by G. K. Brady
Hours later, they arrived at their hotel in Chicago. Blake was relieved to be bunking with their goalie, Mac, instead of Ferguson. Blake needed the break from Fergs, and Mac was chill, a good guy who would definitely not be riding him about taking away his job or dating a certain curly-haired attorney with a fascinating tattoo. Did Fergs even know she had a tattoo? Blake would relish keeping that little nugget to himself.
As he and Mac strode to the elevators with Cam Blue in tow, they passed the bar, where a few of their teammates were already mingling with a group of women. Ferguson was smack in the middle of their midst, chatting up a few of them, and judging by the way their eyes sparkled and followed his every word, he could get lucky tonight. But he wouldn’t, would he? Not while he was still with Tracy and gunning for M.
That question was answered in the next second when Fergs slid his arm around one of the women and palmed her ass. She giggled and whispered something in his ear. Something inside Blake’s stomach churned, but he couldn’t put a name on it. Anger? Disgust? Whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant.
A woman at the back of the group looked up at Blake and gave him an inviting smile packed with promise. Her blond tresses, like her bare legs, were long. Thick, soft spirals were arranged just so over her stacked rack.
“You going to join them or head up to the room?” Mac, who stood at eye level with him, asked Blake and Cam nonchalantly.
Blake’s brain came back on board in an instant. “Nope, I’m with you.”
Cam was a man of few words, so his quiet rumble caught Blake off guard. “I’m too tired for this bullshit tonight. Besides, everything I see in that bar is fake.”
Mac chuckled. “Yeah, I feel you. We all know how those conversations will go, and I’d rather spend time on the phone with my girl than watch those dumbasses play it up with the bunnies. Talking to Mia will be way more interesting … and satisfying.”
“You got a girl?” Blake asked Cam as they stepped on to the elevator.
“Fuck, no.”
Mac jerked a thumb at Cam and snorted. “No one in her right mind wants to be with his grumpy ass.”
Cam slid his middle finger along his nose, and Mac guffawed. “Yeah, fuck you very much too, bro.”
Blake and Mac left Cam behind on the elevator—he was another floor up—and Blake shot Mac a questioning eyebrow as they made their way down the hall. “You guys know each other?”
“We played together in Philly for a hot minute. I give the guy as much grief as I can, but I love having him play in front of me. He’s a beast who’s in a constant state of being pissed off, and he likes to take it out on guys clogging up my net. Like Grimson, only faster and meaner.”
“Hard to believe there’s a nastier version of the Grim Reaper,” Blake chuckled.
“Right?”
Mac had had to go back to square one and restart his career—no small feat in this business. Not only had he overcome a mountain of odds, but he’d become an integral part of the club through sheer determination and a gritty work ethic. Blake had looked up to him from the moment he’d met the goalie, and he couldn’t imagine the team succeeding without him backstopping the net. At odds with his confident demeanor, Mac never hesitated exposing his soft underbelly when it came to Mia or his kids, which, oddly, didn’t take away from his stature as a man’s man. As for Mia, the fun, fiery brunette acted as crazy for Mac as he was about her. M had been right. They were a perfect match.
What did that feel like?
Blake had never had anyone like that in his life—he’d never even been in love—but he found himself wondering more and more what it would feel like knowing someone waited for him when he returned from a grueling road trip, someone soft and warm who threw her arms around his neck and told him how happy she was to see him.
Mac unlocked their door and entered a room with two queen beds. It was comfortable but identical to every other room they stayed in during their away games. Blake waited until Mac picked his bed, then dropped his bag at the foot of the other one. Goalies were a superstitious bunch, and he’d learned long ago to defer to their wishes; it could make the difference between winning and losing. If they believed sleeping in the hotel bed on the right meant a win, you didn’t question it. Besides, at five years his senior, Mac was a veteran, and Blake respected the pecking order.
Mac shucked his coat and tie, and he parked his ass on the end of the bed to wrestle off his shoes. “Looked like your buddy Ferguson had his hands full down in that bar. But that’s never been your thing, has it?”
