Ican hear them before I even get my key in the lock.
The sound carries through the hallway of our building, greeting me with what I can only compare to a thousand decibels. There’s raucous laughter, someone yelling about a cheap shot, and the unmistakable sound of a video game reaching critical chaos. The condo I share with my cousin, Campbell, overlooks the Potomac, all floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed brick, the kind of place that looks like it should be quieter than this. But, since we moved in, it never is.
I push open the door and the noise once muted to its thousands of decibels and out of sight now hits me like a wall.
“Stockton!” My buddy Owen’s sprawled across the sectional, controller in hand, not even glancing up from the screen. “You’re late, and I’m about to obliterate your cousin.”
“Dream on,” Campbell calls from the kitchen.
The condo is really Campbell’s. He bought it and then didn’t have to fight too hard to convince me I needed to move in as well—open floor plan, river views, the kind of space real estate agents call “sophisticated urban living.” Which right now looks like a frat house, with at least ten empty pizza boxes on the coffee table, someone’s gear bag blocking the hallway,and an empty and abandoned dirty protein shaker on the counter.
Huh. If people could only witness this outside of our little conclave. No one really understands thatthisis what twenty-something NHL players with more money than sense look like in their natural habitat.
“How was plant prison?” Owen asks, eyes still locked on the screen.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the door. “Productive.”
Ty, our teammate and now neighbor after moving in a few floors down, appears from the kitchen carrying a bag of potato chips, his kryptonite. He’s in sweats and a Dominion hoodie, wet hair suggesting a recent shower. “Did you actually learn anything or just stand there looking pretty?”
“Both. I’m multitalented.”
“Did you break anything?” Liam asks. He’s our honest-to-goodness local boy, having grown up in the area and now in the big leagues and getting to play on home turf. The dream.
“Not yet,” I say.
“Never say never!” Campbell laughs from where he’s leaning against the kitchen island. He’s watching me with that look—the one that says he knows me too well and is already three steps ahead of whatever I’m thinking.
When Campbell was drafted from our old team, the Renegades, to play on the Dominion, I’m not above saying that I was the tiniest bit jealous. Not in a competitive way, like where I was mad at him, but in that way where I wanted to be where he was, too. New team in the NHL, blazing my own trail. Goals, right? I’m lucky that it wasn’t long, maybe two weeks after he’d heard his good news, that I found out I was selected, too.
“So.” Owen pauses the game, finally looking up. “When do you go back?”
“Monday,” I respond.
The room goes silent for exactly two seconds. Then they’re all grinning.
“Dude. Didn’t have you being in your houseplant era on my bingo card for the year,” Ty says.
I flip him off and head for the fridge, but I can feel Campbell’s eyes tracking me across the room.
“If I have to do it, then I have to do it,” I say, grabbing a bottle of water. “At least the woman I’m working with is nice and not hard on the eyes.”
Oh no. Well, that’s me opening a can of worms I won’t be able to close for at least ten minutes.
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Campbell says mildly. “What’s she like? Older? A grandma?”
“Her name is Juliette.” A vision of her comes to mind, dark brown eyes drilling into me as she threads her fingers through honey blonde hair. “She’s nice, that’s all.”
“Juliette. French.” Owen’s eyes light up. “Is she hot or terrifying?”
My head swivels on its axis between the two. “Both,” I answer, once again with regret. These guys are pack animals. Once they smell blood…
“Methinks he’s got a crush already,” Owen purrs.
Campbell tosses a magazine at his head. “He only dates models, you know.”
“Stop it.” I roll my eyes. “I’m doing something for the team. It’s community service.”
“Uh-huh. That you’re forced to do, but go on and let’s sail down that river they call denial,” Ty chuckles.
