HENDRIX
We shoot around to warm up, all slapping pucks toward the net.
As I skate past the goal, Cash is beside it, doing some stretches. Like me, its his first year. His stepdad also happens to be the assistant coach.
“I saw you talking to Isla Hardy.” He eyes me over, standing up straight. “The fuck was that about?”
Cash is a great goalie, but just like Isla, he’s grown up entitled because his stepdad was an NHL player, and I’m sure he’s always had a safety net underneath him. For that reason, I don’t like the fucker. Not really anyway.
“We’re old friends,” I retort, circling around him. “What’s it to you, Hale?”
“No, she andIare friends,” he says matter-of-factly. Like he knows that we aren’t friends at all. “And her dad is Cam Hardy. He’s fucked guys up for way less than going after his daughter. Trust me on that.”
I lean on my hockey stick, throwing my head back with an exaggerated laugh. “Do you think I’m afraid of her daddy, Hale?” I skate backward, away from him. “Besides, like I said, we’re old friends.”
He shakes his head, shrugging. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Hunt. Coach and Cam are best fucking friends. No way he won’t find out if you play one of your games with her.”
“Games? Only game I’ll be playing is carrying this team to our first win next week, Hale.” I wink before turning away from him, not giving him time to toss back anything else. Fucker probably just wants Isla all to himself; then again, who wouldn’t?
When Casco Bay College kicked me out for partying and fighting one too many times, NEU scooped me up. See, when you’re a poor, troubled kid like me, programs like the one Brody O’Brien started are shoved down your throat, and now I’m here at New England University because Brody is best friends with the coach, Cade Huff.
Cade is a recovering drug addict who did a stint in rehab when he was in college. Now that he’s turned his life around, he likes to make projects out of people like me with less-than-shiny backgrounds and debatable morals.
“You really want to piss off the coach’s kid this early in the season?” Jameson says with an amused grin. “Not to mention our goalie.”
“Hey, he was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.” I shrug. “Just because he’s the coach’s kid doesn’t mean he should tell me what to do.”
“Cash is good shit,” Jameson says. “You’ll like him.” He barks out a laugh. “I mean, you’ve kinda got to now that we’re all here at NEU and on the same team.”
“The campus is pretty big, West. Plenty of places to avoid each other when we’re not on the ice.”
“It ain’t that big,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Here comes Coach; better stop fucking off.”
As Coach Huff calls us all over, Cash’s stepdad right by his side, I skate their way. He’s right; Cash probably is all right. But until I see him play more and prove that he’s here on talent and not just because his daddy is the assistant coach, I’m not going to roll out the fucking red carpet for him.
Besides, where the hell does he get off, telling me to stay away from Isla? If anything, that’s only going to make me go around her more.
The truth is, it’s been well over a year since she rode my face in the utility closet and made me blow my load in my pants. And ever since that day, I haven’t been with anyone.
I’m determined to let her go. I mean, what the hell am I really going to get out of it? She and I could never work. She’s like a princess, but in hockey gear. She comes from a good life—aside from her biological dad abandoning her—but the way I see it, Cam Hardy made up for that shitbag. She probably spendsholidays with her family, and they make her birthday cakes and shit.
I’m a kid with a broken background and a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas. I get into fights easy, and if anyone ever gets close to me, I sabotage anything we may have before it even starts.
I’ve got nothing to give Isla besides a few nights to regret and a sore pussy the day after. And even though she let me eat her out in that closet, something tells me that it was out of her norm and won’t happen again. She’s too scared of disappointing someone after all.
But even knowing all that, now that she’s here, I won’t be able to stay away. I’m going to get to her again, only this time, it’ll be a lot more than my eating her pussy that she’ll regret.
I’ll make sure of it.
FIVE
HENDRIX
I stand in the shower,running my soapy hands along my wet skin before rinsing off the sweat from practice.
The team has to go to a dinner at an Italian joint right off campus, Antonio’s, but it won’t just be the men’s hockey team; the women’s will be there too.
We found out about some off-the-wall athlete auction bullshit that both hockey teams have to take part in for the One Wish foundation. I can’t lie; the thought of watching some fucking perverts outbid a room full of people just to take Isla on a date has me fucking annoyed. I mean, I’m all for charity. Especially this one, seeing as it sort of changed my life. But auctioning off dates? Christ almighty, that can’t be an actual thing we’re doing in this day and age.