“No, and as I seem to recall, it wasn’t your thing much either before you and Mia got together.” Blake pulled off his suit jacket and tossed it on the bed before loosening his tie.
“Yeah, well, I thought it was for a while, but I sucked at it. Maybe because I figured out it’s not all about the sex. Not that there isn’t a lot of that now—because there’s way more than there used to be when I was single—and not that it isn’t mind-blowing, because it is. On a whole other level and beyond anything with some random chick.” He paused to waggle his eyebrows. “But it’s only part of the picture.”
Mind-blowing sex? Blake wasn’t sure he’d ever had that either. And what was the rest of the picture? “You committed guys all sing the same tune,” Blake retorted. “And, come to think of it, how come you all have brunettes who work with or for Paige Miller? What’s up with that?”
Mac shrugged. “No idea. Maybe it’s because that’s where the good ones are at and we’re all smart fuckers who pay attention.” He chortled, then sobered. “They’re definitely not in that bar downstairs or in any bars in any of the hotels we stay at, unless they’re there for some other reason besides hooking up with a hockey player. And by the way, they’re not all brunettes either. Grimson’s wife is blond, and so is Nelson’s. They’re quality, but I’m sort of partial to brunettes myself.”
Apparently, so am I. “Were you always partial to brunettes?”
“Nah, I was partial to opportunity. If the woman was willing, so was I. Didn’t much matter beyond that. But then I married Becca, and when she died, I kind of went into a shell. I was just coming out of it when I met Mia, and … I don’t know. I was meeting a lot of women, but something about her just … I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She drove me insane, in good and bad ways.” Smiling to himself, he tossed his shoe across the room.
A familiar chord struck somewhere deep down, and Blake nodded, locking out the cute, quirky brunette who’d moved into his consciousness.
Mac dropped his other shoe and glanced over at him. “So what do you say? Dinner out or room service?”
Blake didn’t have to think about it. “Room service.” More questions swirled in his head, and he wanted to extend this unexpected conversation.
After Mac placed their orders, he reclined on his bed. Blake picked up the thread. “Had you met Mia when we were in Toronto that one time? Those women at your table … you looked downright annoyed.” Blake was referring to a night in a Toronto club soon after their last season had started. They’d been celebrating Mac’s first shutout of the season, and three smoking-hot women had practically begged Mac to fuck them; one had been grinding in his lap. He hadn’t struck Blake as a man interested in opportunity. He’d looked miserable or mad or both.
Mac grinned. “Because I was annoyed. Yeah, I’d met Mia by then. I guess I was distracted and frustrated none of them were her. You, on the other hand, looked downright terrified.”
That night, Blake felt like he’d fallen into some R-rated B movie about a man who crash-lands on an island populated by sex-starved women desperate to be fucked by him. Yeah, every guy’s dream, except when he wakes up and discovers it’s real.
“I wasn’t sure what they wanted,” he blurted. As soon as the comment left his mouth, he laughed aloud at his own stupidity.
“Looked pretty obvious what they wanted,” Mac chortled. “I’m sure they would have been happy to show you if you were too big a dumbass to figure it o
ut on your own.”
Blake had been beyond uncomfortable, overwhelmed by the abundance of female attention and unsure how to handle it. Fergs would have known exactly what to do. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, did they want me and why? Or was it the hockey player they wanted?”
Mac arched an eyebrow. “I think you already know the answer to that question. That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? And it’s one reason I was so damn annoyed that night. On the other hand, you have guys like Tompkins, who take advantage of every opportunity they can get their hands on and then some. And look how that worked out for him. Not that I’m complaining. I’d be out of a job otherwise, though I don’t feel good that it happened the way it did.”
Wyatt Tompkins had been the Blizzard goalie when Mac and Blake first joined the club. Tompkins apparently had been spiraling out of control since the team had won the Cup the prior year, believing he was entitled to whatever and whomever he wanted. Mostly, it had been true, but he’d been unable—or unwilling—to rein himself in and had gone off the deep end, eventually losing his job to Mac and getting shipped off to Buffalo, where it was cold as fuck and the team wasn’t so great.
