Page 79 of Pucking Them
Eden pushes away the tray, watching me closely.
“What, principessa?” D’Angelo narrows his eyes.
“What if it’s to do with the death threats?” I duck my head. “There have been haters, since we went public about our relationship. Eden and I have been screening them. It’s our job to shield Shay and you, so that you can play your best game on the ice. Dad and security know. It’s another reason that they’ve been increased.”
D’Angelo’s expression is tight. “You should still have told us.”
I tilt up my chin. “As PR Director, it was my decision to make. You may be in charge with your team but don’t forget that you don’t control me.”
Shay whistles. “You tell him, love.”
When D’Angelo glares at him, he shrinks back.
“She did the right thing,” Eden says. “What if it’s the Webbs who are watching my brother?”
Shay goes unnaturally still. The color drains from his cheeks.
Shit.
Suddenly, my phone rings on my nightstand. I jump, as it sounds loud in the silence.
“I’m sorry. I need to answer.” I reach over Shay to snatch my phone. To my shock, I can feel that he is trembling. Determined to help, I drape myself on Shay’s lap to try and pull him back into the present, where he has me warm and heavy on his knee, rather than leave him alone in his dark past, where he is hungry and cold.
Shay blinks, as if coming back to himself. His expression clears.
He smiles, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, Dad,” I answer the answer, trying not to make it sound like I am sitting naked in Dad’s star player’s lap.
“Pass me onto D’Angelo,” Dad barks. “I can only reach his voicemail.”
I wince.
I should have known that it would be Dad calling first thing in the morning, before any of us are dressed.
He doesn’t allow D’Angelo to fucking breathe.
Why didn’t I realize before just how much control Dad holds over D’Angelo?
He barely allows his captain more than a couple of hours away from work.
Even when we tried to have a single weekend in the last eight months together, Dad still interrupted it. Over Christmas, he insisted that D’Angelo work on hockey strategy. When we were meant to be spending New Year’s Day together, Dad called D’Angelo into his study, after we’d shared dinner together with Dad, to talk to him one-to-one.
Has Dad been treating D’Angelo the same as he does Cody? Abusing him, only D’Angelo never realized it because of his own traumatic background?
D’Angelo views his coach as a father figure. Seeing him fall from his pedestal as the man who took him into the team and saved him, is almost as hard as it is for me to see my own dad fall.
Reluctantly, D’Angelo takes the phone.
Then he listens with a stony expression.
I can hear Dad’s tinny voice on the other end but not make out the words.
“I don’t need that,” D’Angelo replies, coldly. “I like my current therapist. They’ve helped me a lot, coach.” Then he grimaces, holding the phone away from his ear. “I’ll be there.”
Finally, he turns off the phone and passes it back to me.
“What did he want?” Eden clenches his hands on his lap. “You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.”
