It was all going perfect until the last three minutes.
As soon as we got on the ice I clocked Fallon in the box of Carter U supporters, pulling the sleeves of my jumper down over her hands and smiling at something that Caden’s girlfriend was whispering in her ear. I’d also managed to avoid brawling with any of the Larch Peak guys during the first two periods which, considering their play, was fucking altruistic.
Being the home state to one of the best teams in the NHL should mean that they pride themselves on smart strategy and quality players, but whenever we’ve come to face off here that’s never the case. They’re so desperate for a high ranking that their game is dirty, but it had never been personal up until now.
Having already scored three of the six goals that are about to make our win against Larch Peak U undeniable, I skate to the other side of the rink, analysing our team’s formation, checking to see if there’s anything that we can work on for our next game.
I pass Coach Benson and he gives me a subtle nod, telling me with that one gesture that he’s satisfied with our team’s play. I nod back at him and skate to the Carter U box, wanting to get my eyes on Fallon one more time before this game is over. I pretend that I’m taking a moment to catch my breath but really I’m done with this game and I’m dying to finally have my girl in my arms.
And not in the motel with the rest of the guys.
Having her in Larch Peak is important to me, and I’ve put the necessary plans in place.
From the way that my body’s feeling under my gear I can’t deny that I’m probably going to have a few bruises. The guys at Larch Peak U have hard-ons for getting up in your personal space and, even though I haven’t been brawling back, well aware that my chick’s in the stands watching my every move, most of this game has been push-and-shove. No-one’s more pissed off than Tanner, who took a bunch of deliberate hits before finally lashing out. It ended with Tanner snapping the other guy’s stick and then taking up full-time residence in the already-packed sin bin.
I don’t blame him. We shared a damn low-five before the ref escorted him off the rink.
Because at the end of the day, Tanner and I grew up in Carter Ridge. We were raised with a tight moral code but we’ll only take so much before we put you back in your damn place.
As soon as I reach the Carter U box I’m biting back a smile, looking at Fallon snuggled down in my jumper and giving me a shy thumbs-up. I check the clock on the screen and then mouth two minutes at her, a promise that this is almost done and then I can finally give her the night that she deserves.
She nods at me and her ponytail swishes, the cheer bow in her hair sparkling when it catches the light. And damn if that symbol of her loyalty to Carter U doesn’t make me the most satisfied guy on the ice right now. I drop my eyes briefly to her bare thighs, a gruff sound of approval rumbling in my chest, before I give her a jerk of my chin and finally turn around.
And that’s when it starts to go downhill.
The player who ushered us in and looked like he had a big-ass chip on his shoulder skids up right in front of me and flashes his eyes to where Fallon is sitting. The name on the back of his jersey reads O’Neill, and even that kind of pisses me off because it gets me thinking about Connell O’Malley.
I know that my slow-simmering irritation with O’Malley is unwarranted because I know that Fallon only sees him as a friend, but no-one ever said that love makes a man rational.
O’Neill’s eyes lock on Fallon and I immediately move my body, blocking her from his view. When his eyes slide over to mine I give him an emotionless look of my own.
The sly smile on his face starts a warning throb in my temples.
“That yours?” he asks, gesturing with his stick towards the box behind me.
I watch him blankly for a couple of seconds before turning my head to glance over at Fallon. Her eyes have gone wide and she’s no longer smiling, as if she can sense the impending shit-storm that’s about to go down.
When O’Neill called over to us while we were making out earlier I could tell that Fallon sensed that he was bad news. I could tell from the way that she tensed up under my palms and subconsciously pushed her little body up against me. She didn’t know yet that this is what all of the Larch Peak U players are like. Hell, a whole load of hockey players in general can be good-for-nothing motherfuckers, but it’s the same for every sport, and with experience my team has learned to take the good with the bad.
I tip my chin at her, letting her know that I’ll handle this, and then I turn back to O’Neill, pushing forward on my skates so that he has no choice but to back up. I want him as far away from Fallon as is physically fucking possible.
I also don’t want her to hear hockey smack-talk, especially when this guy’s team is about to lose. Guys like this one will do anything to get under your skin.
“Yeah,” I grunt, shoving his stick out of my path when he tries to catch my boot.
“Way out of your league,” he comments, and I momentarily pause, grinning at that one.
“Hell yeah she is. She’s way out of everyone’s league. Tell me something I don’t know.”
