Page 4 of Puck Me, Valentine
But all I can think about is the winter break he spent in our guest room, and the moment I found my heavy biology thesis—the one I’d spent months meticulously annotating—shoved into the bottom of the recycling bin.
He didn’t say a word when I pulled it out, soaking and ruined. He just stood in the kitchen doorway, nursing a protein shake, and watched me with a bored expression that said my life’s work was nothing more than clutter he was ‘cleaning up’ to make room for his gym bag.
Then there were the endless family dinners where he’d sit across from me, a massive, silent wall of muscle.
Yeah, he would laugh at Sasha’s hockey stories and talk stats with my dad, but the second I tried to join the conversation, he’dgo perfectly still. He wouldn’t argue. He’d just stop talking and stare at his plate until the silence became so heavy I had to look away.
It was a calculated sort of erasure—making it clear that in a room full of people who loved me, in my own house, I was the only one whose voice didn’t matter.
He never had to call me stupid to make me feel it.
All it took was the way he’d walk into the sunroom where I kept my rescue cages and stop dead, his nose wrinkling in exaggerated disgust.
He’d never look at me, but he’d loud-whisper to Sasha about how he ‘couldn’t breathe in a house that smelled like a barn’ or ask when the ‘vermin’ were finally being evicted. He made my passion feel like a pathetic, dirty little secret, all without ever speaking a direct word to me.
Even the time he once loudly asked Sasha if his “little brother was always such a teacher’s pet, or is that new?” It only happened once, and I remember it vividly.
Because it was the last time he spoke to medirectly.
Devlin Bower became my brother Sasha’s best friend the day they first met, but somehow, Devlin and I have never gotten along.
And now, he’s looking at me like I’m the biggest problem in his world.
2
Chapter 2
Iopen my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out except a strangled noise that sounds embarrassingly like a whimper.
Devlin’s eyes narrow. “I heard my name mentioned in your little conversation.”
Something hot and strange unfurls in my chest—not fear exactly, but something sharper. Anger, maybe.
Which is bizarre because I don’t get angry. I smooth things over. I smile until the tension breaks.
But right now, with those dark eyes boring into me and his entire massive presence radiating hostility, I feel the lie form on my tongue before I can stop it.
“No one mentioned your name.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Oh shit.God, that was so stupid. I literally just said his name thirty seconds ago. Will is standing right there. Spencer heard it. Probably half the team heard it.
“Val—” Will starts, but Devlin cuts him off with a voice like a blade.
“Haven’t you noticed that fucking training is going on while you’re standing here cooing with him?” Devlin doesn’t even look at Will, his gaze still locked on me. “Arewein your way,Will? Why don’t you get back to the ice? It looks like Val has something he wants to say tomedirectly.”
The words are directed at Will, but I feel them in my bones.Cooing.Like I’m some pathetic groupie hanging around the rink hoping for attention.
“Will and I were discussing a fundraiser for the animal rescue room.” The words come out steadier than I feel. “All the coaches and the university administration are aware of it. The hockey team can participate so we can raise more funds.”
Devlin’s mouth curves into something that might be a smile if smiles could cut.
“Right, another night with a room full of useless people, all circle-jerking and patting themselves on the back for doing absolutely nothing.”
I expected this. I knew he’d say something dismissive, something cruel about the work I do. Another mockery of my favorite pastime.
But somehow, hearing it now—after Monica’s passive-aggressive radio show, after struggling all morning with the student activities board and especially working myself up to come here and beg for help—something in me just… collapses.
