Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“I was telling Leighton to bring Miles to my wedding to Michael,” she says, chipper as ever. “You can come too if you want.”
Dad’s gaze whips to me, eyes etched with shock, his jaw set hard.
“You’re in a relationship…with Miles?” he demands, then turns to Mom. “And how did you know before me?”
Mom cackles like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “Oh, Noah, you were never good at anything besides hockey. You just can’t catch on. They went to a coffee shop together before they arrived together, and they had the same name on the cups. Boo.” She pauses dramatically, then adds, “It’s a nickname for a significant other.”
I. Die.
“It’s his dog’s name,” I blurt out defensively, too defensively, but it’ll do nothing pointing out the name of Miles’s mom’s pup.
She laughs. “Leighton, baby. Really?”
“Yes,” I shout because this isn’t how my dad was supposed to find out. This is an epic shit fest.
“We’re rooming together,” I add, scrambling. “We got coffee on the way to work. That was it.”
Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. I’m lying now. I’m my mother.
And I can’t let that happen. I part my lips to speak, to tell my father the truth I’d planned to tell him before the game when my mother smirks and says, “Is that why you were in the stairwell together too?”
My heart plummets.
She saw us.
“Leighton,” my father says heavily.
The ground is opening up beneath me and swallowing me whole. This is so much worse than I’d imagined.
Mom shrugs. “Besides, I saw the way he looks at you. Like you’re the one. Really, it doesn’t take much to put two and two together. But that was never your forte, was it, Noah?”
She’s awful. But I’m worse.
I turn to my dad. “Yes, we’re together, Dad,” I say just as Miles emerges from the locker room, dressed to board the bus that’ll take them to the team jet.
My dad snaps his gaze to the guy he wants to trade, looking at him like he can’t believe he ever trusted him. Then he looks at me the same way.
I can’t believe how badly I’ve messed everything up.
48
EXCUSES, EXCUSES
Miles
For several interminable seconds, Coach McBride doesn’t move. He doesn’t move a single goddamn muscle on his face. And I have no clue what that means because he has the best poker face I’ve ever seen. Then he says, “Excuse me.”
That’s it. Just excuse me—and he walks away, heading down the hall. Leighton’s mom has the decency to look mildly chagrined as she says to her daughter, “I’ll check in with you soon about the wedding photos,” then disappears the other way.
Leighton doesn’t answer her.
I don’t know what to say.
My world is cratering. He might be trading me. But the fact that he might be mad at his daughter is what matters most. I look at Leighton. Then I follow him, catching up quickly with her right behind me.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m crazy about your daughter—”
Coach holds up a stop-sign hand. “I am not interested in hearing about your emotions right now. I am disappointed in you—no, disappointed doesn’t even begin to cut it,” he says, his voice ice cold, like a knife’s steel edge in winter.
Holy shit. I can’t believe I’d thought this would be easy. I can’t believe I was such a fool, thinking the fact that I’ve had a good relationship with him means anything. I’d thought him being a good guy would matter. But the problem isn’t him—it’s me. I pride myself on being a good guy. But I didn’t act like one.
I swallow roughly, past the knot of shame in my throat. “I’m sorry, sir,” I say, but that hardly cuts it. That doesn’t do a damn thing to cover up my grave mistake.
Then he turns to the woman I love. “I am more hurt that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me you had fallen for someone. Haven’t I taught you that you can come to me for anything?”
Her eyes rim with tears, and she rolls her lips together, trying so hard—vainly—to hold them in. But one falls. “You have, and I’m so sorry,” she says, and she sounds like she’s breaking. All I want to do is hold her so she doesn’t have to fall apart alone.
But he’s not done with me either.
He points a finger my way, and it feels like I’ve been stabbed as he says, “And you—why didn’t you have the guts to come to me and say, ‘I’m involved with your daughter. Deal with it.’”
I flinch. He’s not wrong. “You’re right, sir. That’s what I should’ve done.”
“Damn right that’s what you should’ve done. And now you’re going to get your ass on the bus. I’m finished with you.”
Chastened beyond words, I turn around. Shame crashes over me like a wave, but underneath that is something sharper—a deeper ache. I’ve always wanted to do right by Coach McBride. I owe him. He turned my career around when I needed it most, and I’ve spent years trying to prove I deserved that chance.