Page 15 of Spite Crush

“Hey! It’s the rock star!” A man walked over with a wide smile on his face and clapped a hand on the bouncer’s shoulder. “It’s okay, they’re with us.” He turned back to me and held out his hand. “Josh Lincoln.”

“Kellen Fox,” I said, shaking his hand. “This is Tim Cleary and Ford Jones.” I looked out over the crowd. “This is a private event?”

“Yeah, the Blade invited the whole team out, so it’s a pretty fullhouse.” Josh turned and scanned the crowd. “Zak’s being an anti-social douche in the back. Can I get you guys some beers?”

We followed him to the bar and as we waited for the bartender he leaned against the rail and raked his gaze over me. “You should have kept the tarp on. That was fucking hilarious. I’ve never seen anyone get under Dempsey’s skin the way you do. Keep that shit up.”

“Yeah, I think he and I just got off on the wrong foot,” I said cautiously.

“I’m not sure Zak has a right foot,” Josh replied with a laugh. “He spends so much time chirping on the ice I think he’s forgotten how to talk to real people.”

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Naomi said as she slid in next to Josh and wrapped her arm around his waist while simultaneously raking her gaze over me. “I see you wasted no time.”

My stomach dropped as the muscles in my chest seemed to constrict against my lungs. What the hell was she doing there? I hadn’twanted to cause trouble for Zak by showing up.

“Drink this,” Josh said, grabbing a shot from the bar and shoving it into my hand.

I didn’t even know what it was, but I swallowed it down quickly, huffing a breath out as my throat burned from the tequila I’d just poured down it.

“There you go,” Naomi said. “Now take this.” She shoved a beer in my hand. “And go make nice with Zak.” She leaned forward and spoke against my ear. “Nothing thathappens tonight is getting reported anywhere.”

“What exactly do you think is going to happen?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Did she know something about him that I didn’t? I didn’t think so, or her reporting on the situation would have been a hell of a lot different.

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But I do know that I’m going to get your boys very drunk and get them to tell me what HSF stands for.”

“Never,” Ford insisted, accepting a beer from her. “That secret goes to our graves.”

“I think you’ll find I’m very persuasive,” she teased, handing a beer to Tim as well. “And it’s going to be a long night.”

I turned toward the back of the bar, my gaze scanning the crowd until I locked onto Zak Dempsey, sprawled against a booth, one arm lining the back of the bench seat and the other lifting a beer to his lips. There were several women seated around him and even from across the room Icould tell they were desperate to hold his attention.

But he was staring at me as if no one else in the room even existed.

“Don’t drink too much tonight,” Tim warned me. “And we can’t stay long.”

“Yes, mother,” I agreed, huffing out a sigh. God, he could be so annoying.

I pushed my way through the crowd, keeping my gaze locked on Dempsey as I moved toward the booth he was occupying. And his gaze never wavered from me either.

It took a full minute for the women surrounding Zak to realize I was there, and I flinched at the high-pitched screeches of all five of them when they realized who I was. Each of them jumping to their feet and reaching out to touch me.

“Let the man breathe,” Zak barked at them. “Go on, fuck off.”

Rather than be insulted or angry at him, every single one of the women laughed as they did what he’d told them, a few of them pausing to run a hand over my arm or my ass as they went.

“Your manners are impeccable,” I told him.

“Puck bunnies don’t respond to manners,” he said. “You want to sit?”

“What’s a puck bunny?” I asked as I dropped into a chair across from him.

“It’s like a groupie for hockey players,” he explained.

“And they approve of this nickname?”

“I think they invented it,” he said, lifting one massive shoulder in ashrug. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come tonight.”

---