ;)
GRAYSON Fuck you
KIERAN ASHFORD
You love me
ce sprays over the length of my body as I turn to the side and hurl into theI trash can one of my teammates put out for me out of pity.
“Coach looks like he wants to murder you, shove your fingers down your throat, and be done with it.”
“Lovely, Kieran,” I spit, trying to get the taste of vomit off my tongue.
Lifting my head, I find him leaning against the boards, grinning at me. I don’t know how he does it after such a grueling practice. The bastard has made looking like you don’t give a fuck an art.
“Admiring my good looks or how I kept up beside you in liquor last night and don’t feel a thing?”
I’m about to tell him to shove his stick up his ass when Coach’s voice
booms across the ice.
“Crawford! My office, now!”
Straightening, I’m not at all shocked the rink starts spinning as Kieran throws his hands in the air as if to stop Coach from speaking again. “I’d let the man empty the contents of his stomach first, Coach. Otherwise it’ll end up in your office.”
I don’t hear what Coach Anderson grumbles under his breath. All I can focus on is the splitting headache trying to tear my brain in two, the brightness of the ice as the overhead lights reflect directly off it, and the way my stomach churns as I turn to the side and puke once more.
A hand suddenly smacks down on my back, jolting me and the spray of
contents.
“Kieran!”
“Yeah, buddy?”
I push up, far too fast for my body's liking. “Mind not jostling the puke?”
He grimaces as I face him. “You might want to splash some water on your face before facing the bull.”
“The bull,” to Coach’s never-ending frustration, is a nickname that has stuck since Kieran once swore up and down he saw smoke coming out of his ears when a ref made an unfair call.
Groaning, I painfully skate over to the bench and squirt water on my face.
Kieran is right behind me, his lips parting, and before he can speak, I hold up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He shakes his head, a disappointing look in his gaze that makes me pause.
I’ve been disappointing a lot of people recently—scratch that, I’ve been disappointing everyone.
“Doesn’t matter if you want to hear it or not. Coach is about to rip you a new one.”
I slump, my entire body aching as my ass hits the bench.
“If he sees you sitting —”
“I just need a moment, Kieran.” A single second where people aren’t telling me I’m fucking up my life.
He must hear the exhaustion in my voice because he remains silent, and before I know it, the bench beside me is dipping with his added weight. I can’t help but side-eye him. His black hair that’s usually tousled is slicked back with his sweat, and besides a light flush to his cheeks from the exertion in practice…Kieran looks utterly fine.
A crooked smile stretches across his lips. “Now you’re thinking of how I
handle my liquor.”
Yes.
“No,” I lie.
Was it wise to go out partying the night before practice? No.
Was it wise to get so shit-faced I spent the entire training session puking
instead of skating? Absolutely not.
Did I have a choice?
This is where my brain gets scrambled.
Everyone has a choice. I’m not a child. I understand life has consequences—heartbreaking, life-altering consequences—but there is something genuinely wrong with me. A piece of me is broken, and my brain continues to short-circuit any time I’m faced with the choice to either pick my life back up again or continue to flush it down the toilet.
“CRAWFORD!”
My eyes bug out of my head, pain thundering across my skull as I stand too quickly and spin to face Coach’s thunderous expression.
“What part of my office now did you not understand?” The look he sends me after finishing that statement tells me he doesn’t want a response.
Kieran claps me on the back. “Just breathe through the pain.”
No amount of breathing will get me through one of Coach’s talks.
I doubt even alcohol will.
And that is saying something.
“You look like shit.”
It’s the first thing Coach has said to me since I stepped into his office
twenty minutes ago.
Twenty. Minutes.
I thought I was going to walk in here, get screamed at a little where he’d tell me to knock it off and never come to practice drunk again, I’d apologize, and then go on my merry way. What I didn’t expect was for him to spend a grueling one thousand and two hundred seconds staring at me.
It was as if the man was trying to see all the way into my broken soul.
It was unnerving to say the least.
“I… apologize?”
His brows rise sky-high. “Was that a question or a statement?”
Rubbing a hand over my face, I relent, “I’m not quite sure what you want to hear from me, Coach.”
Without missing a beat, he leans forward. “I want an apology, but all you seem to hand out these days are fake ones until you can turn around and do the next stupid thing that piques your interest.”
