Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

Normal.

  Even the puckheads she dated were probably normal.

  Chase is frowning at me.

  He’s a regular-size dude who works out, smart enough that he made a billion bucks before we all hit thirty—suck on that, Doug the douche-dick—and he’s got that I Own The World attitude.

  Also got the Murphy’s sister has a problem attitude.

  Ambrosia catches on, and she adds a Berger scowl to the mix.

  She’s scary too.

  I got this, I silently tell them both.

  Is Felicity annoying? Yeah. Talks too much. Too bossy about my ankle. Dates losers who take her stuff.

  But Murphy told me to watch his sister.

  Which makes her the same as my sister. No matter what that twitching in my junk says it wants.

  It says it wants whatever was going on in her head when we took that break during Rock Band earlier. When she looked at me.

  Really looked at me.

  Fuck.

  She’s getting her shit back.

  And I’m getting the barriers back.

  She’s Murphy’s sister.

  Doesn’t matter what else she is.

  The Bear nudges me. “You need help, you let us know.”

  Sniffer nods.

  I grunt.

  Don’t fuck with my family. Or my family’s family. And my team is my family.

  Even if my last family gave me up. You’re perfect on the ice, my agent—Z’s agent—told me—but Chicago wants the whole package. Don’t worry though. Copper Valley doesn’t expect anything other than for you to kill it with the puck.

  Yeah.

  I do that good from here on a couch. Across the whole fucking country from where my team’s playing.

  When Coach is talking about getting me in to work with the PR department.

  Practice interviews.

  Just in case, he says. Giving me an opportunity to grow, he says.

  The world gets Dumb Ares.

  The world doesn’t get my heart.

  We’re all on the edge of our seats by the end of the first period. Score’s tied. Murphy got pulled for Klein, our second-string goalie. I’m pissed. Loki’s pissed because I’m pissed. Throws a Cheeto at the TV. Murphy’s fan club on the floor is pissed. The Bear’s glad.

  He and Klein are tight. Likes seeing him get ice time.

  TV switches to a commercial break, and everyone sags.

  If the Thrusters were at home, I’d be there in the arena. Me and The Bear and Sniffer. Moral support. Fist bumps. Pranks.

  Normal.

  The dumbass commentators come back on the screen. Felicity keeps it muted. Someone bangs on the door.

  It’s eleven o’-fucking-clock.

  Felicity scrambles to her feet. I’m halfway to mine when my sister tackles me.

  “Stay,” Chase orders me while he moves to the door behind Felicity’s friends. Sniffer’s eyeing me like he could take me down despite his knee, which is bullshit and we both know it. Would take three of him.

  Or one Ambrosia, who’s got a death grip on a pressure point. Thanks, Ma.

  “You need help keeping him down, you let me know,” The Bear tells Ambrosia.

  I flip them all off, even though it makes Ambrosia press harder.

  Loki screeches and throws a Cheeto in her face.

  Despite her friends telling her not to, Felicity opens the door.

  “Where the fuck were you?” a dude growls. “When I say meet me for dinner, I mean meet me for dinner.”

  I surge up. Loki screams. The Bear grabs me, Sniffer grabs me, and Ambrosia hangs on me like a monkey.

  Experience talking.

  Monkey hangs on me nearly every day lately.

  “Sit down, Ares,” Ambrosia hisses at me.

  “You don’t get to issue orders,” Felicity says to the douche-dick. Low. Menacing. Sexy as all fuck. Not in a fake voice. In her voice. My junk twitches again. “We’re over. Give me my shit back and leave me alone.”

  “You want your shit back, you’ll do what I—ulp!”

  Chase steps between them, shoves something—or more likely someone, namely the douche-dick—outside, and blocks the screen door. I hear his voice, but not his words.

  Felicity sighs. “This really isn’t necessary,” she grumbles.

  “It’s more than necessary,” Maren says. The smart one. Clearly.

  Alina nods.

  “Sit down, Ares. Chase has it.” Ambrosia twists my nipple, and I let her think that’s enough to make me behave, because she’s the type to kick me in the ankle if I don’t do what she says the first time. Plus, she’s being a fucking monkey—but heavier—climbing all over me to make me sit.

  She’s more flexible than I remember.

  Probably Chase’s fault.

  I growl. I’m growling a fuck-lot tonight.

  But Loki’s upset because I’m upset, so I sit.

  He leaps on my shoulder and pats my head. I give him a chocolate mint from my pocket.

  Vet friend would probably yell at me.

  Loki swallows the whole thing without taking it out of the wrapper.

  “You’re teaching that monkey bad habits,” Ambrosia says to me.

  I flip her off again.

  She rolls her eyes and looks at Felicity as Chase steps back into the room, alone, and bolts and locks the door. “When did you break up?”

  “Couple weeks ago,” she says, grumbling more.

  “Felicity has terrible luck with men,” Alina says.

  The house creaks.

  “Terrible taste,” Felicity corrects. She looks at the ceiling. “Yes, yes, Gammy, I know. I’m done with men, okay?”

