Fletcher tips his head down to look at me briefly then back up to my dad. “I have a good coach.”
His stick shifts in his hands, then the flat of it presses briefly but definitely on purpose right on my backside. I jump and grab my skirt.
“Well, Fletcher needs to go, uh, get changed…”
My cousins are drunk, and their normally minimal filter has turned into no verbal filter whatsoever. “We won’t keep you from fucking in the locker room.”
I kick Violet in the shins.
Fletcher raises a dark eyebrow under his visor. My dad gives him a suspicious look.
“Don’t wait for me,” I babble as I give Fletcher a shove toward the locker rooms. “I’ll get a ride back.”
“Ellie!” my family calls.
“See you later! Thanks for coming to the game.” I practically sprint away from my family. I can’t take it. I’m sure my dad knows something’s up.
The players are all in various states of undress in the locker room, so I scurry away into the back to my windowless office.
Shut the door.
Lean against it.
Try not to think about Fletcher.
Is he going to show up at my bedroom? My mom is hosting a postgame party for the whole family.
I could just surprise him in the locker room shower…
No, that’s a bad idea. We’d get caught. I need to stop obsessing over him. He’s my player.
I don’t even like him. It’s the fact that he’s a forbidden hockey fruit bat—that’s the problem.
I pull a makeup wipe out of my bag and blot at my face with it. Try to get myself together.
Watching him on the ice, the way he moved, the raw power of him… “Bet he fucks like he plays,” the part of me that’s the bad daughter, the bad coach, singsongs.
I unbutton my suit jacket and fan myself. It doesn’t help. I’ve been half gone since he snuck into my room last night, like he had every right to be there.
I mean, who does that? It’s the same kind of cocky that lets a man just walk onto a NHL team from the minors and score goals.
The door handle rattles.
“Just a minute,” I choke out as I fumble with the buttons in the dark. “I’m coming, I just—”
The door opens. Fletcher stands there in the doorway, a huge, dark shadow. He’s still in his skates, balanced on the knife-edge of the blades inside their guards.
“You didn’t want to get showered?” I croak.
Full disclosure here, everyone: you can’t be a straight female with NHL-adjacent family members and not at one point in your life wonder what it’s like to get absolutely railed by an NHL player decked out in his full gear.
The way Fletcher’s looking at me… the sweaty dark curl of his hair peeking out from under the helmet…
“I think,” the deep voice rumbles, “I told you I wasn’t going to fuck you until after I won you that game.”
My mouth opens, ready to argue—but then his fingers are at the lapels of my white jacket, pulling it off in one fluid move. The pads underneath his burgundy-and-gray jersey shift, exposing the sweat-slicked skin at the base of his throat.
I stare.
