Page 9 of Faking the Goal

I'm not giving him the reaction he wants.

If this is Kirk, he can take his creepy fucking dahlias and shove them directly up his ass.

The moment I step into the ice rink, the cold air hits me, and I swear my shoulders drop a good two inches.

God, I love this place.

The sharp smell of ice, the scrape of skates cutting across it, the hollow crack of a puck slamming into the boards. After spending an entire year sweating my tits off on the sidelines of a football field, I could definitely get used to this.

Coach Hopper's whistle cuts through the rink.

"Okay, boys, take five!"

The players scatter toward the bench, although a few stay on the ice, lazily passing pucks around and taking shots like apparently even when hockey players are told to stop playing hockey, they just... continue playing hockey at a slightly less aggressive speed.

I adjust the camera strap digging into the back of my neck and start toward the bench.

I barely make it halfway before one of the Archer twins spots me.

"Holy hell." Luke—or Liam; they're basically matching bookends with different dust jackets, and I genuinely cannot tell sometimes—is leaning forward on the bench, his practice jersey soaked through at the chest. "If it isn't the hottest girl on campus. And here I was thinking this day couldn't get any better."

The thing about the Archer twins is that they seem to share one brain cell whenever a woman is around, and I'm pretty sure they take turns using it.

I flash him a sultry smile.

Several heads immediately turn in my direction.

There we go.

"Careful, Archer. Keep talking like that and people are gonna think you're flirting with me."

Laughter breaks out along the bench.

"Damn right I'm flirting with you."

"Get in line, buddy," someone calls.

"There's a line?"

"There is now."

I press a hand dramatically against my chest. "Wow. I didn't know everyone on the hockey team was so obsessed with me."

"How could we not be?"

"Have you seen yourself?"

"Seriously, T. We're only human."

A laugh bursts out of me. "Aw, boys. Keep this up and I might actually enjoy covering hockey."

"That's the goal, sweetheart."

The bench dissolves into laughter, and I shake my head as I reach them, already thoroughly entertained.

Most girls would probably get uncomfortable with this many guys openly checking them out at once, but I'm used to it. The lingering looks, the flirting, the shameless comments, the way some guys suddenly remember proper posture the second a pretty girl walks into the room. None of it bothers me. Hell, sometimes it's fun.

"Hi, boys."