Page 2 of Love Puck

“Asshole.” I skated backward and gave him a dirty look.

He jerked his head to the right and said, “Over here.” I watched him glide to the boards. I inhaled a deep breath and followed like I was the bad kid in class who didn’t do his homework.

He turned around and leaned against the boards. “Do you need some time?” he asked in a low, patient tone. To any normal person, that would have sounded kind and understanding.

To my ears, it sounded like he was calling me an incompetent loser.

“No, I’m fine,” I told my captain. Even though I was anything but fine. I couldn’t exactly tell Beau that. Not that I wanted to.

“You don’t look fine,” he replied back, and to be quite honest—that ticked me right off. A lot of things irritated me at the moment, but right now, Beau was at the top of my list.

I leaned on the boards and turned my head toward him. “Yeah, well, you don’t look fine out there, either, Captain.” I glared at him. “Neither does Trey.” I jerked my head in Trey’s direction. “You know it. I know it. Everyone fuckin’ knows it.”

Beau clamped his lips together and stared back at me. Then he sighed and shook his head. He glanced down at the ice and said, “I know that. I’m not an idiot.” His eyes shifted to the other end of the ice, where our coach was busy lecturing the team. “I just don’t know how the hell to fix it.”

I nodded, appreciating his honesty. A lot of guys would have dumped all the blame on me. But Beau was one of the good guys. He was honest and unbiased—which made him an excellent leader.

“Do you?” he asked and tapped his stick on my skate.

Jillian’s suggestions popped into my mind. At the time, some of them had seemed pretty outlandish and useless. I’d appreciated her input. However, putting any of her ideas into practice—well, that was the tricky part.

Convincing two other pro-hockey guys to take part in some—questionable—team bonding activities definitely wouldn’t be easy.

Beau looked at me with a serious expression on his face. He really wanted to fix whatever was wrong with us. So did I.

I pushed off the boards and skated backward down the ice. “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

2

Cash

“Ah, my boys,” Angelique cooed as she greeted us in the front room of their mansion. We rose from our seats and waited for her to hug us and give the fake double-cheek kisses she always gave.

“Bienvenue, Cash,” she said when she came up to me. “It’s so lovely to see you again.” Her French accent was more than apparent as she spoke. Angelique and Marcel were straight from Quebec, so this wasn’t surprising.

I smiled and nodded. “Nice to see you as well. Thanks for the invite,” I said, even though I was more than a little suspicious about why she and Marcel had called the three of us here.

Beau and Trey didn’t know why, either. But, I guess we were about to find out.

“Merveilleux,” Marcel entered the room and clapped his hands. “Everyone is here, ma chérie.”

“Oui, mon amour. Let us address the boys here before we eat,” Angelique suggested, and Marcel nodded and strode further into the room. We all sat down—Marcel and Angelique sitting on a couch at the end of the room.

Beau spoke first. He was their godson—not that many people knew that. His fiancée, Gigi, was their goddaughter. Most people didn’t know that either. But, if you looked on Marcel and Angelique’s fireplace mantle—you’d see pictures of Beau and Gigi—and Beau’s twin boys.

“What’s up?” Beau asked bluntly and I had to stifle a chuckle. “I know, we’ve been playing like crap—” he took in a deep breath, “but we’ll get there.”

I let out a sigh and settled into my chair. Beau was putting it mildly. We weren’t—getting there. Not at all. In fact, I think we were playing worse than ever.

Marcel grabbed Angelique’s hand, and he gave her a look before he turned fully to us.

“This is only our third year. We understand that. But we expected—”

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and gazed at the owners. “You’re right. We’re playing like—crap. Things should have improved by now. But they haven’t.”

Angelique caught my eye, and she nodded. “Oui, Cash, I agree. You all have such potential. Such—talent. I don’t know what the issue is. Do you?”

I looked over at my teammates and then lowered my eyes to the immaculate wooden floors for a moment.

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