The puck is nowhere near our goal and I’m scanning the rink to see if our team is about to slide in one last finisher when his next words suddenly get my muscles tensing.
“Cute bow,” he says. “She a cheerleader or something? Gotta wonder why the hell she’s with you – cheer chicks only bang footballers.”
My shoulders swell under my jersey and my quads start throbbing like they’ve got energy to expend. As if I haven’t been going hell for leather on the ice and secured my team another win.
I look down at O’Neill and suddenly I’m itching for a fight.
“Oh,” he says, drawing out the word with a shit-eating grin. “She does know some footballers. That’s eating you alive, huh?”
There’s nothing in this for him except hoping to rile me enough to fight and then getting me a bollocking from my coach. Right now that’s a consequence that I’m open to taking.
Because Fallon does know some footballers, Connell O’Malley being one of her closest damn friends. And although I trust that she would never cheat on me, I also wouldn’t blame O’Malley for shooting his shot if he wanted to.
And from the way that I’ve seen him looking at her? I bet he’s fucking wanted to.
O’Neill laughs and I take a steady inhale, twisting my stick slow and hard into the ice. Anything to occupy my hands from what they really want to do, which mainly involves dislocating O’Neill’s jaw.
He can tell. Which is why in the next second O’Neill pushes his chest straight into mine, trying to get me to shove him back, but I just grunt and strengthen my position as I keep my balance strong.
Benson’s words from October come to the forefront of my mind.
You think you’re all noble dishing out justice? That’s the ref’s job, not yours, Wilde.
There’s got to be no more than thirty seconds left of this game and I’m not trying to get into a fight when the whistle’s about to blow, especially when we’re coming out victorious.
I roll my neck and look down at O’Neill. “I really don’t recommend doing that again, man,” I tell him quietly.
He flashes me a grin before ramming his shoulder straight into my gut.
A guttural sound rips from my chest, and I keep my stance wide as I shove the punk off of me. “The hell’s your goddamn problem?” I growl, trying to keep my cool.
Don’t let Fallon see you lose your shit. Don’t let her see the kind of fighting that you’re capable of.
And that would have been the goddamn end of it if he hadn’t spat the next words out of his mouth.
“She friends with your Carter U quarterback or something? Hell man, that’s gotta suck. Knowing that she wants to deep-throat that raw NFL pipe–”
My stick hits the ice at the same second that my quad connects with his groin, and I tear the strap on my gloves open with my teeth as O’Neill stumbles on his blades. The malicious look in his eyes turns to something more aggressive and he throws down his helmet, the clank of it drowned out by the sounding buzzer calling time.
He might be angry that I’ve just bruised his balls, but I’m fucking furious.
If he wants to fight dirty, I’m game.
He swipes his helmet off the ice and swings it hard at mine, red hot pain immediately exploding in the side of my face. I’m so pissed off that I revel in the bite of it before chucking my own helmet down and roughly rolling back my shoulders. O’Neill uses the second of distraction to ram his torso into mine and this time we hit the ground with a loud resounding thud, O’Neill cursing explicitly as he lands at a stupid angle on his side.
I shove up from my position and grip him into a headlock, leaning closer so that he can hear me over all of the arena noise.
“Y’all fuckers weren’t taught any manners at this college, huh?” I ask him, swiping my shoulder over my cheek when I feel something warm and wet on my skin. I grunt at the sting and then rub my hand over the area. When I pull it back I see that my digits are coated red.
“You’re too bulky for this game,” he grits out, probably because, now that I’ve got a forearm around his throat, he’s realising how stupid it was to bait a guy who weighs two hundred and twenty pounds. “Quality players are lean.”
I snicker, because that has got to be the dumbest shit that I’ve ever heard, and I shove his hands away from me as he tries to land a backwards hit. “I’m too bulky? We’re in the same division, asshole.”
I push O’Neill off of me and exhale gruffly as I slowly get to my feet, disorientated by the scuffle and feeling a pounding in my head. Not sure if it’s because O’Neill got me with his helmet pretty good or because his words have fucked me off pretty bad. Either way, I shove a hand through my hair and try to regain some sense of balance because the past ten seconds have thrown me the hell off.
O’Neill is still shouting smack and I suddenly realise that Fallon might be able to hear him. Still a little unbalanced I turn to skate over to the Carter U box before realising that my teammates are grouped around me. They’re holding off O’Neill as he tries to shove his way in my direction and I almost huff out a laugh at how stupid that is.
