The Hockey Captain's Secret Obsession Wasn't Me?! novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Too Loud

I called my mother back from the equipment room floor, before I could lose my nerve.

I told her what the scholarship office had heard, and what Courtney had done, and that none of it was true.

My father took the phone and said, "Then pass the test," and my mother cried a little, and neither of them said anything about pulling me out.

On Thursday night I had four chapters of economics spread over my mother's old couch, and Mason was doing his best to sit on the floor without touching them.

That helped more than I could say.

"Tell me the reasons," I said to Mason. "Out loud, like you promised."

He put his pen down.

"If I sign, I'm in camp on January third," he said. "I leave in the middle of the semester. I don't finish the degree. I leave the Wolves two months before the playoffs, and Nate becomes captain with no warning."

"That's three."

"The fourth is you."

I looked at my notes and didn't say anything.

"I'd have to leave you here with Courtney, and the committee, and a whole year of people who think you cheated," he said. "I'm not going to do that."

"They'll offer again."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Mason, that's your whole life."

"No. It's one offer." He leaned his shoulder against the couch next to my knee. "I want to finish the season. I want to graduate. I want to be on this couch."

"This is a terrible couch."

"It's the best one I've ever sat on."

I laughed, and then I stopped.

I looked down at his hand on my ankle.

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