Page 41 of The Puck Decoy

I move my focus back to getting ready, heeding his warning, but I still hear Archer wonder out loud, “Damn, I didn’t know Coach had a daughter.”

“Me either, I wonder if she’s hot?” Reign tosses back, only for Coach to come and smack them both on the back of the head.

“Keep your little pervert minds away from my daughter,” Coach spits, and then smacks Archer’s head again. “And keep them off Peters’ wife and sister too.”

After that I can’t help but smile as I suit up for the game.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Josh and I went from barely talking to one another, to being married and seeing each other everyday in an instant. It makes quite a change from putting up with him being a complete and total asshole to me, now he’s only a little bit of an asshole, but still an asshole all the same. Yet it’s nice to be back on common ground with him, and somehow things feel different to how they were before. His barriers are still there of course, but now they feel more like fences I could climb, rather than walls that would shut me out completely. I see the boy from before his father tainted him, and I know it’s not the same, that he has been tainted, but it doesn’t change how much I enjoy being around him. And I’m not stupid, I know it doesn’t mean anything tohim, not in the way it does to me, but spending so much time together is not great for the slight crush I have on him.

Okay, so I love him more now than I ever have, but that’s not my fault.

First of all, he’s hot. Second of all, he’s an asshole, and third of all, he’s a shameless flirt. How the hell am I supposed to resist that?I’m just a girl.

The feelings I’ve had for him, the ones that I have spent years mashing down, are now alive and burning hotter than ever. Feelings that are never more tangible than when I am watching him spin around the rink like a flash, letting nothing and no one get in his way.

I’ve never really been into sports, not in the way most people are. My dad was always more concerned with business and spending time with my mom and me to ever take notice of anything else, so I always thought I would be the same. Then I met Josh. From the very first moment I stepped through the trees that separated our houses, and saw him flying around with a stick and a puck, I was hooked. Not just on him, but the game too.

Yet not once during the many times I wrote our names in a heart in the back of my notepads, did I ever think I would grow up to marry him and be rinkside at his games. Sure, I’ve had the fantasy plenty of times, where he finishes his game all hot and sweaty and then takes me right there on the ice, but that’s all it ever was, a silly yet ridiculously hot fantasy.

Now here I am, sitting front row with his jersey name and number across my back, only now it’s not just his name, it’s my name too.

Both teams are on the ice making porn, and by that I mean, stretching for the upcoming game, and my eyes are focused solely on the number twenty-two. Other members of the team are laughing and joking with one another, but my husband andhis housemate are both silent and solemn as they get themselves warmed up. I watch as he stretches himself into every position imaginable, and the fantasy about him taking me on the ice is the only thing I can think about.

“Careful or you might get drool on your jersey,” Maddie teases, jolting me from my thoughts as my gaze snaps to hers.

“What? No, I wasn’t looking at him,” I say far too quickly, before adding, “I mean, I’m not drooling.”

My best friend laughs. “You're a terrible liar, you know that right?” she replies, mirroring what her brother has said to me countless times.

“I may have heard that a time or too.” I casually flick my gaze around the arena, forcing myself not to look at him, as my best friend eyes me. “But I wasn’t looking at anything.”

Maddie shakes her head, her eyes moving back to her boyfriend as she smiles. “You know if you bang my brother that’s like breaking girl code, right?”

“What? How is that breaking girl code?” I question instantly before cringing and switching up. “I mean, I don’t even want to bang him so why would I care about girl code?” I shrug, as if she isn’t digging her claws into my biggest secret and spilling it all over the ice without a care in the world.

“I don’t know who the bigger idiot is, you or my brother,” she replies, shaking her head, as she waves to Nova, and I can’t help but feel envious of her and what they have.

The last month they have surprised us all and become stronger than ever. Nova hasn’t even looked at another girl, his sole focus remaining on the girl beside me, worshiping the ground she walks on, and from the noises I hear coming from her bedroom at night, rocking her world too. And Maddie is like a different person, her confidence shining brighter than ever, and the barbs from her father that used to make her a nervous wreck barely even matter to her anymore.

They are perfect for one another, and all it does is twist me up inside, because that’s what we all want, isn’t it? We want to find a best friend, a lover, a confidant, someone who sees all of you, your highs, your lows, and everything in between, and falls for you anyway. It’s what they have, it’s what my parents have, and it’s what I am desperate for.

“I resent that statement,” I tell her, but all she does is offer me some nachos with a smile.

“Just go back to staring, you little hoe bag,” she tosses back, bumping my shoulder with hers.

And well, who am I to deny my best friend?

By the time the game starts, the amount of fantasies in my head has trebled, each one more filthy than the last. Those thoughts are only intensified when Josh scores a goal and the crowd goes wild. I’m on my feet screaming his name at the top of my lungs and riding the high with him, but it doesn’t last long.

A player from the opposing team crashes into him, slamming him into the ice and my heart catches in my throat. The guy manages a few hits before Daemon rips him away, helping Josh to his feet, but even from across the ice I can see the switch in him has flipped. Josh doesn’t stop, he doesn’t walk away, he is on the guy in an instant, smashing him to the floor and returning every hit he received tenfold until we can see the blood on the ice.

By the time they are pulled apart, Josh is bleeding from his lip, but the other guy is bleeding from his whole face, barely able to stand as his teammates help him to his feet. Proving my theory that he is totally psychotic, and one hundred percent completely hot.

The other guy is escorted from the ice to see a medic and Josh is sent off for five minutes in the sin bin. I watch as he skates across the ice towards where we are sitting, the entire time my eyes not leaving the blood that drips from his mouth, wantingnothing more than to wipe it away. Now it’s not like I have never seen him fight before, if I am honest it happens more than I care to admit, he’s always been a hot head, especially where Maddie was concerned, but I can’t help but wonder what made him snap this time.

When he reaches the sin bin his eyes instantly find mine and I can’t help but shake my head in mock disappointment, ignoring the thrill his bloody smile and wink brings me. Yet that feeling soon turns sour when I overhear some girls gossiping behind me.

“Oh my god, Josh Peters is so hot,” one girl gushes, and jealousy burns at the back of my throat instantly.

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