Chapter 104 WESTON
Chapter 104 WESTON
WESTON’S POV
“You’re lucky they didn’t hit you any harder than they did.” The nurse said, wrinkling her nose as she put away the first aid. “Otherwise you’d be looking at a broken nose, and that’s not gonna heal anytime soon.”
I tapped a finger to the bridge of my nose, where she’d put bandage and a tape over it. It was pretty raw and even the soft graze of my finger sent a jolt of pain through me. I hissed and dropped my hand.
“I can play with a broken nose.” I grumbled, “I’ve played hockey with worse injuries.”
She sent me a dry look. “I don’t doubt it.’
The door swung open a moment later, before any of us could say anything else, and Mikealson poked her head in. She looked exhausted and not as pissed as I expected, considering how she’d spent the better part of her day running around trying to save our necks.
“Thanks so much, Jolie.” she said to the nurse, wiping sweat from her brow despite the air conditioning in the room.
Jolie sent her a neutral smile. “No problem. I gave him some painkillers, he should be back in shape in a couple weeks. I’ll excuse you in the meantime.” She sent me a small wave. “See you again, Weston.”
“I fucking hope not.” I muttered under my breath as she left, shutting the door softly behind her.
Once we were alone, Mikealson sank into one of the chairs by my side, sighing heavily as she hung her head back. “What a day.” she huffed, “I had to call off today’s practice because of you bozos, made the underclassman run laps instead.”
“That’s not gonna help with my likeability.”
“Nope.” She dropped her head and pinned me in place with her stare. “But your father did just rope you three out of a suspension and temporary game ban, so I think that about cancels out any likeability issues.”
“It might’ve made it worse.” I snorted, immediately wincing at the pain.
“I’m still gonna punish them.” she said, arms on her knees as she leaned forward in her seat. “Ambushing you like that and beating you up unprovoked was absolutely uncalled for, and not sportsmanly at all.” She sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “You need to tell them what really happened with Tyler, and you need to do it before the semi-finals. This animosity is getting out of hand. Trust me when I tell you this Weston, you do not want your teammates hating you to the point of harm.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged, gesturing lamely to my busted nose. “Found that out the hard way.”
Her gaze remained heavy on me for a long moment, it seemed like she had more to say, but all she did was sigh and slump back into her seat. “Did Andrew stay to check on you?” she asked, gaze on the ceiling.
I snorted again, unable to help myself despite the pain. “You know how he is; busy man, busy life. As long as I’m not dead.”
She huffed a breath but said nothing to that. “I’m excusing you from practice for the next week. Get your shit in order, and heal.” She met my gaze again, silencing all the protests on the tip of my tongue. “And if by then, you haven’t told those boys what really happened with Tyler’s case, I’m not letting you play the semi-finals.”
“What?” I blanked, “You can’t do that. You’d be left with neither a right nor left center.”
“Wrong.” she announced in a ‘gotcha’ tone. “I was gonna wait to announce the news with the rest of the team, but you deserve to hear it first.”
She dug into the inner pockets of her jersey jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She straightened it and handed it over. I took it and stared down at it in surprise.
Firstly, the paper was a transfer request form, about four pieces of A4 stapled together, carelessly kept in her jacket pocket. I bit my tongue on that; no one hated paperwork more than Mikealson, so her carelessness shouldn’t trigger me so bad.
Secondly, the form was a transfer request from Southridge, all the way in Ohio. His name was Theodore Grant, a sophomore, and he apparently played left center in his former team. I flipped through the pages and read through his stats, my brows going up with each line.
This kid was even more impressive than Houston had been, and he’d only been in Division I for two years. Only a year older than Elliot was.
I flipped back to the front page and stared at his picture.
He didn’t look familiar; olive toned skin, jet black hair, and sharp grey eyes that stared intently at the camera. I made a noise of surprise and handed the form back to Mikealson. She had her gaze on me, cataloguing all my reactions.
“Impressive right?” she snickered. “Once I approve the request, he’ll be here in about two weeks, just in time for the semi-finals. So if you don’t get this shit under wraps, he’ll be playing your position too, and he’ll be damn good at it too.”
“Yeah, yeah. Blackmail aside,” I glared at her.”Those are pretty impressive stats. If he’s that good, why’d he request a transfer?”
Her expression immediately sobered and she folded the form back into her jacket. I could tell she was trying very carefully to choose her words. “Well officially, he stated personal reasons. Disagreements with his teammates and such.”
I cocked my brow, “Like Houston’s case? We do not need another tyrant on the team. I’m dealing with enough as is.”
“Not like Houston’s case.” She said, her expression pinched. “I don’t know how much to tell you, since most of it is confidential.”
“Coach, I think I deserve to know what this dude’s issue is.” I insisted, at the edge of my seat with anticipation. “I'm the one who’ll be responsible for most of this shit anyway.”
“Yeah on my authority.” she drawled, met my gaze, and sighed. “According to his previous team’s record he requested a transfer and cited the cause as undue discrimination against him among his teammates. Apparently, he came out last year, as eh…bisexual…I think.” she cleared her throat, shifting in her seat, “And his team wasn’t the most welcoming. There’s reports of bullying, harassment, and well…it’s just an entirely unpleasant ordeal.”
“Oh,” was all I could say.
Her words bounced around in my head, until all I could hear was static. Mikealson kept talking, but her voice had been drowned out by the noise in my head.