Page 50 of Rule Breaker
Kayden: Where are u?
Maddox: Back at the dorm
Kayden: Me and Dane are coming over
Maddox: Don’t
Kayden: I want to make sure you’re okay
Maddox: I’m responding to your message, aren’t I?
“Ugh, he’s driving me crazy,” I grumbled as I showed Dane the texts. He rolled his eyes.
“Let’s go. He’s on the second floor, right?”
I nodded. I’d ferreted out Maddox’s room number. Or, he’d given it to me after I asked a bazillion times.
When we arrived at room 222, I knocked twice.
Waited. Knocked again.
Dane’s phone buzzed. “It’s Jackson calling. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Dane answered his phone and walked down the hallway.
When the door finally opened, Maddox looked like his usual self, in worn jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. But when I glanced at his face, I knew he was anythingbutokay. His eyes were red and swollen, and he was still pale. Something was really fucking wrong.
“Just you,” he mumbled and opened the door wider.
I nodded, texting Dane to let him know, and entered Maddox’s room.
“What really happened out there?” I asked him.
Maddox sighed and ran an agitated hand through his hair.
“The past caught up to me.”
CHAPTER 19
MADDOX
Physically, I was fine. Mentally, I wasn’t great.
The logical part of me knew that getting hit in a game was inevitable. And an accident. One of those things. It’s hockey after all. It’d happened to me before. And when six-foot guys weighing over two hundred pounds are barreling down the ice at full speed, it’s expected. Not so much for goalies, but yeah, it happens.
Probably another reason why I gravitated toward the net.
But it wasn’t just being hit. It was witnessing the fight that ensued. I had a visceral reaction to watching someone get punched. Immediate panic. Sickness, dread. Flashbacks. Horrible memories that never faded.
Brawls didn’t happen often at this level, but fights weren’t unheard of. And I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was.
“Can I sit down?”
Kayden’s question snapped me back into the present, and I stepped aside, motioning for him to take a seat. My room was a standard one, with a twin bed, a desk and chair. That was pretty much it. Thankfully, Kayden took the chair, and I stretched out on my bed.
“You asked me about my tattoos,” I started, crossing my arms, rubbing my hands over my shoulders, then gripping them as tight as I could.
Say it.I didn’t know that I could. Not all of it.