Page 1 of The Head Game

CHAPTER ONE

Nicolaas Arents strutted into the Evanston River Otters ice arena, shooting a wink and a nod at Kelsey Lambert, the intern filming arrival videos for social media.

Kelsey grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

Nico was a fan favorite and he certainly knew how to work it to his advantage.

He suspected it was the only reason the Toronto Fisher Cats Vice President of Communications and Public Relations, Kate Foster, hadn’t actually murdered him yet.

They had a love-hate relationship.

He loved her, she wanted to strangle him.

Just because he’d had a run-in or twelve with the sports gossip sites and an unfortunate sex tape leak shortly after he’d joined the team full-time …

Really, it was unreasonable of her to hold that against him.

It wasn’t his fault he was like catnip to the gossips and his phone had been hacked.

But fans—at least the smart ones with good taste—loved him and Kate was a shrewd woman.

There was no way she’d deny the people what they wanted—more Nico.

Nico went through his usual pre-game routine, eating his typical meal of chicken and pasta in the lounge while he watched some reality TV with Matty and Colton.

He inspected his sticks, deciding to cut one down because it felt a touch too long, wrapped them in tape, then propped them next to his stall.

His skates got a thorough once-over too and he walked into the equipment room to talk to their equipment manager about an issue with one. A tiny, barely noticeable burr in the blade in need of smoothing.

“Sorry about that,” Doug Ferguson said with a smile and took the skate. “I should have noticed when I sharpened them after practice.”

“No worries.”

Pete Santos, their head equipment manager, was out with the flu this week and Nico was fussier than most about his blades.

Nico thanked Doug and watched while he sharpened the blade, the whine of the grinding wheel and the sharp scent of steel and oil so familiar.

After Nico was sure his equipment was in order, he went and played a little two-touch with the guys, then returned to the dressing room.

The team had arrived a little later than usual since this was a special night for their opponents.

It was the number retirement ceremony for three of Evanston’s players who’d hung up their skates at the end of last season.

They were great guys, great players, and queer as fuck. Not to mention ridiculously attractive.

Exactly Nico’s kind of people.

He was still going to kick some Otter ass tonight but the ceremony should be nice.

Someone had tuned the TV to the on-ice feed and Nico watched as he layered on his gear, strapping on pads and taping his socks.

His skate blades were perfect and he gave an appreciative nod at Doug, who beamed, then went off to deal with something else.

The dressing room was a little quieter than usual, the team listening to the speeches about Zane Murphy, Ryan Hartinger, and Anders Lindholm.

Nico was not going to miss them on the ice. Off-ice, they were great guys but Lindholm had always been so damn fast.

Going up against him was like trying to catch smoke and he’d outskated Nico an embarrassing number of times. The man was thirty-nine-years old. Sure, at the end of last season he wasn’t skating like he had in his prime but he’d still skated circles around half the league.

---