Page 33 of Ricochet

Or mine.

At this point, I’m not really sure.

The natural chemistry Stone and I had on the ice has practically vanished. With nearly every pass, the puck misses our sticks and ricochets off the boards only to get scooped up by someone else. Nate and I work a little better together, but even the solid foundation we have, the way we’ve always meshed, seems to have been shaken.

Coach has ended every practice over the past week pissed.

I don’t blame him.

I’d consider giving up my spot on the first line if this game didn’t mean so damn much to me.

There were a few reasons I started hockey just before high school.

One, I was so angry. At everything. At losing my mom. At being my stepdad’s punching bag. It seemed like a good way to give all that anger some kind of outlet, and it was. Not enough, but it helped.

Two, I realized how often I was starting to flinch. Away from every person, every touch. It was instinct, a response I couldn’t control. I didn’t want to live like that, worried someone would notice and ask me about it.

So I joined the hockey team and let other guys shove me around, trying to condition myself to get used to it. I don’t know if it was through the violent contact of the sport or by some sheer force of will, but I grew out of it.

When I’m off the ice, I still sometimes have to fight that initial impulse. Like at the party when Jesse crashed into my back.

Or when Stone slammed me against the tree.

But with the latter, something different happened.

I didn’t feel the urge to flinch away.

I didn’t want to.

I figured out what else he smells like, the other scent I couldn’t name before. His eyes are a forest in the fog, but he smells like a forest in a storm. Pine and ozone. It’s fitting considering the effect he has on me.

The proximity to Stone stirred something inside me I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. I’ve never felt sexual arousal around another person. Attraction, maybe. But not that.

There was a heat in my lower belly, every inch of my skin full of static electricity. I wanted him to keep touching me. I wanted his skin on mine.

I’ve neverwantedlike that before.

Despite Jesse’s theory, I don’t think it has anything to do with orientation. I’m pretty sure I’m just broken. Because thefact that Stone of all people could make me feel those things has had me all sorts of fucked up.

It’s not even that he’s a guy. I’ve found both men and women attractive, though it always felt more like appreciation or admiration than attraction. Perhaps if I had lived a different life, if my past wasn’t my own, I’d know myself better.

But all of that has been the least of my concerns this past week.

I can’t forget the way he looked at me before he ran off…

Coach’s whistle blows.

Has it been an hour and a half already?

My concentration is shot to hell.

Nothing helps.

Not hockey. Not art.

My mind is a maze of devastation and turmoil.

“Simmons! Hayes! Wakefield!” Coach Hill shouts from where he’s skating around center ice. “Hang back.”