Page 43 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
A shiver trickles down my neck, though from the freezing temperatures of the mall or the look on Beckett’s face, I’m not sure.
“I spotted him again today, during the event, in the old arena office. He looked scared out of his skin.” He lets out a sigh, wrapping the crumbled ruins of his doughnut in a napkin and setting it aside. “I don’t know what he’s gotten himself mixed up in, but I know he needs help.” He pauses, then meets my gaze. “I think he’s the one who framed me for doping six months ago.”
My breath hitches. “What?”
The doping scandal is not fresh information. I’ve got newspaper clippings about it tacked all over my research board. But the framing, that’s new.
His jaw tightens, his gaze tracing the lines of the ceiling. “Six months ago, we had a routine drug test. Standard, expected. I didn’t have any reason to worry about the results…except when my test came back, it had traces of steroids in it.”
“You think Cole messed with your test?”
Beckett’s gaze finally finds mine. “I think Cole’s the only person on the team who knew about my history.”
I go still, my heart racing, waiting for him to go on. What history?
He pulls in a deep breath, drags a hand over the back of his neck. “When I was nineteen, I used steroids for four months of my freshman hockey season. Cole Thompson was on the team. He was there when I got caught and suspended for half a season.”
The confession drops like a stone into water, jarring against the quiet.
He goes on. “I did counseling, came back clean, and spent the next eleven years staying that way. Until the drug test.”
“The team doesn’t know about the past?”
Beckett shakes his head, glancing at his hands. “No. The coaches know. Management knows. But nobody else.”
“Except Cole.”
“Except Cole.”
“So…when your test came back positive?—”
“The organization saw a pattern instead of a setup.” Beckett props one leg up on the bed, leaning on his elbow against the arm of the sleeper sofa. “So now I’m on probation. My contract renewal depends on my having a clean season. And eleven years of keeping a clean slate, gone.”
He picks at the edge of his comforter, running his hands along the lining.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask. It’s not an accusation, just a question. I shouldn’t care, but I do. I have to know.
Beckett closes his eyes. “Because I needed to be the best. Not good. Not competitive. The best. Undeniable.” He stops. Restarts. “I needed to be worth the investment.”
“Whose investment?”
“Everyone’s. My mom worked double shifts or nights as a nurse, picked up extra shifts at a treatment center on weekends. Coach gave me hundreds of hours of free ice time. Scouts, coaches—everyone who looked at the skinny kid with a dead dad and decided he was worth betting on.” His voice has dropped. Quiet, rough. “If I wasn’t the best, all of that was wasted.”
The blizzard howls.
My head is still trying to wrap around this information, but I puzzle out the real question in all of this. “Why would Cole frame you?”
Beckett shrugs. “I don’t know—whatever the reason, I think it’s got him in over his head. I saw him during the evacuation, when everything was shutting down. He looked like he was running from someone. I tried to stop him, offered to help him. And…he shoved me in a closet.”
“Why would you offer to help him after he framed you?”
Beckett sits up, his brows pinching slightly. “Because I believe everyone deserves a second chance.”
Those words ping in my ears. It’s the same thing I said back in the elevator. Something flares inside me—heat and guilt, like a glowing ember.
His gaze finds mine, those icy-blue eyes piercing in the dark. “I’m sorry, Everly. For all that stuff in the past.”
My breath stills. My head swims. Of all the things he could have said tonight, those words were the absolute last I expected.