Before being traded, Tompkins had taken the club on a bumpy ride, and Mac had put the team on his shoulders and brought them through it admirably. Everyone knew bad blood simmered between the two goalies, but only because Tompkins whined about it. Mac, on the other hand, had been stoic and close-mouthed. Another reason Blake admired him. The man was a class act.
If Mac had found someone—two someones—and he hadn’t settled, there could be someone out there for Blake too.
Maybe he had already met her.
Which brought him full-circle to Ferguson. He was seeing a side to his buddy he’d either never noticed or that was only now rearing its ugly head.
“What do you do if a Tompkins-esque character is aiming for a woman you know, and she has no idea he’s a douchebag, and she deserves better? And just for fun, what if the douchebag is a friend of yours? Do you shut your mouth? Do you tip her off?”
Mac took a thoughtful pause. “My first question is if the guy’s such a scum bucket, why’s he your friend? But I get it. We all get into those situations where people who are our so-called friends do shit that make us go, ‘What the fuck?’ My second question is does the woman like the douchebag? Because if she does, you telling her he’s a dick is only going to get her pissed off at you.”
Blake pushed out an exhale. Nothing was simple, was it? “Yeah, but he talks out of both sides of his mouth.” And it rankles. “He says he’s crazy about one, that she’s it for him, but then he’s fucking someone else he says doesn’t mean anything to him, and on top of that, now he acts like he’s down to fuck every woman who’ll drop her pants.” He’s greedy. And it’s plain wrong. No other way to put it.
The thought struck that if Ferguson did get Michaela, he wouldn’t treat her right. Blake barreled ahead. “This girl deserves to be treated like royalty—like you treat Mia and Grims treats Ellie and T.J. treats Natalie—not like she’s another plaything in an already overflowing toybox.”
Expressive quicksilver eyes and bouncy brown curls belonging to someone he’d known only a few short weeks popped into Blake’s head. Like an army of white blood cells going to war inside his body to keep him safe, his brain cells were poised to march and shut the thought down before it could sprout roots.
No, not M.
He shot to his feet and paced.
Mac side-eyed him. “Know what I think?”
Blake shook his head.
“I think the friendship you’re worried about isn’t much of a friendship. I’m also thinking that this woman’s kinda special and that you need to go after her yourself.”
Chapter 14
That's Definitely a Buzz Saw Up Ahead
Michaela swallowed a frustrated curse aimed at the TV screen before she realized she was alone and her neighbors couldn’t hear her … because they were on the screen, playing the last of their away games. She let the curse fly, not exactly sure what she was cursing at, except the refs seemed to be calling everything in Minnesota’s favor. What was up with that anyway? Although she’d told Blake she didn’t have time to watch sports—and truthfully, she didn’t—she had miraculously managed to carve out a few hours to watch the Blizzard’s three road games.
Even though work was piling up on top of the existing towering heap, she was taking a much-needed breather, losing herself in the game, dazzled by the play of one blond, green-eyed center whom experts touted as having the best wrist shot in the league … possibly ever. Michaela had never been into jocks, but she was finding she could be persuaded otherwise—specifically ones named Blake who wore the number twenty-one.
He was presently sitting on the bench, but on the ice one of the Minnesota players knocked down a Blizzard forward in front of the net.
“Hey, what was that? Damn mugging thugs on ice!” she shouted when the camera panned the Minnesota bench. This she followed up with a handful of trail mix she chucked at the TV.
“Shit! Now look what you made me do, you jackasses! I have to clean up the mess you made me make.”
Yeah, she was being ridiculous, but it was sort of fun to scream about a game she suddenly cared a whole hell of a lot about, even if she didn’t understand it completely. It popped the pressure valve on the steam that had been building inside her all week.
She trapped the breath rising in her throat as Blake prepared for the face-off. Gliding toward the face-off circle, he was all tics, twitches, and neck pops. Granted, she hadn’t known him very long, but she’d been close enough to notice he didn’t exhibit the nervous behavior anywhere but on the ice.
