Breaking The Ice [bxb]

Chapter Seventeen (pt. 2) [Liam]

Eli pulls away so abruptly he might have fallen ass-first on the ice, if he wasn't standing right next to the rink board.

For some reason, even though I know I probably shouldn't have tried to kiss him in the first place, his reaction still irritates me.

"We're literally the only ones here."

"That you know," he hisses, voice charged with more urgency than true aggressiveness. He looks around the vast, empty arena around us before saying, "Anyone could come in at any time."

"Would it be so bad if they did?"

He snorts, outraged. "Not funny."

"I wasn't trying to be." I shrug.

In just the span of a couple of minutes, Eli's whole body has stiffened. At this point, I know I really shouldn't prod, but I go ahead and do it anyway.

"Seriously. I get that Brunson isn't the type of town to throw pride parades, but don't you think you're possibly being a tad dramatic?"

Eli rolls his eyes, turning his back from me. Before he can skate away, I can still hear him mumble, "Of course you wouldn't fucking get it."

The tone and the implication of that gets under my skin. And maybe it shouldn't, I know — but it does. I start after him, catching up to him as he circles a hockey goal.

"Yeah, I really don't get it," I tell him. "Please. Explain it to me."

Eli doesn't answer, nor does he lift his eyes from the ice as he skims to the other side of the rink. I follow in tow.

"What are you so afraid of? Is it what your hockey pals will think? Public opinion around town?" A curt laugh escapes my lips in a breath. "Let me know if I'm getting warmer."

He turns around so quickly I nearly bump into him, chest to chest. "Everything's always a fucking game to you, isn't it?"

We are standing close enough that I can feel the heat off his body. "Better that than constantly worrying about what others might think," I reply a little more softly.

Everyone always has something to say about everything I do. And ten more thoughts they don't say out loud for each one that they do. If I lived my life the way Eli does, in constant alert and never-ending caution, I would not live at all.

"For you, maybe," Eli says with a shrug before skating past me, back the way we came.

I let out an audible groan before turning around to follow him yet again. "What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?"

"It means it's easy to give zero fucks, when your dad can just throw money at every little problem and buy your way into everything you want," Eli answers without turning his head to look at me. "Life doesn't work that way for the rest of us. Most people can't afford to not care, because what others think makes us."

That irks me in such a way that I stop dead in my tracks, letting him trace the curve around the goal before escaping back in the opposite direction. I don't even know where to start pointing out everything wrong with his thinking.

My dad does not just throw money at every one of my problems. That is not his way. In fact, quite recently, he took some financial freedom away from me. And the notion that everything I have, everything I worked for, has been bought with my father's money is an old one. And like most stale ancient things, it's starting to stink.