She’s watching at home, not ready to venture into the crowds with her cast, and it’s driving her up the walls. She’s been to damn near every hockey game since I learned to skate. Wearing my number and cheering my name.
Fuck.
She wears my number.
In a split second that takes on a whole new meaning, and I’m suddenly fighting a boner the whole way to the bench.
It might not be every hockey player’s fantasy to fuck a woman in their jersey, but it sure as hell is mine. It’s not something I’ve done before, but I make a mental note to tell her that at some point, I’m fucking her senseless with my name across her shoulders.
There’s under two minutes left in the second. We know what’s on the line right now. Everyone sitting in this barn knows what’s on the line.
Tate Myers picks up the puck off a smooth as shit pass from Gilbert and absolutely fires it past Massachusetts goalie. It’s 2-0 Raccoons, and I’m not the only one out on the ice who wants to drive up the score and utterly annihilate this team.
By my last shift of the third period, I still haven’t scored. We’re 3-1 up. But it’s not enough. I skate across the blue line into the offensive zone. Should definitely have been an offside call, but the on-ice officials miss it, and we’re going to capitalize on that.
As Raffi skates deeper into the zone with me, one of the Massachusetts forwards gets back to help out with some defensive play. Getting the bodies in front of us. Running interference between us and the target. It’s not enough, though. I want a fucking goal. For Edith.
Good positioning by their goalie, and smart play by the defensemen, keeping the pressure on the forecheck, means I have to work harder, and smarter. Big save from a shot from the point by Raffi. They’re closing ranks.
I could coast through the last sixty seconds of the game, but I don’t fucking want to. Spying a space in Boston’s defense, I smack the ice for the puck. Sometimes too much defensive traffic in front of the goalie can be used to your advantage, and I plan to do just that.
Justin sails it to me without hesitation in a move we’ve practiced no less than a million times in practice before I tap it into the glove side of the net.
At fucking last.
It wasn’t the first goal of the game, it wasn’t even the go ahead or game winning goal, but it was the sweetest goal I’ve had in a while. And my girl’s at home cheering for me at her laptop in bed. She might even have my name across her shoulders.
“Food?” Artemis skates up to me as the buzzer sounds and the crowd erupts. He pulls me into a tight hug. “Way to get out of your fucking head,hermano.” He grins like he knows exactly what helped me quiet the noise in my brain. “She’s good for you.”
I don’t deny it. Even if he couldn’t read me like a damn book, they definitely heard my roar last night when I came. The people who live below Edith’s apartment hit the ceiling with something, probably a broom, yelling at us to keep it down.
Challenge accepted. I can’t fucking wait to see how loud I can make my girl scream, and how often we’re going to get hollered at.
“Food?” Ares joins us out in open ice.
“I just asked him.” Artemis tips his head my direction as he pulls off his helmet and shakes his hair out like he’s in a damned shampoo commercial. I think I hear the collective swoon of every vagina in the place, and some dicks too. He’s so fucking extra.
“I’m good.” I unclip the strap under my chin.
“Oh. I bet you are, lover boy.” Ares gives me an exaggerated wink. “I want to rib you,hermano. I truly do. But I get it. If Ellie wasn’t with her dad tonight... well. You’d be dining alone, Artemis.”
Artemis gives a frustrated grunt. “Abandoned by my own brothers for pussy.”
Ares wags his glove at him. “Wait until you find her, man. You’d set the world on fire for her, just to watch it burn. Maybe you should start looking closer to home. Turns out Apollo’s woman has been here all along. Who knew?”
The look they share makes it clear that they both did. And now that I do too, I gotta get my ass the hell off this ice, showered, and home to her, so I can snuggle up with my girl, my brother’s pig, and eat pizza in bed before I have her for dessert.
CHAPTER26
Edith
(MARCH 27TH – DAY 10 POST OP)
Why have I never before realized how hot a hockey player stretching his groin is?
Yes, I’m aware it’s the semifinals for the Raccoons and if they win this they go up against Alabama State in the finals next week. But... the stretching.
My temperature has risen by at least five degrees as Apollo humps at the ice, opening out his hips. He moves into pigeon, folding himself forward with such grace. How have I never recruited him into pas de stick?
