Page 25 of Blindsided

With that, she’d begun pointing to the books on my desk as she told me what each one was. “The current version of the rule book that all referees should abide by. History of hockey, from its inception to present day. You’re pretty good with the trade and drafting process, so player acquisition, trades, and development should basically be a refresher for you.”

That accounted for three of the four books in the stack. “And this one?” I’d asked, pointing to the one on the bottom, smaller than the rest. The font and title on the spine looked nothing like the others in her how-to-hockey book stack.

Until she’d waggled her eyebrows, I’d honestly thought she'd mistakenly dropped one of her personal books on my desk. “That, my dear, is a gay romance with hockey themes. Figured you might want something a little less… academic to help you in your studies.”

There hadn’t been any use trying to hide my shock at her statement. She’d blown my mind with the news that there were hockey romances. Then to top it off, she’d thrown in gay romance. There was a reason it had gone to the top of my reading list tonight. Well, at least until my sister had called.

I sighed before answering Carissa’s question. “Ready for camps? Not a chance. Seriously, didn’t hockey season just end? It’s not even the Fourth of July and they are getting ready for camps to start! The season doesn’t start for months!” My brain blanked on exactly how far away the hockey season was, but I knew it was a few months at least.

“September is when preseason starts. But this is for the prospects, kids from the Juniors, from college, etc. See if they can cut it with the team.”

“How the hell do you know that?” We’d never watched hockey before, she’d never known anything about hockey, yet she was rattling off facts like they were second nature.

She grinned. “You’re not the only one who can read up on sports. I’ve been reading too. It’s really a fascinating sport. Did you hear about the guy that played in the finals last year with a broken sternum? Seriously, broken sternum! After the season, he said his brother had to get him out of bed and teammates were helping him dress for the game.”

A phantom pain stabbed me in my sternum and I rubbed at it. “I hadn’t heard that. I don’t think I wanted to know that. And this just confirms that hockey players have a few screws loose.”

Carissa cackled. “You better send me pictures! It’s hotter than hell there and you’re going to have a bunch of sexy men working out and playing games. You need to share the good fortune with your sister, who is stuck in work-for-Mom hell.”

My heart went out to Carissa. She’d managed to escape an internship the last three summers, but after her plans for the summer fell through, our mom had saddled her with a job at her office. Carissa had been bitching about it since school ended.

“I make no promises.” Until now, I hadn’t even considered what a summer camp would look like. The idea of seeing hockey players without clothes on didn’t worry me. I was gay, but I wasn’t an easy horndog with no self-control. I could keep my libido in check. Besides, I’d seen pictures and stats of every player, prospective player, and even all of the Grizzlies on two-way contracts with the Parliament.

Thanks to Daisy’s lessons, I understood what a two-way contract was and knew it meant that about a third of the team could play for either the Grizzlies or the Parliament, depending on where they were needed most. It was a little more complicated than that, but that was the gist and it had been good enough to satisfy Daisy.

The one person I was not prepared to see, clothed or not, was Easton. After avoiding him for so long, I knew the time for me to step publicly into my role as team owner would come with the beginning of the summer camp session the next day. Along with that, press conferences with and without Daisy and Tom had already been scheduled. If Tom was going to be involved, I was certain Easton would be around.

From what I’d heard so far, Easton had taken to his role with ease. Daisy had let it slip that he and Tom had spent countless days with the Grizzlies coaching staff as they planned camp and began to finalize rosters for the fall. They were hoping to have some of the spots tentatively filled by the end of the week, and with that, there would be more meetings about contract offers and more contract negotiations.

“Hey, Link, you look like you’re going to puke. Are you okay?”

Carissa’s voice pulled me from thoughts about Easton and the rest of the week. Unable to trust my voice to work, I nodded and swallowed a few times. “Y-yeah,” I said, my voice cracking just slightly. “It’s a lot. Dammit, what if I fuck this up?”

“At least you will have fucked up something completely new and uncharted. You can take solace in the fact that our dear cousin managed to fuck up a nearly billion-dollar deal that had been practically gift wrapped for him. And he’s had to deal with Mom and Alabaster all weekend.”

“Touché.”

Wiping the amusement from her face, Carissa maneuvered so she was seated with her back against her headboard. “And you’re not going to fuck it up, because you’re Francis Lincoln Lewis-Barrington. The one Barrington kid that has his shit together and actually cares about what he does.”

Somewhere between amused and sentimental, I gave my sister my best approximation of a smile. “Thanks, Rissa. You know you’re not a mess, though, right?”

She blew a raspberry at me. “Oh, big bro, I’m a hot fucking mess. I just hide it better than most. I’m a Barrington, after all. We’re all fucked up in our own ways.”

Tell me something I don’t know. I lifted my wineglass in salute. “To that we can agree.”

Her grin was contagious. “Go knock ‘em dead tomorrow. Show off those fancy suits you like to wear and let Mom see you smiling and knocking the press conferences out of the water while she’s stuck dealing with Jackson and the mess she created.”

I laughed. “You know what, I’ll do just that. I’ve got some reading to do first, so I’m going to let you go.”

We said goodbye and I flopped back against the couch to start reading the hockey romance. “Alright, show me what you’ve got,” I said to the cover. I only made it to the top of page three before my dick was hard from reading about the dominant of the duo fucking the other guy against a wall and spanking his ass while telling him how pretty he was.

Daisy had no idea what can of worms she’d just opened. I could easily see myself as the submissive and Easton as Phantom. It was reminiscent of a month and a half earlier in my hotel room when Easton had bent me over the desk, beat my ass red, then fucked me senseless.

I’d been trying to scrub the night from my head since it had happened. It had taken weeks, but I’d finally settled on pretending it had all been a dream and my ass hadn’t really stung for two days afterward. In three pages and less than five minutes, all my pretending was forgotten and I knew this scene would play on repeat in my brain every time I saw Easton in the coming days.

I was so fucked and I was going to blame Daisy for putting even more naughty thoughts in my head.

CHAPTER 12

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