I don’t have a response to that because it’s true.
It’s all true.
“What happened, Grayson?”
My head snaps up at his tone, at the sadness in his gaze, at the use of my first name. Coach can’t do that. He can’t go soft on me, cannot give me a reason to feel a single thing.
“You know exactly what happened,” I answer gruffly.
“He wouldn’t have —”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I practically growl, my temper rising.
Shock flickers across his gray eyes. He leans back in his chair and assesses me once more, except the disappointment is so evident in his gaze it begins to crush me. I can’t help but let my eyes stray to the clock. My skin feels like it’s crawling with a thousand ants. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable
sitting in this office before.
Coach is a hard ass but he feels like family.
Perhaps that’s why this hurts so much.
“I can’t keep giving you free rein to piss on this team. Not only is it a disservice to your teammates, it’s a disservice to you.”
At the seriousness in his tone, my spine straightens.
“What are you saying, Coach?”
“That you no longer act like a team captain or a team player.”
My heart plummets. I don’t think it’s even within my body anymore because all I hear is the roar of blood in my ears.
I cannot lose this team. This team is all I have left.
“Until you can respect this team like you once did, you are no longer team captain.”
The sudden panic that entered my body vanishes within the blink of an eye.
I wait to feel it, to feel the sadness over losing the title I strived toward for years. The title I took to heart and wore on my sleeve with pride. Yet nothing happens.
My heartbeat returns to a steady pace, my shoulders sag, and I feel…
nothing.
I’m utterly empty.
Clearing my throat, I stand. “Is that all, sir?”
Coach looks shell-shocked for a moment before he glowers. “You cannot let this ruin you, Crawford. Do not let this be the thing that destroys you, that takes so much —”
“I’ve already lost everything of value.”
My voice is cold, lacking the emotions I know are buried deep within me, lacking the ring of the lie I know that statement is, because didn’t my body just feel panic for the first time in a year? Didn’t I just realize I do have something of value left in my shit life?
Standing in the silence that stretches between us, I wait for that part of me to come back, the part that cares about my life. But like the last year, it doesn’t show its face again.
Coach Anderson assesses me, his shoulders slumping as something akin to pity flashes through his eyes. “No, son,” he says softly. “No, you have not.”
Despite not feeling anything, Coach’s words won’t stop ringing through my mind.
It’s a broken record at this point. Because he’s right, I do have more to lose, it just doesn’t feel like I have anything left to give.
The second I unlock my front door, I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Kieran lounging on my sofa, eating my food.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I grumble, yet my words hold no
bite.
“Someone has to look after you.”
“Oh, was that what you were doing last night when you were pouring tequila down my throat?”
Kieran’s eyebrows quirk. “You asked for that. You know I’m not going to coddle you. If you want to burn your life to the ground, I’ll be beside you while you do it, but I’ll also be there to help you when you want to repair it.”
Kieran flinches as I dump my sports bag a little too hard on the kitchen floor. My frown only grows as he pauses the show he’s watching and turns to
me.
“Gilmore Girls…again?”
He shrugs. “What? The weather outside is perfect for it.”
“It’s always perfect weather for Gilmore Girls,” I mutter under my breath.
I’ll never admit this to him since he’d never let it go, but I do secretly love the show. I just don’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning the argument that shows targeted toward women are far superior. Every year he forces me to watch it in the fall and I pretend he’s twisting my arm, but I don’t mind it. It’s comforting.
Colorado winter, it seems, is coming early this year, and with the plunging temperatures outside, he’s right, it is the perfect weather to watch it.
“Stop changing the subject. What did Coach say?”
I advert my gaze, making myself a protein shake as an excuse, and shrug.
“The same speech he’s been giving me for months.”
Kieran’s quiet for a moment. Lifting my head, I note his quizzical gaze
and the way he watches me.
“Why are you lying to me?”
Because the second you find out, you won’t be Team Let My World Burn Down.
“I’m not.” Peering around the kitchen, I’m surprised to find it still messy from last night’s escapades. “Have you seen Ashley?”
“She quit. Why are you lying about lying?”
“She quit?” I rub a frustrated hand down my face and groan. “That’s the seventh one this year. My agent is going to kill me.”
