Page 100 of Against The Boards

He leaned down to kiss me, and I leaned it into, pulling his face down to me by grabbing his hair. I slipped him some tongue, but mostly just to gross out my brother.

“EW!” Tristan yelled.

My dad glared at my boyfriend, and I glared back. “You”—I pointed at my dad and then at Tristan—“and you better be nice to him today. I have to get to work.” I turned back to my boyfriend with an apologetic look, but he shooed me away, and I got out of there as quickly as I could.

I didn’t envy my man today. Bag skating was bad enough, but it was torture when you were hungover.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

BENNY

My legs were on fire as Alain Desjardins blew the whistle and shouted, “Again!” in his French-Canadian accent. What did I do to deserve this? Oh right, I fucked his daughter, and now he and his son were punishing me for it.

It was so worth it. She was worth it.

I glanced over at TJ, and he grinned as he pumped his legs and skated down the ice. I sighed and sprinted off to follow him. Of course, Alain was making us bag skate today. I was starting to dislike Rox’s dad.

I followed TJ to the blue line and back, feeling the ice beneath my skates and getting my bearings. I was no slouch during the off-season; I hit the gym every day and trained with my teammates as much as possible. I shouldn’t have been struggling on the ice today, but I was hungover and felt like I was going to puke.

We skated over to the bench for a water break. Alain skated around the rink and took shots at the goal at the other end. I gulped down my water and stared at him in disbelief.

“Damn, your dad could still play. He’s still got it,” I said to TJ.

TJ laughed. “Yeah, I think he only retired because Mom was afraid of him getting another concussion.”

That explained a lot about why my girl was scared about playing hockey after her own concussion.

I took my helmet off and shook out my sweaty hair. “T, I’m sorry you had to hear—”

TJ held his hand up to cut me off. “Stop. I never want to hear that again.” He started making a puking sound, and I punched him in the shoulder. He laughed and shrugged. “But I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“No?”

“You’ve been in love with my sister since the day you met her, but you always put your foot in your mouth and pissed her off.”

I smirked and took another sip of my water. “Still kind of do.”

He shook his head and gave me a funny look. “Did you call her some sort of pet name this morning?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Hmm.”

I eyed him carefully. “What?”

He shrugged. “I thought she didn’t like that.”

“She doesn’t like being called baby. She gave me the business about that. I call her angel.”

TJ furrowed his brow. “Did you give her some cheesy line about her falling from heaven or some shit?”

I shook my head. “Fuck no! She crawled up from hell to annoy me, duh.”

TJ burst out in laughter. “Holy shit. Did you say that to her?”

I gave him a look.

“Christ, Benny, how are you not dead?”