Page 213 of So This Is War
I turn toward him and press my head to his shoulder. “Just talked to my dad.” My voice shudders. “He . . . he thinks it’s best if he and I just part ways.” I wipe at my eyes as I take a few deep breaths. “I don’t get it, Levi. I’m trying. I don’t understand why he won’t try with me.”
“I don’t know either,” he says, “but I’m going to make it right.”
“This isn’t your fight,” I say to him.
“The fuck it’s not,” he replies. “You’re mine. Therefore your baggage and your battles are mine to shoulder.”
“It’s a lost cause.”
“It’s not,” he says with such confidence that I’m definitely shocked. “I’m going to make this right. The boys and I have a plan. Just let us work our magic.”
I pull away to look up at him. “Getting the boys involved, I don’t know if that is a good idea.”
“Trust me . . . it is.” He winks, scoops me up, and carries me back to the bedroom.
Chapter Twenty-One
COACH WOOD
“You have to play Posey,” my assistant coach, Sterling, says.
I move my hand over my jaw. “Put him on second string.”
Sterling shifts in his seat. “Will, I understand you’re upset?—”
“Upset? He was fucking my daughter,” I say through clenched teeth. “In the locker room where anyone could have seen.”
“Yes, a mistake for sure, but you’ll only punish the team, our record, and chance at the Cup if you take him out. Like it or not, we need him.”
I feel like punching a wall because I know he’s right. Unfortunately for me, Posey is one of the best defensemen in the league, despite what I said to him last night. We need him. Pacey needs him because he’s slowing down. It’s showing. This very well might be his last season. Hell, it should be his last season. If I take out Posey, Pacey will have a hell of a time keeping up.
“This is bullshit,” I say through clenched teeth just as there’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” I shout.
The door opens and in walks Halsey Holmes. Easily one of our best drafts in Agitators history. The man is a machine on the ice—precise, sharp, and quick. He can see plays three steps ahead, and he capitalizes on that natural instinct. We’re fucking lucky to have him.
“Coach,” he says with a curt nod.
“What do you need?” I ask him.
He tosses a card on my desk, then stuffs his hands in his pockets. “That’s for you.”
I glance down at the card and back at him. “What the hell is this?”
“Read it. You’ll figure it out.”
I pick up the envelope but don’t open it. “If this is about Posey, I want nothing to do with it.”
“If you don’t read it, then your starting line wants nothing to do with you,” Halsey says, standing his ground. “Fuck with one, fuck with all.” With that, he leaves my office.
I look over at Sterling, who has the smallest, and I mean smallest, fucking smirk on his face.
“Get the fuck out,” I yell at him.
He stands and gathers his things before leaving. When the door is shut, I open the stupid envelope and read it.
Two things you need to know about Levi Posey:
When I was at my lowest, in a very dark place after losing my brother, Posey often slept on my couch just so I wasn’t alone. When I was reading in a corner, feeling so desperately alone, missing my brother, he’d sit next to me and stare into nothing. When I thought I couldn’t make it through Holden’s funeral, he held me up. Your daughter would be lucky to have a man like him.