“Lucy will be fine. Stop ignoring me.”
Pulling out my phone, I send a text to Lucy updating her about Ashley and asking for another replacement. God, I already feel shitty enough. This…
this is not helping.
“Grayson.”
“Kieran,” I parrot.
Shoving off the couch, he moves to stand on the other side of the kitchen island, watching me as I furiously clean dishes. I don’t mind cleaning. In fact, I find it therapeutic; the only reason my assistants are required to do it is because I’m usually too busy. By the time I come home after a game or a day of practice and workouts, I’m so exhausted I can’t move.
“Maybe I’m not paying the assistants enough,” I mumble.
“Their salary is enough to feed a family of fourteen. You pay them too much.” Now suddenly in front of me, he slaps his hand over mine, stopping me from rinsing a cup. “What did Coach say?”
“Nothing, Kieran. Drop it.”
“No, what did he say?”
“Drop it,” I growl.
He slaps the cup out of my hand. “No. Tell me what he said!”
“I’m not captain anymore!” I snap, shaking off his touch. “Are you happy now? Does that fulfill your desire to know everything?”
My chest is heaving by the time I’m done spewing the words, and instantly, remorse slams into my chest. That was a dick thing to say. I know the reason why he always needs to know what’s happening around him.
Kieran tenses, his body coiled tight.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said —”
He holds up his hand. “I pushed you. It’s fine, you hit back verbally.” He drops down onto the kitchen stool. “He really took your captaincy away? No one deserves that title more than you. You gave your everything to earn that title.”
“And then I stopped caring.” Swallowing thickly, the words feel like razor blades as I admit, “He was right to take it away.”
Kieran’s face suddenly grows serious, and out of everything I’ve experienced today, that is the most frightening sight.
“What did you tell him?” he asks.
Shrugging, I continue cleaning. “I didn’t beg him to keep me on as
captain if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not? You love being team captain.”
“Loved,” I correct, putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher.
He shakes his head adamantly. “That doesn’t just go away, Grayson.”
“Yes, it does.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
AGENT LUCY I suppose this has to do with that rumored orgy party in your yard?
Which, by the way, your publicist is pissed about.
I’ll interview candidates this week.
An orgy?
Fuck, I don’t remember that, let alone participating in one. I may be drinking myself into oblivion, but I’m not that far gone.
I need to stop letting random people in my house.
Kieran clicks his fingers in front of my face, trying to snag my attention.
“Why are you acting so nonchalant right now?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it fucking matters.”
I deadpan, “Look who isn’t letting me burn my world to the ground anymore.”
Kieran frowns, a lone drop of water gliding down his cheeks from his wet black hair.
Did he take a shower in my bathroom again? We really need to work on boundaries.
Kieran is my best friend. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for the man,
but he uses up all my products and leaves his wet towels everywhere.
Shifting my gaze, I find him gaping at me. We’ve passed as twins in the league despite no blood relation. It surprisingly helps along the ice because it confuses our opponents…or it did before I fucked up so thoroughly that I now continue to get benched or spend the majority of my time in the sin bin before being fouled out.
Coach was right to tell me to take last season off, and I know he’s right
again now in revoking my captaincy.
“Grayson, stop cleaning and talk.”
“I’m all talked out,” I admit, the evidence of my exhaustion laced in my words. “I don’t want the responsibility anymore. I don’t want to be held
responsible for anyone.”
Myself included.
Something passes across his blue eyes, similar to mine, yet the emotion is there and gone before I can clock it. If I’m honest with myself, I don’t want to know what it was.
I want to sleep…if my brain will allow me.
Without another word, I leave the kitchen, not caring if he sticks around or not. His voice rings out behind me.
“I think it’s time to pull you back from the ledge you’ve been dancing on.”
Sighing deeply, I turn to him, looking at a spot beside his head because I can’t look him in the eye as I whisper, “Don’t.”
“Fine, what do you need right now?”
“Sleep.”
He settles back onto the couch, pressing play on Gilmore Girls again.
“I’ll be down here when you realize you can’t.”
Under my breath, I curse him out using every name in the book.
Unfortunately, I know he’s right, and I fear my mind will never let me sleep peacefully ever again.