“Wonder if he knows he does that?” she asked herself aloud. “I’ll have to ask Owen about it when we go to the Steadmans’.” It could be a topic of conversation in case they ran out of subjects. While she could fall into a comfortable rhythm talking to Blake, she had no idea if his roommate was as easy to talk to, or if he’d just spend the entire evening trying to impress her with his pecs. She sighed. Oh well. At least she had a date.
As soon as Blake bent over and planted his stick on the ice, the twitching stopped. He was all business, his pale greens lasered to a fine point on the puck in the linesman’s hand, as though he could drill right through its core. So intense, so focused, so … phew!
She fanned herself with her hand. Without her permission, her mind leapt to whether he looked at his bedmates with the same intensity when he was about to—
Whoa there, girl!
She groaned aloud as the visual of him on top of the redhead shifted to him on top of her, stealing what little breath she had left in her lungs. She hurriedly banished the image. Where these thoughts were coming from, she had little idea, but they’d been making random appearances all week, driving her to distraction. They had to stop. Good thing he wasn’t taking her to the Steadmans’; she wasn’t sure the little devil on her shoulder could be trusted not to jump him.
The puck dropped, pulling her from her fantasies—thank God!—as the announcers described the action. “Barrett has won another face-off, and big Dave Grimson’s picked it up for a breakout pass. Oh, and now it’s a three-on-two heading into the O-zone,” the play-by-play guy exclaimed. “Barrett’s got the puck again, and he’s bringing it up the middle. Nice saucer pass to T.J. Shanstrom. And a one-timer, but the goalie made the stop … and gave up a juicy rebound. Barrett’s on it, crashing in front of the net and taking a beating from Minnesota’s D-men, who are all over him.”
One big guy cross-checked Blake in the back, and he jerked forward into the net and on top of the goalie. The announcer was drowned out by Michaela hollering at her TV. “Oh! Oh! Oh! No, no, no! You can’t do that, mister! That’s a penalty. Of some kind! That has to be a penalty!”
A whistle blew to stop the play. Blake pulled himself up and tapped the goalie on the helmet as if checking on him. Oh, that’s so sweet! Then he spun and gave h
is tormentor a shove with his stick. And that’s so hot! She let out a throaty growl.
The D-man’s gloved hand shot out and landed on Blake’s face before knocking his helmet back from his forehead. Then came some extracurricular face-washing, all delivered by the Minnesota asshole, before T.J. jumped in and pulled the guy back, giving him a friendly bear hug in the process.
“Yes, T.J.! You show him! C’mon, ref! Have you got a broken arm? Get that thing in the air already! You’re letting these guys get away with murder!” She sat so far forward on her couch she nearly fell off.
Blake slashed at the guy’s stick, and the ref’s arm went up. He pointed at Blake first, then at the penalty box.
“What? You have got to be kidding me!”
Her phone rang, and when she saw Fiona’s smiling face, she picked up. “What’re you doing, Micky-Dub?”
“I’m watching hockey,” Michaela snarled. “No, I’m watching a mugging on ice and refs who suck so much they’ve swallowed their whistles and gotten them stuck in their throats! The poor guy was getting beat up, and all he did was defend himself. So who do they send to the box? The guy defending himself! God, they are soooo lame!”
“Oh my,” Fiona cackled. “Sounds like someone’s a big fan all of a sudden. You even sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh. Well, they’re my neighbors.”
“Who? The refs?”
She let out an exasperated exhale. “No, the players. Did I not tell you this? I live next door to two hunky hockey players.”
“Oh really,” Fiona purred. “Do tell. Do we have some neighborly relations happening?”
“No, nothing like that. Well, that’s not entirely true. I spent the night with the blond one at a friend’s house—”
“What? You go, girl! Whoo! Love how you got right back on the horse. Way to overcome the speed-dating fiasco.”
“No, Fi. We didn’t spend the night. Just spent the entire time talking, and we went so late the hosts threw us out.”