Dean

I’M AWAKENED BY a loud, agonized groan. Christ, it sounds like someone is dying, and it takes a minute to comprehend that the tortured noise had come from me. I’m groaning, because my head hurts. No, my eye hurts. Why does my eye hurt?

I sit up and gingerly touch my face. My left eye is swollen shut. And my mouth is drier than the Sahara. Shit. I’m so goddamn thirsty. And weary— just the act of lifting my hand to my face has drained me of energy.

The molly, I realize. Last time I took some, it also left me feeling drained and achy the next morning.

I slide out of bed and discover I fell asleep fully clothed. Staggering to the closet, I open the door and study the mirror behind it. Sweet Jesus. My eye is purple bordering on black, and as I study my reflection, all the events of last night come crashing back.

Missing Allie’s play. Allie dumping me.

Garrett coming home and yelling at me. What was he yelling about… I strain to remember. Right, about missing Allie’s play. Oh, and because I’d invited half the football team over to the house and they…yup, a few of the linebackers were snorting coke in the kitchen. Fuck. That’s when Garrett pulled me aside and started railing into me. I must have said something he didn’t like, because…well, black eye.

I turn away from the mirror and sink on the edge of the bed, conducting a mental tally of what I’m dealing with right now.

I have a black eye.

I have an angry roommate who gave me the black eye. I have an ex-girlfriend.

And I made a little girl cry.

I sat with Dakota while she cried her eyes out! She thinks you hate her because she didn’t want to wear goddamn boy skates!

Allie’s angry words blare like a trumpet in my head, making my temples throb and my stomach churn. I barely make it to the bathroom in time, gagging on the bile in my throat before I even reach the toilet. I drape myself over the porcelain bowl and dry heave for what feels like hours. I didn’t eat anything last night, so there’s nothing to throw up, but my stomach keeps twisting and clenching and I can’t stop heaving.

When the nausea finally settles, I brush my teeth at the sink, then drop to the tiled floor and sit there for a while, thinking about what I’ve done. What I’ve lost.

Allie.

Beau.

Goddamn Beau. Why the fuck did he have to go and die?

The thought is so absurd it triggers a wave of laughter. Loud and uncontrollable, until my eyes are watering and I’m hiccupping.

There’s a knock on the door. “Dean…you in there?”

I cringe at the sound of Garrett’s voice. He doesn’t sound pissed, though. Just tired.

When I open the door, I find a pair of serious gray eyes peering back at me. “You okay?” Garrett says gruffly.

I laugh again. “Not in the slightest.”

Guilt passes through his expression. “I’m sorry about the shiner.” He curses. “But goddamn it, man, you had it coming. You should see the mess those guys left. The house is trashed.”

I drag a weak hand over my scalp. “I’ll clean it. And don’t worry about the shiner. I deserved it. I’m surprised Allie didn’t give me a matching one.”

Just saying her name is brutal. It feels like someone cut my chest open with a skate and is stabbing the blade into my heart, slicing it to ribbons.

I can’t imagine how she’ll ever forgive me. I wasn’t there for her opening night. Hell, I wasn’t there for her even before that. For three weeks I’ve been walking around in a fog, doing my damnedest to try to forget that Beau is dead. Whenever he crossed my thoughts, I’d crack open another beer or roll another joint, because it was the fastest, easiest way to shut down my brain.

Allie’s dad had said he didn’t trust me to take care of her. And he was right. I can’t even take care of myself, apparently.

“Wellsy is pissed at you,” Garrett says.

“I’m pissed at myself.” I groan, still thinking about the sheer magnitude of my screw-up. “I…” My throat hurts. “I miss Maxwell.”

Garrett murmurs, “I know.”

“It wrecks me to think I won’t ever see him again.” “I know.”

There’s a beat, and then Garrett surprises me by hauling me in for a hug. Not a macho side hug or quick chest bump, but a real hug, with both his arms around me, gripping me tight.

