Page 1 of The Triple Play

Chapter1

Annie

Good girls don’t fantasize about three hockey players with their hands all over her body.

Especially when her boyfriend’s sitting ten feet away.

But here I was…

After another night with Elliot transfixed on the game and barely acknowledging I existed, my halo was slipping.

One hour until I had to sing.

Smokey’s was packed tighter than usual. The walls—lined with signed Atlanta Fire jerseys and broken sticks—vibrated with hometown pride.

Game nights like this made the place come alive.

The sound of sticks clashing and blades cutting across the ice echoed from the TV speakers above the bar, and the crowd leaned in with every flick of the puck.

But Elliot, sitting with his eyes glued to the screen and a draft beer in his hand, his muscles tense and his mouth parted in anticipation, was my biggest clue that an important game was on.

The Fire was on the brink of a win, which meant the bar would be loud, sweaty, and impossible to perform in—at least until the final buzzer sounded.

Bartending at smokey's came with its perks. A steady, reliable job and paycheck, free tickets to most of the Fire's games since the owner’s son played on the team, occasional nights where I could sing, and free drinks for my boyfriend.

I placed my hand on his shoulder to get his attention. “I need help setting up the speakers. Do you know where the XLR is?”

“Why would I know where your cables are?” Elliot grumbled, brushing my hand off and wrapping his fingers around my wrist. “Why is it so hard for you to keep track of your sh—” He cut off as the crowd roared. His head whipped back to the screen so fast I half-expected whiplash.

There, on the ice, Cole Maxwell was seconds from making one of the biggest plays of the night. He was a winger—left, I was pretty sure. Speeding up, he was now inches from one of the away team’s forwards who had the puck under his control. I blinked, and suddenly they were on the boards, Maxwell’s shoulder slamming into him?—

The sound of a whistle cut through the hype, and the white and black stripes of the referee gliding across the ice took up the screen instead.

“Fucks sake,” Elliot snapped, joining in with the crowd in the bar collectively shouting their aggression at the television. “Come on!”

As much as I loved the game, I couldn’t bring myself to be enthusiastic tonight.

Not when I was already exhausted from a full shift here earlier, not when I was trying to nurse my throat after the cold I’d just gotten over, and certainly not when Elliot was hardly paying attention to me.

I slipped behind the bar, giving a fake smile to the coworker I’d been on shift with earlier who was still working the evening game, and got myself a glass of water.

On the screen, Cole Maxwell was led to the penalty box. He spat out his mouthguard and shouted something the microphones didn’t quite pick up, his brows furrowed and nose crinkled.

For a second, I truly understood why so many puck bunnies hung out here.

Hewashot — most of the men who played were. But I wasn't a puck bunny and good girls like me dated guys like Elliot.

He was mostly nice, outgoing,published. A starving artist, sure, but so was I— and he was hot, all six feet of him. His dark hair and chiseled jaw had drawn me to him in the first place during my late-night swipe-a-thon.

But sometimes, he had nights like tonight, nights where he was annoyed at being pulled away from writing his latest book and wasn’t going to let that be anyone else’s problem but mine.

I shuffled my way to the staff room to find my cable and take a moment to center myself and sing a few bars away from the crowd and away from Elliot.

The staff room at Smokey’s was barely bigger than a walk-in closet. A scuffed mirror above the sink. A warped bench along the wall. Fluorescent lights that buzzed like they were seconds from dying.

But it was quiet and empty.

I popped a single headphone in to play my backing track for the first song, finding my key, and then turned it off as I sang the rest by memory, my voice cracking on the high note. Grimacing, I downed a bit more water and ran it a few more times, making sure not to overstress my voice. Worst case, if I couldn’t land it, I’d just drop the note to the octave below.

---