  “You need to tell Nick,” Alina adds.

  “That I have terrible taste in men? Believe me, he knows. The whole entire world knows.”

  “She needs to tell the police,” Maren replies.

  “You know, that’s probably a better idea.” Alina nods. “Not your first stalker. And then when you consider what Nick usually does…”

  Felicity sighs again.

  “Stalker?” Chase repeats.

  Felicity waves a hand. “I was his first girlfriend. He was inexperienced with letting go, I was inexperienced with recognizing that he wasn’t entirely normal…”

  “He was crazy,” Maren corrects.

  “He operated outside social norms, but he got the message soon enough.”

  “And that wasn’t even the ex who wrote a terrible story about her and published it on Amazon.”

  “That was not about me.”

  “It was called My Crazy Ventriloquist Bitch Ex-Girlfriend.”

  “And the character was nothing like me.”

  “I’ll give you that, but he named her Felicity Murphy. He was clearly trying to make a point.”

  “Nick got him back,” Alina offers. “He wrote a story called Chad the Turd is a Douchebag and published it on Amazon too.”

  “I remember that,” The Bear says. “Horrible book. Dude’s a great goalie. Can’t write for shit.”

  “The Churd threatened to sue him, so Nick threatened to sue him back and somehow got the guy to take the book down, then used all the money he made in royalties to start a website called Dickhead Boyfriend Support Group.”

  “Nick’s fucking awesome,” Sniffer says.

  “Not if you’re his sister.” Felicity’s back to using her puppet voices. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

  “Been there, got the T-shirt,” Ambrosia says, still trying to hold me down.

  She’s even more annoying than when she was a kid.

  Chase is watching the two of us wrestle, with Loki occasionally bopping Ambrosia, while he blocks the door. He smirks, but he’s leaning too hard on that door.

  Doesn’t trust the fucker to not leave.

  Felicity has a problem.

  “I need another glass of wine,” she announces. She’s a little wild in the eyes. Like she needs to know the windows are bolted and the door’s guarded.

 
Makes me feel better knowing the window in the kitchen’s fixed.

  One Google search and three texts was all it took.

  People will do anything for the right price.

  “Wine won’t interfere with you commentating, will it?” Ambrosia asks. “Because I was enjoying that.”

  “She’s even better when she drinks,” Maren says.

  She steps into the kitchen, and I stare at Maren until she meets my gaze. “Address,” I say.

  Her eyes narrow. “Not on your ankle.”

  I glare.

  She glares back.

  So I turn my glare to Alina. I’ll go to the vet friend if I have to. Know where she works.

  “All right, all right.” She covers her eyes. “Just don’t look at me like that anymore. You’re terrifying.”

  “He’s a teddy bear until he has a reason to throw a guy off the top of the bleachers at a baseball stadium,” Ambrosia offers. “Then you don’t want to fuck with him.”

  “Or with his sister,” Chase offers.

  Fucking right.

  That’s experience talking too.

  The house creaks again while the commentators laugh at themselves on the TV.

  Dumbass talking heads.

  Fucking glad the sound’s muted.

  Got enough problems.

  11

  Felicity

  Ares’s Escalade has magically appeared in Gammy’s carport Wednesday morning, and he lets me drive after a minimal stare-down.

  Well, a stare-down after he followed me to drop my car at a tire place to get me back on regular tires and not just the spare donut. I’d let him drive all day if it weren’t for the boot on his right foot, because it’s a triple espresso kind of day after staying up past one to see all of the game and I’m tired and I don’t want to deal with traffic.

  I also don’t want to talk about how much I didn’t sleep.

  I hate filing police reports, but it’s clearly time. And I have a buttload of witnesses from last night who all insisted I give the cops their names, phone numbers, and addresses. Chase and Sia both thought it was crazy funny when I asked if he was sure about giving his name to the cops since something clearly went down on Gammy’s front porch, though Ares glared and glowered some more. Something about being familiar with jail cells and having enough cash to post bail if defending a woman from a stalker is a crime here in southern Virginia.

  Which of course it isn’t.

  Copper Valley is in the South. Southern Virginia, to be exact. We’re a city with manners and some old-fashioned chivalry at our roots, though we’re known more for being the environmental capital of the East Coast. A huge revitalization went through downtown in the late seventies when some of the first green energy companies sprouted here, and the city has continued to grow with the environmental revolution. Even Doug owns a small green energy consulting firm that competes with Maren’s employer.

  Unfortunately, being environmentally-friendly—my ride to work this morning excluded—doesn’t always mean sanity and friendliness in other parts of life.

  “Do you know when your sister and Chase are heading back to New York?” I ask Ares. They left for a hotel after the game.

  He grunts, which I assume means no. If he’s tired after the late night, he’s not showing it.

  “Nick told you to babysit me, didn’t he?”

  He slides me a glance that I catch out of the corner of my eye as I steer his big honkin’ monster SUV into the parking lot at the clinic, and I realize I’m starting to understand his looks.

  Duh, this one says.

  You’re a menace to your own dating life, it adds.

