Fake Dating My Ex's Hockey Star Brother (Maya Scott) novel Chapter 255

Chapter 0113

JUSTIN’S POV

“You can do it, J!” Luke’s voice echoes from where he’s leaning against the board as I cut across them. “You finish this, dinner’s on me!”

“You stingy asshole.” Cooper cuts in. “You’ve got to do more than dinner.

“Fine.” Luke responds at the top of his voice as I settle at center ice. “Dinner and I won’t tell Allison that story about you and that waitress!”

“That story is completely out of context-”

“Boys.” Coach’s voice slices across the rink. “Let him skate. He needs to focus.”

That’s not entirely true because I always hear every word they say during practice and they know it, which is exactly why they do it. But I’ve learned over the last few weeks how to let their noise sit in the background instead of allowing it to distract me. It keeps the silence from getting too loud inside my own head.

And the silence inside my head is dangerous.

I come out of the turn and set up at the far blue line, rolling my shoulders. The drill is the same one I’ve been running for eleven days straight: four laps at full sprint while Coach times

Dr. Gerald gave me a target when he cleared me, a specific window he wanted me to hit before Coach would even consider putting me back in a real practice rotation.

I’ve come close four times.

Those four times, I watched Coach’s face as he checked the timer and seen the answer before he said it. I almost did it but not yet. I was always close though.

But close is not the same thing as there, not when I have a few weeks left of the semester and my stats are dead in the water.

“You good?” Coach asks from the board.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look good.”

“I’m good, Coach.”

He holds up his timer. “On your mark.”

I find my stance at the line, weight forward, and blade edges set. My knee feels solid today, better than yesterday, better than the day before. I’ve stopped trying to predict what that means and started just trusting it or trying to.

“Go.”

I push.

The first lap is controlled because I know better than to blow everything on the first stretch.

“That’s it!” Cooper’s voice bounces off the glass. “Stay loose!”

Second lap and I open it up. The cold air hits my face harder as I accelerate through the neutral zone and I push through it.

“Two!” Luke shouts. “Come on J, come on-”

Third lap and this is always where it gets hard. Every single time, the third lap is where my form starts to fracture, where I feel the tenths of a second slipping through my fingers. My lungs are burning now, a clean honest burn, and my knee is talking to me in the way it does when I’m asking a lot of it.

I ask more.

“THREE! He’s still in it!”

“Don’t think!” Someone yells. Coach, I realize. “Don’t think, just go!”

I obey because I have no other choice.

Fourth lap and the ice narrows down to a single line in my vision, the far boards rushing toward me. My blades eat up the distance in long strides, everything in my body screaming and I let it scream because I’ve been here before, I’ve been right here and come up short and I know exactly what that feels like.

I hit the transition hard, maybe the hardest I’ve hit anything since the accident, and i come out of it already in full sprint, my arms pumping as I cut towards the board.

With a sharp turn, I stop, ice spraying the boards, my chest rising and falling as I pull my helmet off.

There’s dead silence for exactly one second as my gaze jumps from one face to other, before landing on Coach.

He looks at his timer, then looks at me and I know it’s just seconds but I’m about to combust.

Slowly, he smiles. “You did it.”

Something cracks open in my chest.

“YEAH!” I throw my stick away, my voice echoing so deeply. “Fuck!!”

The noise that comes out of Luke is inhuman as he rushes towards me, Cooper clears the boards so fast he nearly takes Coach down with him, and then they’re all on the ice, all of them, ambushing me with cheers and joyful chants.

“That’s it! That’s the one!” Cooper boasts. “I knew he was gonna do it this time.”

There’s an unusual number of them angled toward our section, the kind of casual hovering that isn’t casual at all as they keep adjusting positions near the counter, finding reasons to walk past our booth, their laughter pitched just slightly too high.

I glance at Cooper.

He has the expression of a man who has been personally wronged by the concept of female attention. His jaw is set, his arms are crossed over his chest, and he’s staring at his glass,

“She’s pissed?” I ask.

“Slightly annoyed, in her words.” He doesn’t look up. “And it’s not about me being here.”

“So what?”

He sighs. “Your sis keeps talking about us breaking up when I graduate. She says most couples can’t handle long distance, and she’s scared. And I keep trying to tell her I’m down for anything as long as she’s mine. It just…” He exhales again. “It pisses me off that she doesn’t know how much I actually love her.”

Am I slightly repulsed when he talks about Katy? Maybe a little. But I’ve heard her moan his name far too many times to feel anything about it anymore.

“It’s the same with most girls,” I tell him, drawing from my own understanding. “They need constant reassurance. We just have to give and keep giving.”

“But I do give.” He rubs his jaw. “I don’t mind that part. I just feel like she’s trying to pull away

like she’s protecting herself when I haven’t even given her a reason to.”

“How often does she bring it up?”

He picks up his phone, shows me the screen without a word, and I see a text thread with Katy and catch just enough to know the conversation has been going on for some time. He puts the phone back face down.

“You get it now?” he asks.

I exhale. “Want me to talk to her about it?”

He hesitates, brows pulling together as he thinks. Then he shakes his head. “If you’re gonna do that, I want to be there.”

A smile breaks across my face and I nod. “Got it.” I tap his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I know my sis is tough, but she’s worth it.”

“I know, I know.” He smirks, barely holding it back. “She just has to understand I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I want to be.”

I shake my head. “Enough.”

He bursts into laughter, already reaching for another beer from Luke.