MADDIE
“Three seconds left in overtime. Oliver Weber steals the puck. A pass to Alec Wolfe!”
The cheering crowd suddenly quieted down for the last three seconds of the game, excitingly watching Alec skate down the ice with the puck. He snapped his wrist, sending it flying across the ice and straight into the net.
“SCORE!” the announcer shouted over the intercom. “Alec Wolfe scores the winning goal for Redwood Academy!”
The mob of students roared in excitement, waving their arms and cheering for their favorite players. Even I screamed until my throat hurt, watching Alec from the stands and actually smiling genuinely for the first time since last Friday.
Once the game was over, Piper pulled Vera and me out of the stadium and into the hallway to wait for the team. “I don’t know how Alec does it,” Piper said. “But he always comes out on top.”
“He’s not that good,” I said.
Well, he was, but I didn’t want to boost his ego too much. That man knew he was a god, but if he thought that I thought he was a god, then he would make me treat him like one in the bedroom.
“He literally scored every goal tonight,” Piper fired back.
Vera scoffed playfully at me and rolled her brown eyes. “You’re so full of it, Maddie. You love him, and we all know it.”
Love?
I did not love Alec. But … maybe I did like him a bit more than I’d been putting on.
“There he is!” Vera shouted once the rest of Redwood Academy and the hockey team spilled out into the Redwood hallways.
Vera looped her arm around mine and jumped up and down excitedly for me as Blaise stood off to the side, leaning against the exit door, crossing his arms, and raising a suspicious brow at his girlfriend.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Alec walk through the crowd, giving people small smiles. But his eyes didn’t really light up until he saw me standing across from him in the packed corridor.
Before I even had a chance to turn around and run far away—because everyone was around—Sandra curled her arm around his and smirked.
“I can’t believe you scored the winning goal in overtime, Alec!” She touched him like she owned him, and I hated it. “You were so awesome tonight.”
Alec stiffened, an uncomfortable expression crossing his face. Everyone at school watched him like a hawk, wondering how he would react to Sandra after they had seen the video.
“What are you waiting for, Maddie?” Vera whisper-yelled at me.
After swallowing hard, I shook my head. “Vera …”
“Why can’t you forget about what people think for once?” Vera pushed.
“I … I can’t,” I whispered, glancing at Alec.
Oliver was right there with him, watching me watch him. After the other night, he probably had his suspicions about my feelings toward Alec, but I didn’t think Oliver knew that Alec liked me too.
When Sandra pulled him closer, he stiffened even more and pulled himself out of her hold. Sandra wrapped her arm around his again—that bitch loathed rejection—and tried to tug him closer to her.
“Get off me, Sandra,” he said, his voice weak. “I have somewhere to be.”
“Somewhere to be?” she asked, hands on her hips.
Oliver slung his arm around Alec’s shoulders. “The party at my place.”
I gritted my teeth together, wanting to grab Oliver by his big ears, throw him out into the cold, and stomp on his little pea brain. All day today, he had barely looked at Alec during school, and now, he was inviting him to another party after what had happened last time!
Sure, Alec could go if he wanted, but come on!
Oliver and the team didn’t give a fuck about Alec unless Alec helped them win games against other teams, show off to recruiters, and secure their victories on and off the ice. And I fucking hated it.
Alec walked backward down the hallway in the opposite direction as the exit, hurling his thumb back. “Actually, I have something else to do,” he said, his face turning white with fear as he nearly tripped backward over his own two feet.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Alec said, taking one quick look at me.
I stared at the back of Alec’s head as he walked down the hallway. Right before he turned the corner, he looked back at me again, as if he wanted me to follow him. But I couldn’t do that with Oliver still here. No way in hell.
“You should stay at Vera’s tonight, Maddie,” Oliver said, shrugging on his winter coat and staring out the glass door windows at Redwood going insane outside. “The guys are going to go crazy. I don’t want any of them coming on to you.”
Vera slung an arm over my shoulders. “Don’t worry about that.”
I cut my gaze to Vera, who snickered to herself.
Oliver raised a brow. “What is it? Did one of them already—”
“No!” I shouted too quickly. “Vera was just kidding. She, uh, thinks I like someone in my Stats class, but I don’t.”
“Who?” Oliver asked.
“Jace Harbor,” I said, nearly puking in my mouth at the sound of his name on my tongue.
I’d never liked him, but Jace’s name got the job done because Oliver scrunched his nose.
“Jace Harbor? Isn’t he dating his stepsister or something? They were a thing a couple of months ago. Why would you like—”
“Like I said, I don’t like him. So, no need to worry.”
“You’d better not,” Oliver said. “He’s bad news.”
“I don’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
This was why Oliver couldn’t find out about Alec. If he was this protective over someone I didn’t even like, then he would flip out once he knew I was seeing his best friend, who was also Redwood’s biggest player.
“All right,” Oliver said, sighing softly to himself. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Well, I’ll see ya.”
When Oliver left, Vera hooked her arm around Piper’s and walked toward the exit, saying to me, “See you! Go find Alec!”
After they disappeared out the door, I cursed at myself and slipped down the same hallway Alec had gone down and turned the corner, glancing in rooms that Alec could be in, the scent of his cologne heavy in the air.
“Always following me, Maddie …” His arms came around my waist from behind. “I heard that you have a little crush on Jace Harbor.”
“You know that’s not true, Alec,” I said, the words coming out low and throaty.
“Of course I do, Cupcake.” Alec drew his nose up the column of my neck. “Do you want to know how I know?”
“How?”
“Because every part of you is mine.” He kissed my neck, right out in the open. “All mine.”