Chapter 65: A Dangerous Gamble 1
Micah’s POV
Being Noah’s assistant for the day couldn’t be that hard, right?
All it took was holding his gear, keeping track of his water bottle, and staying out of the way. Simple. Easy. At least, that was the lie I tried so hard to feed myself on the ride over.
Nobody had mentioned that I would be forced to sit at the front of the player’s bench... exposed, completely vulnerable, and forced to watch the entire brutal practice unfold right before my eyes.
The icy draft from the rink slapped against my skin, making my cheeks sting, but the cold outside was nothing compared to the freezing anxiety paralyzing my chest. Before I got into university, Noah used to give me generic, upper-deck tickets whenever I wanted to watch his games. I always sat so far up in the stands that the players looked like dark specks on the ice. He never offered me a VIP seat, even though Father always sat in the front row with the school board, smiling proudly.
I never understood back then why Noah kept me so far away. But sitting here now... feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of his eyes tracking my every single breath between drills... I finally understood.
He didn’t keep me in the stands back then to hide me from the game. He did it to keep me isolated in the crowd. Now, he kept me right beside him on the bench to remind me that I was under his thumb. I was his trophy. His captive.
The sharp, piercing sound of a whistle suddenly blew through the air, shattering my thoughts. The new coach stood just a few feet away from me, his breath puffing into white clouds in the frigid air.
"Take a short break, guys! Ten minutes!" the coach yelled, stomping his heavy boots against the rubber matting as he walked past me to grab his notepad from the bleachers.
A collective groan echoed from the team as a dozen heavy, armored hockey players began gliding toward the bench. The heavy thud of their ice skates against the wooden boards sounded like gunfire in my ears. I instinctively shrank back into my oversized sweater, wanting nothing more than to dissolve into the chair behind me.
"Still looking at other people, huh?"
A deep voice spoke right beside me. I flinched, snapping my head up to see Noah leaning heavily against the bench partition. His helmet was off, his damp hair clinging to his forehead, and heavy sweat rolled down his flushed neck.
Without waiting for him to ask, I quickly reached down, grabbed his designated water bottle from the carrier at my feet, and handed it to him. Noah snatched it from my hands and instantly tilted his head back, gulping down the liquid in desperate, heavy swallows. I watched as stray droplets of water escaped the corners of his mouth, trailing down his sharp jawline, running over his throat, and soaking straight into the fabric of his dark team jersey.
My own throat squeezed painfully tight. A sudden, agonizing wave of thirst hit me just watching him drink, my mouth feeling as dry as sand from pure, unadulterated panic.
"Oh! Who is this pretty boy?"
The loud, obnoxious voice came from further down the bench. I froze. A player I didn’t recognize... one of the broad-shouldered defensemen was twisting the cap off his own water bottle, his eyes locked straight onto me with a smirking, brazen curiosity.
Before I could avert my gaze, the player sitting right next to him brought his gloved hand down hard, slapping the back of his head with a loud thwack.
"Shut up, man," the second guy hissed under his breath, pointing a tense finger toward me. "That’s the captain’s younger brother."
A few of the guys standing nearby gasped, including the rookie who had asked. Their eyes widened as they openly stared at me, unbothered by how uncomfortably close I was sitting.
"Damn," the rookie murmured, his eyes scanning my pale face and small frame without a shred of shame. "He’s so pretty I almost mistook him for a girl."
"They’re probably not even related," another player scoffed from the edge of the ice, letting out a breathy, dismissive laugh. "Look at them. Look at how strong and built our captain is, and the brother is... fragile. Like a breeze could break him."
The moment those words left his mouth, a few of the guys let out low, amused chuckles.
Humiliation flared hot behind my eyes. My cheeks burned with a fierce, stinging shame as I stared down at my knees, my fingers digging brutally into my thighs through my pants. Fragile. Weak. Pathetic. They saw right through me. They saw the weak, broken boy that both Noah and Father treated like trash.
Suddenly, a terrifying, sickening sound cut through their laughter.
CRACK.
The laughter died instantly. A heavy, violent silence slammed over the entire bench.
I whipped my head around. Noah was sitting two feet away from me. He hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t raised his voice. But his bare hand was clamped around a heavy plastic water bottle with such insane force that the thick plastic had completely imploded, snapping in half with jagged, sharp edges.
The leftover water spilled violently over his lap, soaking through his hockey pants. But it wasn’t just water spilling onto the floor.
The jagged, shattered plastic had sliced deep into the flesh of Noah’s palm. Bright, crimson blood began to pool rapidly in his hand, dripping through his fingers and splattering onto the pristine white ice below us.
"Noah!" The horror exploded out of my chest before I could stop myself.
I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist with trembling hands and immediately pressing my clean cotton handkerchief firm against the gushing wound on his palm. "You’re bleeding! Oh God, Noah, you’re bleeding so much... let’s get you to the infirmary right now!"
My heart was hammering against my ribs so fast I felt sick. Panic blinded me. I was terrified, scrambling to stop the bleeding, but when I chanced a look up at Noah’s face, my chest went completely numb.