Chapter 12: The Tunnel

My stepfather found me at the top of the concourse stairs, forty minutes before the puck dropped.

He wore his old Larkfield windbreaker, the one that smelled like a closet, and he held two paper cups of hot chocolate.

"Walk with me," he said.

I took one and followed him, with my heart in my shoes.

We stopped at the rail above the empty ice.

The Zamboni was making its slow pass, and the lights shone on the new white sheet.

"Jase told me about the hotel," he said.

"Nothing happened."

"I didn't ask if anything happened."

I stared into my cup.

"I'm not angry, Melina," he said. "I'm not angry about a photo, or a boy, or anything like that."

"Then what?"

"I'm angry that somebody followed my daughter down a hallway and I heard about it from a text."

The word landed in my chest.

"Your mother and I both said it the day we married," he said. "You're mine now. That's not a rule, it's a fact."

My eyes burned.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"If someone's going after you, I want to know. Always. Before Jase, before your mother."

"Okay."

"And if it's that Tremblay boy making you cry, I'll say something."

"He's not."

"Good." He cleared his throat. "He seems decent."

"He looked me in the eye and told me about all eleven fights."

I laughed and wiped my face.

He patted my shoulder, awkwardly, the way he did everything that mattered.

"Go win your game," he said.

The game was tied 2 to 2 with four minutes left.

I sat on the bench with my notebook open to a page I wasn't writing on.

Halverson Arena was a wall of noise.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Breaking the Deal with My Hockey Bad Boy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.