Page 3 of Hockey Heart

“Wub Wuh,” she agreed.

“Why would you…” I started to say, but I didn’t have the heart to ruin her moment, “…Anyway, yeah, it’s cute.” I had to bellow at her over the thump of the music to make her hear me.

Kelly… Katie…What was her name?…The brunette slipped my glistening thumb from her mouth, letting her lips roll slowly right over it. Then she returned my hand to me and went back to busily pulling cutesy faces and taking selfies.

As I watched her happily tapping on her phone, it felt like there were three of us together, and it was me who was the third wheel. Not that I minded so much. Being a wing-man for my wingman wasn’t my first choice tonight. We’d just wrapped up the end of a long season and all I felt was aching tiredness and a sharp, dull pain around my eye socket, right where I’d taken a fist from Sampson in the last game. My own fist was still swollen, and I pressed it up against the beer bottle in my hand, looking for a blissful soothing sensation, but finding it disappointingly warm.

Christ, why was it so damn loud in here, anyway? The music—if you could call it that—was a never-ending, pounding death march. I’d give anything to be home, sipping on a cold beer in my hot tub, and listening to Cindi Lauper. Instead, I’m at the most pink bar I’ve ever seen in my life, sipping a warm beer on a giant fucking bean bag, and watching… Kristen? Kirsty? Kayley? …Well,whatever her name was, take selfies.

Look, I mean, I’m a big guy, and most girls cream themselves over the fact that I’m 6’ 8” of glistening raw muscle, looking like some kind of Viking warlord who’s about toraze their hometown, take away their repressed women-folk, and then make them raise huge Viking babies. My reputation doesn’t do me any harm either, but I really wasn’t in the mood for it tonight. To be honest, I hadn’t been in the mood for it for much longer than tonight.

Not that I had a choice, though. See, the big problem with being a hockey player—or, at leastoneof the big problems—is you’re basically in a dysfunctional family with twenty-three huge, unpredictable, and often violent brothers. If you think that sounds hectic, you don’t even know the half of it. Especially when you’re out on the road. Being captain of the Ice-Hawks also means I end up being the dad figure more often than I’d like. Randall needed me tonight to distract—Damn! What the hell was it?Kimmy? Kasey?—while he put the moves on her friend, Georgia, some big-shot influencer he’d had his eye on since they became Insta-buddies a few weeks back. I figured I was trapped there for another half hour at least.

“Oh my god! Look!” the tongue-pierced brunette screeched, suddenly thrusting her phone at my face.

“My friend Chelsea is at the Cinnamon Lounge with Sean LeBlanc. We should do a double date!”

“I don’t date,“ I growled back.

She glowered at me. That made me feel good.

“Well, can I get a selfie for my gram?”

I sighed at her. This was getting exhausting. These puck bunnies seemed to get more annoying every year. And why did they all talk like that? Like they were children who really wanted a pony or something.

“Pretty pleeeease,” she said brightly, doing some odd wide-eyed pose that was supposed to be adorable but just pissed me off.

“Fine,” I huffed back.

“Yay! Let me sit on your knee and take it.”

Before I’d even had a chance to think, she was on me, holding out her phone and throwing up her fingers in the now-standard international selfie sign. Why did her phone have pink bunny ears on it? Ugh, I hated this.

The brunette lingered on my thigh and giggled playfully.

“That feels nice, doesn’t it?”

Someone had clearly forgotten to put panties on today, I thought, as I also wondered how hard it was going to be to get up and off this giant bean bag later.

I rolled my eyes, and we both glanced over at Randall and Georgia, who were lost in their own gooey world, canoodling and cooing at each other across from us.

Babe, you just get it, don’t you?

I really do!

God, you’re so hot, look at you.

I really am!

I’d heard it all before, but it looked promising that things might wrap up even earlier than I had hoped for. My date turned her eyes back from the canoodling and looked at me with a hopeful and seductive smile, wondering if we might end up doing the same. My tired expression told her exactly how likely that was. Finally, and mercifully, she went back to clicking on her phone. Still didn’t get off my thigh, though.

And it was true.I didn’t date. I took another swig of my warm beer and grimaced. It tasted like piss.

“Hayden Raynor!” Some blonde girl was suddenly hollering at me, “Come party with us tonight!”

“Not tonight, thanks though.”

“Aww, really?”

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