BEGGING FOR MY HOCKEY RIVAL のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 81 - チャプター 90

ROWAN.The rain didn't stop. It slammed against the glass of Maya’s car, My sister kept talking... her fingers digging into the leather steering wheel until her knuckles went yellow. She was trying to fix it. Trying to make sense of the world while my entire chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a rusty ice pick."Rowan, listen to me for one second," Maya said, her voice sharp, cutting through the high whine of the heater as she threw the car into park in the off-campus driveway. "Dad left three days ago."I didn't move an inch. My forehead was resting flat against the freezing passenger window... blood dried stiff and brown across my swollen lower lip... my right hip flexor throbbing with a sickening, deep, pulsing heat that made me want to throw up on the floor mats."What the fuck are you talking about?..." I rasped out... my voice dry, hollow, sounding like gravel grinding under a heavy boot."Dad," she repeated, turning her whole body in the seat to look at me, her eyes w

ROWAN.Four hours of sleep. Four fucking hours in his cold, filthy sheets, sweating out every last drop of my pride while his dark room smelled like rain and stale sweat.Julian didn't come back to the house. He didn't text. He didn't call. He left me bleeding and naked in his bed like a piece of trash he was completely done using.Ten in the morning. The showcase arena was a fucking zoo. Smelled like freezing ice, stale coffee, wet rubber,and five hundred civilians crammed into the wooden bleachers. Up in the press box behind the heavy glass...thirty top NHL scouts with their black coats, silver pens, and clipboards, tracking every breath on the ice like vultures waiting for a corpse.My right hip flexor felt like a red-hot iron spike was being hammered straight into the joint with every step. I had crammed into my dark varsity sweater, pulled my compression gear on, and pulled my skate laces so tight my toes were dead numb—just so I wouldn't feel my bad leg giving out under me.I dr

JULIAN.My chest felt like a fucking engine burning pure gasoline with zero oil, metal grinding against metal until the whole machine was ready to blow.My head slammed hard to the left—a fast, ugly jerk tearing at the tendons in my neck as Coach Ted’s office door swung open, the heavy brass knob smashing into the drywall.I walked out first into the long, dark rubber tunnel leading back to the varsity locker room. My split, taped knuckles were throbbing in time with the violent, sickening pulse behind my eyes. Blood was stiff, black, and dried under my fingernails—his blood, my blood, smeared all over the chest of my dirty white away jersey like a fresh kill.I should have felt like a god. I had just taken the only early-entry NHL draft spot in the entire fucking program. I had just put my heavy boot straight on the neck of the varsity captain and stripped his whole life down to a mandatory two-month benching.He called you a disease. He called you pathetic. He told you he didn't nee

JULIAN.Christian didn't say a fucking word...He just popped the door handle, stepped out into the pouring rain, and shoved his hands deep into his leather coat pockets... heading fast toward his own sports car parked three rows over... He didn't look back at Rowan... He didn't look back at me... He just left... his red taillights flashing once through the downpour before he pulled out of the arena lot and vanished into the dark...I threw my truck into park... left the engine idling loud... and kicked my door wide open into the freezing mud..."Get your fucking ass in the truck, Rowan!" I screamed into the rain...Rowan didn't move an inch... He was standing twenty feet away under the flickering yellow light of the arena overhang... his dark hoodie completely soaked... water running down his pale cheeks in thick, dirty streams...His right hand was clutched tight around the strap of his gym bag... his knuckles white... his jaw locked so hard the muscles in his neck were shaking...He

ROWAN.The hardwood floor was freezing beneath my face... my cheek pressed flat against the damp, muddy boards as the sound of my own ragged breathing echoed off the dark entryway walls...I couldn't move my right leg... Not an inch...The moment I tried to shift my weight to push myself up, a sickening spike of agony tore straight through my groin, locking my entire torso into a rigid, breathless spasm..."Get the fuck off me..." I wheezed out against the floor, my voice weak, gravelly, stripped of every ounce of authority...Julian didn't answer with words... He just reached down, his split, bloody hands hauling me up by the collar of my soaked hoodie... dragging my heavy 210-pound frame across the floorboards toward the master bathroom at the end of the hall... My dead leg dragged uselessly over the runner rug, leaving a trail of filthy rainwater and thick brown mud behind us..."Let go, you crazy bastard!" I snarled, clawing at his wrists with my numb fingers... "I can walk on my