Page 2 of In Too Deep

The wind whips outsidethe hotel windows, the haze of reddish-brown dust blanketing the view, obscuring everything nearby. The skyscraper across the street is merely a dark, amorphous shape. When they grounded us for the night, I scoffed, like most of the other guys on the team. How bad could a dust storm really be?

Turns out, pretty bad.

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been trapped in a room with you two due to extreme weather, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but definitely weird that it’s happened twice,” Elijah comments from the bed.

I roll my eyes and let the curtain fall back into place as I turn to face the room. It’s nicer than some I’ve had the misfortune of visiting, with two queen beds and a pull-out couch, along with a galley kitchenette lining the hallway toward the door. Eli sprawls out on one of the beds, shirtless despite the near-frigidstream of air he’s pumping into the room. His near white-blond hair is damp from his shower, and he runs a hand through it as he stretches to pick up the television remote. I catch his wince before he can hide it, narrowing my eyes slightly but choosing not to comment. He took a nasty hit in the Coyotes game, so some soreness should be expected.

Spencer lets out a chuckle from where he’s lounging on the couch, the bed tucked away for a moment to give us more room to maneuver. The team usually pairs us off for road games, but this is the first place we’ve stayed that’s had the extra bed. Not that I mind. Spencer is neat and keeps his belongings contained in his suitcase, which is a welcome change to Eli. I swear he’s got some sort of weird Swedish spring-loaded suitcase, because he barely opens the zipper before his shit is in every corner of our room.

Sensing my gaze, Spencer looks up from his phone, his eyes meeting mine. Even from across the room, his irises are a remarkable shade of sapphire blue. He was the first to shower, and his near-black curls have dried into soft ringlets, a few tendrils falling into his face. He needs a haircut, though the longer locks could prove useful…

“Dammit, the dust is messing with the TV signal,” Eli groans, making me jump a little.

Spencer glances away, the tips of his ears and nose going pink. Ah, so he also remembers the last time we were alone together.

Not that I’ll ever be able to forget that week my teammates and I were trapped in our house with Tori. It’s only been a few days since we last saw each other, and I’m already aching to feel her soft skin, to stare into those otherworldly mismatched blue eyes, and to do frankly unholy things to her perfectly curvy body.

I pull out my phone and scroll to my camera roll, finding some of the pictures I’d managed to snag of us, the corners of my lips lifting slightly. God, she has the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen.And that scent of hers, like sweet tea on a hot summer day under a magnolia tree.

Fuck, I’m so lost for this woman, this omega.

My thumbs are moving before I’m fully aware of them, typing out a message.

I hope you’re doing well,ma reine. They are flying us directly to Buffalo rather than letting us come home.

I wait for a moment, hoping for a quick reply. But after a few seconds, I mentally shake myself. Yeah, I’ve got it bad. Shoving my phone into the pockets of my grey sweats, I saunter over to the other bed, sitting down and tuning into the conversation that has been going on in the background. Unsurprisingly, it’s hockey talk.

You’d think that as three marque forwards on a professional hockey team, playing games two or three times a week, attending practices double that amount, and then attending meetings and weight training and doing interviews, we’d spend our down time doing anything except talking or thinking about hockey. But at this level of competition, the sport sort of consumes you. It’s all too easy to let “hockey player” become your entire personality, and it shows in some guys’ public personas. Bland interviews where they talk a lot but say nothing, photos of them looking like robots unless they’re mid-game action shots, no personal life to speak of, or at least not one they ever talk about. Some fans love that sort of player, but that fan base doesn’t keep you on a team if your name was to be put up on the chopping block.

I’d rather be myself and have the public unsure if they love me or hate me. Either way, they’re talking about me, and that counts for something.

My phone pings, and I scramble to extract it, heart fluttering. But disappointment stills the wings of the butterflies when Irealize that Tori isn’t the one texting me. Rather, it’s Coach McQueen sending out a blast in the massive player group chat, announcing that we’re in the clear to use the hotel gym in shifts and we are “highly encouraged” to do so.

“He could just say that we need to get our asses down there. It would be so much simpler,” Eli snarks as he reads the message on his own device.

Spencer and I snort our chuckles of agreement, but none of us move to get up and get ready to work out. There’s probably going to be a rush, and while this is a nicer hotel, there are only so many machines to share among twenty-three young, athletic alphas and betas.

“You know what else is attached to the fitness center?” Eli asks, sitting up suddenly and flailing his arms for balance.

Spencer and I give him puzzled looks as he rushes over to his suitcase, rifling through it for a moment before extracting a pair of basketball shorts.

“The pool,” he declares, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

Forty minutes later, the pool room is a riot of talk and laughter, twenty-odd guys filling the water and deck, music playing through someone’s portable speaker. Some of the guys did as they were told and worked out at first, but as more of the team came down, wearing whatever they could sacrifice to the chlorine, Coach’s directive was forgotten. Instead, we’re blowing off steam as best as we can.

I’m sitting with Dallas Young, the veteran captain of the Mystic, and his linemate, Alexei Volkov, sipping on one of thebeers we were able to buy from the hotel mini-mart. We basically wiped their shelves clean, but with our metabolisms, it still won’t be enough to get even the lightest lightweight among us tipsy. My skin prickles as the water dries, and I flick my damp hair back from my forehead.

“Y’all got Christmas plans?” Dallas asks into a lull in the conversation. The twang of his Texan accent still makes me smirk—not that he can help it. Like I can’t help slipping into Canadian French every now and then.

Alexei shrugs. “Video call with family,” he says simply, his Russian accent thick despite his many years playing in the states.

“If I wasn’t taking the girls to Disney, I’d say you could always spend it with us,” Dallas laments, clapping a hand on the stoic forward’s bare shoulder.

I snort into my next sip of beer at the image of the perpetually serious bull of a man adorned in glittery mouse ears as the captain’s two-year-old daughter Hailey tugs him along to meet a costumed character. Dallas and Alexei shoot me confused glances, but I shake my head. That’s a mental image I will keep myself, lest I end up thrown into the pool.

“What about you, Ace?” Dallas asks pointedly.

I hide my smile behind the rim of my plastic cup. I have plans, as do my linemates, but they’re not something I’m going to share.

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