JAY
I swallowed hard, trying to remind myself that this dislike of Volkov was irrational. He was my teammate, and that was the only thing that mattered right now. “Volkov. Let’s practice. Coach is expecting us to improve.”
His gaze slid to mine, and a smirk tugged at his lips. “Expecting you to improve.”
“There’s always room for improvement, even for you.”
“Maybe so.” He studied me for a moment, the rage in his eyes fading away to be replaced with amusement. “We will make it interesting. A wager.”
“A wager…” I repeated slowly.
“Yes. If you can score eight times before our hour is up, you can have one dance at my engagement party.”
Jerking back in shock, I stared at him. “What?”
“You.” He pointed at me. “Score eight times.”
“Yeah…”
“Then I will allow you to dance with my beautiful fiancée at our engagement party.” He moved closer, lowering his voice. “I have seen the way you look at her.”
Fuckfuckfuck. My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat. “You bastard,” I whispered.
“Yes. Do we have a deal?”
“Fine,” I managed. What else was I supposed to say? Spinning around to face Enzo, I raised my voice, using every trick I knew to keep it steady and my face free of emotion. Another two Whelford players had joined Bellingham and Fontana on the ice, doing warm up stretches. “You stay in your zone, and we’ll stay in ours. No crossing the centre line.”
Enzo rolled his eyes but nodded. With another jerk of his head, he sent his teammates skating down the other end of the rink, and finally, turned his back on us and left to join them.
When Volkov was back in front of the goal, I lined up a series of pucks and hit them one after another as fast as I could, skating up and down, putting everything I had into getting them inside the net. Although I was doing everything I could to push everything aside and focus on the ice, alarm bells were blaring.
He knew.
He fucking knew.
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©️2026 Becca Steele (unedited & subject to change)