If we brawl you’ll end up on a gurney, lightweight. Take a fucking hint, man.
The audience must have finally caught on to the fight because there’s a thunderous rise in the crowd’s volume, making me unsteady. Tanner grips a hand around the back of my neck in a rough gesture of support, and we trudge on our skates over to our exit gate, my breathing erratic as O’Neill’s words course through my mind.
It’s not what he said, because Fallon’s sex life before I came into the picture is none of my business, unless she chooses for it to be. It’s the fact that he dared even think about it, to talk about it like that when she was only ten feet away from him. Potentially within hearing distance. For the sole purpose of ruining her night.
Hurting me? Fine.
But hurting her? Not a chance.
I try to get my eyes over to where Fallon is sat with Winter but there are too many people in the way obscuring the view. I turn on my boots and jerk my chin over at Caden. He skates up next to me and I nod my head towards the Carter U seats.
“Can you get the girls?” I ask him, my voice low and hoarse. I need to get my hands on Fallon as soon as possible so that I can apologise about the shit-show that I accidentally just put on for her.
You want her to trust you but you just showed her that you’re a damn brute.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Caden grunts and I give him a thank you shove with my shoulder as he leaves the exodus so that he can slide through the gate to the girls.
“What the hell was that?” Benson is practically shaking when we reach him at the edge of the rink.
Now I’m pissed off all over again because he’s flipped the switch on me after a damn ten second hockey brawl. Big fucking deal. Guys in the NHL fight in every damn game.
The look that I level him with has him narrowing his eyes and shaking his head at me.
“The game was over, idiot. What were you thinking?” His eyes move to my cheekbone and he rubs his hand over his mouth. “Jesus Christ. Someone get this fucking moron a towel.”
Tanner’s hand tightens, warning me to keep my cool.
“He got a knee to the balls. You can’t even get arrested for that shit.”
“Uh, actually you fucking can depending on the situation,” Benson argues back, “and there was no need for brawling when y’all won the damn game.”
My jaw muscle rolls, adrenaline still pumping hard and fast in my veins. “It had nothing to do with the game.”
“Then you should have kept it off the ice. When y’all get back to the motel before I head off to Carter Ridge I’ll decide whether or not you’re fit for the next game, Wilde.”
“I’m not going to the motel,” I tell him, and his eyes suddenly flash. Tanner subtly steps between us as Benson takes a big step forward.
“What’d that fucker say to you?” Coach Benson asks, giving me a surprised once-over. “What the hell happened out there to make you lose your shit? You fucked up at the start of the year but you recouped your game. What’s gotten into you to make you change that now?”
The whole team can sense it – the fact that Benson is about to realise that I broke his one goddamn rule.
We stare at each other long and hard, my expression emotionless as I try not to think about what O’Neill said. My eyes flick over to the Carter U box and my chest swells as Fallon finally comes into my line of sight.
I look away quickly, knowing that – if I keep looking at her beautiful face – my defences are about to crumble.
Benson follows my line of sight and arches his neck back, finally coming to his realisation.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he mutters, scraping a hand over his head. “You’ve got a girl with you? Is that what this was?”
Benson meets my eyes again, disbelief etched on his face, and suddenly I’m done with all of the chaos that has happened tonight. The shitty opponents, the overbearing coach, the one stupid rule that should never have been made in the first place.
So I keep my distance as I trudge past him and I mutter, “It ain’t your damn business, man.”
It’s only when I reach the door at the start of the narrow corridor that Benson calls out, “It will be when I bench your ass.”
The whole team stills and the air around us immediately tenses, but after the longest ten seconds of my life I decide to keep walking. By the time that I reach the changing rooms I’m slamming my locker open and ripping off as much of the kit as I can. I’m not about to put my suit back on because it’s a fucker to get into so I pull my jeans and a shirt out of my bag instead.
I rip the protective gear off and shove that shit into my gym bag, needing to get the hell out of here before I can reconsider the premature end to my brawl with O’Neill.
The low-road is sounding damn satisfying right now.
As I pull a hoodie over my head Caden trudges in and I immediately ask him, “You get Fallon? Is she alright?”
I hide the tremble in my hands by gripping my gear bag nice and tight.
Caden nods and tips his head towards the door. “They’re on their way.” Then he gives me a brief appraisal and murmurs, “Maybe clean your face up first.”
Instinctively I swipe my palm up my cheekbone and I curse quietly.
That shit stings.