I hug him back. “I’m sorry, man. About the house. The drinking. Just everything.”

“I know,” he says for the third time.

A door creaks open. “Is this a private homoerotic moment? Or can anyone join in?”

I laugh weakly as Logan lumbers toward us. Garrett releases me, and Logan takes his place. His hug is briefer, but no less comforting.

Logan slaps my back and says, “You up for practice today?” His gaze carefully studies my left eye.

“I don’t have much of a choice,” I answer with a sigh. “I’ll just go in and let Coach decide if he wants me on the ice. With this shiner, he’ll probably banish me to the weight room.”

I wish I didn’t have to go, though. All I want to do this morning is drive to Bristol House and see Allie. Throw myself at her feet and beg her to take me back.

“We’ll tell him we were acting out a scene from Fight Club,” Garrett jokes, before his expression goes serious again. “He doesn’t have to know what really went down. The party…the drugs…”

I nod gratefully. “Thanks.”

And other than my eye, there’s really no other sign that anything untoward happened last night. The good thing about my partying—not that anything in my life can be described as good right now—is that I possess the scary ability to bounce back like nothing happened. I drink like a fish? No hangover. I smoke weed? My head is clearer than the blue skies the next

day. Today, I’m a bit slower to move, but that’s because of the crushing weight pressing down on my heart.

I pushed away the most important person in my life last night. It floors me, how in three short months, that’s what Allie Hayes has become. She’s everything to me.

Tucker has breakfast waiting for us downstairs. We eat, then book it to the arena, where Garrett swipes his ID at the door and leads the way to the locker room.

The four of us halt the second we enter the room. Coach Jensen and O’Shea are congregated in the corner of the room, chatting with a lanky, bespectacled man who’s wearing a blazer and carrying a briefcase. A few of our teammates are loitering around, but nobody says a word. Hollis nods at us. Fitzy does a double take when he notices my shiner.

“Morning, Coach,” Garrett calls out warily. “What’s going on?” “Drug testing,” is the terse reply.

My heart drops. Splat. It just hits the floor. The nausea? Well, that rises.

Soars up to my throat and clamps it shut.

My gaze shifts to O’Shea. He gazes back, utterly expressionless, but I get the sickening feeling that he’s responsible for this. Random drug testing isn’t a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence—it happens all the time in college sports. But our season is almost over. Hell, our season is in the toilet, with zero chance of going to the playoffs. There’s no reason to spring a spot drug test on us.

My queasiness gets worse and worse as other players file into the room. I can feel O’Shea’s dark eyes boring into me, but my gaze stays glued to my boots. I’m in a state of panic, living out my very own Tell-Tale Heart, except instead of hearing a dead man’s heartbeat under the floorboards, I’m excruciatingly aware of the blood in my veins. The steady flow of it, surging, pulsing, tainted with the molly I took last night.

As my pulse drums in my ears, I draw in a shaky breath, exhale slowly, and make my way over to Coach Jensen.

“Coach…can I speak to you in private?” I mutter, and just like that, he gets the look. The one that tells me he knows exactly what I’m going to say, and that he’d rather slit his own wrists than hear me say it.

“Sure,” he answers after a long, strained beat.

He leads me to his office. We don’t sit. I don’t speak.

He waits, but I can’t bring myself to voice the confession. Christ. I’m so disgusted with myself right now. So fucking ashamed.

Coach sighs. “You’re gonna make me ask you, is that it? Fine, I’ll ask.” He pauses. “What’s going to happen when you piss in that cup, Dean?”

The shame builds inside me until I can practically taste it when I gulp. “What are the results going to show?” he pushes, his expression

unbearably resigned. “Marijuana? Cocaine?” “MDMA,” I mumble.

He closes his eyes briefly. Then he opens them. “All right. Thanks for letting me know.”

I leave his office feeling like a man on death row. Two days later, I get kicked off the team.