CHAPTER 1
AVERY
August.
“Are you even going to be able to skate with him around?” My best friend, Leif Erlandsson, glanced up from the ball he was about to putt. “Didn’t you lose an edge last time we played against?—”
“Shut up.” I gestured toward the hole with my club. “Less chirping, more putting.”
He cackled. Then he tapped the ball, which took its sweet time rolling right toward the hole… only to veer a few precious degrees to the side before coming to rest six inches from his target. Leif’s humor vanished and he huffed. “For shit’s sake.”
“Ha! That’s what you get.”
He flipped me off, but his smirk quickly returned. “You know I’m right, though. You’re going to have to spend all of training camp learning how to skate on the same ice as him.”
My face burned, and it had nothing to do with theAugust sun blazing overhead. “You’re a dick, you know that?”
“But I’m right.”
“You’re adick.”
He just chuckled, and we continued with our game. I knew this wasn’t over, though. One of our teammates had texted a few minutes ago to let us know our GM had worked some kind of wizardry with two other teams. When all was said and done, our team had offloaded a couple of forwards who weren’t gelling with the team, three mediocre prospects from the minors, and a veteran defenseman who we all knew wanted to retire closer to his hometown. On top of that, the GM had managed to shed two pricy contracts we’d retained after some awful trades by his predecessor.
In return, we had two goalie prospects, a handful of third and fourth round draft picks… and Peyton Hall.
Peyton. Fucking. Hall.
Center. Seventeenth overall draft pick five years ago. Rookie of the Year. Runner up for a scoring title two seasons in a row. Two conference championship rings and a goddamned Cup.
And yeah, I may have had alittlebit of a crush on the guy, because in addition to being a top-notch hockey player, he wassmokinghot. A little taller than me—five eleven, I thought his stats said—with wicked blue eyes and sandy blond hair that had no right to look that hot when it was sweaty and mussed. The last couple of years, he’d often sported a dusting of scruff that made him unreasonably sexy.
When we’d played against Detroit last season, he’d scored a hat trick, and his celly on that third goal really hadalmost cost me an edge. That smile, those eyes—I’d been so screwed.
I wouldn’t admit it out loud under torture, but Leif might’ve been on to something. I probablywouldhave to spend training camp—which was coming up in about a month—remembering how to skate in Peyton’s presence.
I was so stupid for him, and I knew I shouldn’t have let that slip to Leif over a few beers one night.
“No, I’d never do a teammate,”I’d slurred as we’d watched a game in his man cave. Had I been slightly closer to sober, I’d have stopped there, but no, I was drunk with my best friend, so I’d added,“I mean… not unless Gary signs Peyton Hall.”
“Ha! Iknewthere had to be one!”Leif had gestured at me with his beer bottle.“I should tell Gary to try to get him just so you have to?—”
“Leif!”His wife, Rachel, had whapped him with a pillow.“Oh my God. You are theworst.”
Yeah, he kinda was.
And now Hall was going to be on our team.
“For the record?” I said to Leif as he drove the golf cart toward the next hole. “If you breathe a word about this to Hall, I won’t just get revenge—I’ll recruit Rachel to help me get revenge.”
He shot me a wide-eyed look. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“So we have an understanding?”
Leif made a pouty sound and shook his head. “That’s so not fair. You can’t just weaponize the fact that my wife is seventy percent feral.”
“Why not?” I shrugged, grinning with triumph as I claimed the upper hand. “You knew what she was when you married her.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d try to use her against me!”
