Page 15 of Hat Trick

Dark-paneled walls. The stench of cigarettes and booze. The tiny apartment seated over a convenient store more known for the number of armed robberies occurring within its walls than any of itsinventory.

My stomach heaves, both out of guilt for escaping and also for that damn fear that never fails to tighten myskin.

“How much?” I rasp, hating myself for giving in yet anothertime.

The slant of Dave’s smile is like a right hook to my face. Once again, I’ve been played right into histrap.

Marshall—zero.

Dave—fifty-thousand dollars andcounting.

He rests one wrist across his bent knee, casual and cool the way he wasn’t five minutes ago when he was whispering prayers that my livelihood would be stripped from me. “Just ten, thistime.”

I’m not stupid enough to think he’s talking about a crisp Alexander Hamilton. I need to get the hell out of here before I agree to re-mortgage my house for him. “I’ll transfer it to your account,” I mutter, grabbing my cell phone off thetable.

I barely make it to the door before my brother is laughing like a maniac and shouting, “Love you,bro!”

Yeah, joke’s onme.

I’m out of the rancid apartment in seconds, yanking the door shut behind me as I head for thestairwell.

Once upon a time, I used to fully believe that I could outrun my past. My mistakes. Dave is a constant reminder of hownottrue that’s turned out to be. The more success I have on the ice, the more my brother is there, waiting, to collect on what he thinks is owed tohim.

And maybe . . . maybe there’s some truth to that. But after seventeen years, I’m pretty sure my debt has been paid—if debts are even supposed to exist among family. They do in mine, which I guess is all thatmatters.

Not for the first time do I wonder what it’d be like to belong to a family like Duke Harrison’s. Not only does he have both his parents, but they support him. Even his mother, who has a phobia of flying, has started conquering that fear by forcing her husband to book flights from Minnesota, where they live, to our games along the westcoast.

Hell, if we’re looking at my teammates, Jackson Carter probably has the sweetest deal. Parents who think he hangs the world. An equally doting wife. My captain might be an asshole on the ice, but off it, he’s the quintessential Texasgentleman.

I brace myself for the brisk cold air when I step outside Dave’s building. Trash bags line the street, broken glass bottles are scattered within the snow, and even the colors of the buildings are bleak. Gray, mostly, with a few brick ones mingledin.

Without even realizing it, I find my feet taking me in the opposite direction of my truck. I don’t stop until I’m staring at the house where I spent most of my teenageyears.

It looks just as awful as it did a decadeago.

My foster parents don’t live here anymore. We don’t keep in contact, so it’s just as possible that they’ve moved out of state as it is that they’re dead. I feel a stab of guilt at the thought. Sue and Marty Gottim weren’t horrible people; they just hadn’t cared about the kids in theircare.

Maybe they had, when they’d first started out working with the system. But, by the time I came around when they’d been in their sixties, time had worn them down. Hell,I’dbeen worndown.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I almost don’t hear my phone ringing. I dig it out of my pocket, still noting all the ways the Gottim’s old triple-decker hasn’t changed as I answer thecall.

“Hunt,” I say, as I catch a flutter of a window curtain on the firstfloor.

Time togo.

“Marshall?”

I have no control over my body, and my cock stiffens at just the sound of Gwen’s breathy voice over the phone. As I step away from my childhood home, I walk briskly back to my truck, head down against the bitterwind.

“You’ve never called me,” I say. “To what do I owe thispleasure?”

“Of course I’ve called youbefore.”

Guess she’s still stuck on the firstbit.

I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “Negative, Ghost Rider. Not a single time and we’ve known each for, what? Fiveyears?”

It’s been six, but I’m a bastard and I want to know if she’ll saysomething.

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