But before I can pull the gauze from my bag to staunch the flow I hear the sound of two soft voices nearing the door, at that sweet feminine pitch that you don’t find in the guy’s changing room. In the next second I’m grabbing all of my shit and shoving my way past my teammates.
I see Fallon as soon as I shoulder my way out of the door and all of the emotions that I’d been grinding down flood to the surface as I get my eyes on her.
I was worried that she was going to be apprehensive and freaked out because she’s never seen me lose control like that before, but instead she’s rosy cheeked and her chest is pumping heavily, and she launches herself straight into my arms the second that our gazes meet.
I grunt as I grip her behind, helping her wrap her thighs around my body, and I slide my other hand under her hair, seizing her by the back of her neck and pressing my face into the warm curve of her throat. She’s making small, quiet noises that almost sound like she’s crying and I squeeze my eyes shut in anger, pissed beyond measure over what the hell I just did.
Her arms wrap tightly around my shoulders and she presses her rapidly heaving chest up against my pecs.
I almost stumble at the sensation – her breasts feeling so soft, her breathing coming so fast – but I steel my jaw and continue walking us down the corridor. The hallway is loud after another win, the guys smacking high fives and slapping their hands against each other’s backs.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to Fallon, pressing a kiss against her hair. She mumbles a quiet it’s okay and I shake my head as I kiss her again.
“It’s not okay,” I tell her, and she pulls back to look at me. I splay my palm against the exit door, shove it open and breathe in the calming scent of Larch Peak’s fresh mountainous air.
“You’re hurt,” she says, her brows pinched taut in the middle.
“I’m an idiot,” I reply, quickly scanning the lot to see where our Ubers are idling.
The guys are going to be taking them to the motel this evening, and tomorrow morning they’ll get them back here in time for the coach transfer to Carter Ridge. What I had in mind for Fallon means that we aren’t going to the motel, but our stop is on the way so we’ll ride part of the distance with the guys.
“Hunter, I need to clean your wound,” she says, quiet but serious, and a moment later I feel something soft pressing firmly against my cheekbone.
I wince slightly and gently tug at Fallon’s wrist. When I see what she’s using to compress the cut, pain spreads through my chest and I shake my head at her.
She’s rolled up that little cardigan that she had on earlier and she’s holding it against me to stem the blood loss.
“No, baby,” I murmur, feeling more guilty by the second. “Don’t ruin your top, not for me. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
I ruined our fucking night. I don’t deserve her to be all sweet right now.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. Hunter, look at me.”
I can’t look at her because I’ve got too much shit pounding through my head.
O’Neill. O’Malley. Brawling in front of my chick. Potentially getting benched by Benson.
Ruining a night that was supposed to be special because we’re here, in Larch Peak, and I wanted Fallon to love everything about it.
I scrub roughly at my forehead and rap my knuckle against the window of one of the Ubers. The driver rolls down the window and I give her our name, so that she knows she’s picking up the right group.
The guys pile in once I’ve got Fallon inside and when the driver eases onto the road I subtly slip Fallon onto my lap. We’re riding with Tanner, Austin, and some other guys, and they’re quietly playing music from one of their phones.
Fallon turns her head to look up at me and I slip my large hand around the front of her throat, dipping down to meet her so that I can kiss her lips.
“Where are we going?” she whispers.
I press my forehead against her temple. It was supposed to be special.
I sigh as I gently caress her throat. “The guys are going to the motel,” I murmur, although the guys who are legal are going to hit up the town bars after they’ve dropped their kits off because there’s a fucking hurricane of testosterone in the back of this car right now. “We’re going somewhere else.”
My eyes lock in with Tanner’s and he gives me a nod. He knows exactly where we’re going.
“If you don’t like it, we can join the guys,” I add, because I want to make sure that she’s okay with it.
Hell, if she decided that she wanted to head back to Carter Ridge right now I’d get her a First Class flight without a damn second of delay.
All I want is what’s best for her.
I just secretly hope that what’s best for her is me.
“We’re almost there,” I promise her, wrapping my forearms around her middle. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip when I feel her press her cardigan against my cut again.
“Baby,” I murmur, trying to get her to stop sacrificing her shirt for me, but she keeps it firmly in place and then leans up so that she can kiss me.
It’s small and gentle but we’re in an Uber full of guys so the testosterone in this cab has just ascended to a dangerous level.
Tanner clears his throat beside me but I just ram my elbow in his ribs.
The guys are definitely going out tonight.
And Fallon and I are staying in.