  You think I’d be fucking hanging out here at a fucking rehab clinic where you won’t fucking let me use my own fucking two feet? it continues.

  Either Ares is way more fluent in his head than he lets on, or those weird feelings in my chest and cooch are inspiring imaginary rage on his behalf.

  Possibly some of both. He’s too good of a hockey player to be a total meathead.

  “You can talk more, can’t you?” I say before my brain gets the message that I probably shouldn’t taunt a 350-pound hockey player this early in the morning after he watched his substitute score the game-winning goal last-minute right before we all went to bed. I can’t say exactly why, but despite the nod he gave the TV, I don’t think he was happy about the team winning.

  That doesn’t seem like him though. It’s a puzzle.

  I love a good puzzle.

  Like why he doesn’t talk.

  “We heard that haiku yesterday,” I vent in my Lucy voice, because clearly, I have a death wish. “Don’t go glaring at us, Mr. Grumpy Gus. We’re just curious.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I vent as Tim the Goat. “I listened to my mother when she told me not to be nosy. You should too, Lucy.”

  “Would you both shut up?” I add as Harold. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Grumpapotamus,” Ares says.

  My heart flutters. He’s learning my puppets. “Hey, that’s a big word! Great job, Mr. Force!”

  I should probably muffle Lucy a little more. But she’s so cheerful, and I need cheerful this morning.

  He shakes his head like I’m nuts and climbs out of the car.

  “Don’t forget your crutch,” I say in my Tim voice, since he’s probably more relatable than Lucy is for Ares.

  I catch up with him halfway across the parking lot. “Do you talk more? Like with Zeus and Sia and Chase? When you’re alone?”

  “You talk,” he says.

  Too much is the silent end of that sentence.

  “It’s why she can’t keep a boyfriend,” Lucy says for me. “She’s only charming when she does this on stage.”

  He slides me another look. “Or with monkeys.”

  I crack up, because he’s got me there. “You really like your monkey, don’t you?”

  Another look, and this time, it’s personal, and this time, I blush from my chin to my roots. “Loki,” I add quickly. “Not your…” I wave at his crotch.

  Not because I can’t say penis. I grew up with a brother who was very attached to his, and you can’t work in physical therapy without being comfortable with body parts, so I’ve had to learn to be comfortable saying penis and vagina and ulna, which isn’t dirty at all, but for some reason makes me think of vulva, which is one of those words you couldn’t say in front of Gammy without getting a lecture about STDs and being sent away to birthing camp because good girls from good families didn’t have sex and get pregnant.

  And my point is, I’d really rather not think about Ares’s penis. Because now I’m remembering all that movement under his sweatpants Monday morning in my kitchen, having a hot flashback to the sex Olympics that played out in my head while he was staring through me last night, and I’m wondering just how much Nick would kill one or both of us if I made a move. Because he might be quiet, but I sincerely doubt he’s celibate. Rumors went around that he hooked up with Liv Daniels last summer. I don’t know if they’re true or not, but I kind of hate her right now.

  Which is silly, because I’m not interested in Ares.

  Just because he’s injured and protective and more than a little mysterious, plus solid muscle, and smells like cinnamon coffee cake today, doesn’t mean I’m interested.

  Actually, it means I shouldn’t be interested. I’m reporting my ex-boyfriend for harassment today. I have terrible taste in men. Ares is my brother’s teammate.

  And given what Nick likes to do to my exes…

  Clearly I have some kind of hormone deficiency that makes me make stupid decisions in my love life. I need to be stronger than my hormones.

  But my IQ is no match for my basic horny needs.

  Ares pulls the door open for me, because he has long arms and can reach from half a block back. I feel his gaze on me as I walk in, and I glance up at him.

  “Police,” he says.

  I panic and look around for the cops until I realize it was an order, not an
observation.

  “At lunch,” I say on a sigh.

  He nods.

  And that’s the other problem.

  Ares isn’t interested. Because I’m his job. The job my brother assigned him while he’s off the ice.

  Brilliant move on Nick’s part.

  Having us babysit each other.

  Honestly, I’d hate him right now, except the truth is, I’m grateful to not be alone.

  And even more grateful that Ares can look terrifying when he wants to.

  Can I take care of myself?

  Yes.

  But am I going to refuse the help when the help comes in such an intimidating package that has a vested interest in being on my side?

  Nope.

  Not at all.

  That would possibly be even stupider than dating Doug in the first place.

  12

  Ares

  Going stir crazy.

  So I bust out of prison.

  Time to get her stuff.

  I didn’t get through school because it made sense. I got through school because I found a way to get through school, and the only reason I cared was because I couldn’t play hockey if I didn’t pass.

  Ma said so.

  Good that Felicity’s going to the cops. Maybe they’ll help. Maybe they won’t.

  But that doesn’t mean my job’s over.

  When she leaves me in the lobby, I hobble like a good boy on my crutch to the desk.

  Melba smiles at me. She’s scared. You can see it in the whites of her eyes.

  “Watch her,” I say.

  She gulps. “Felicity?”

  “Bad ex.”

  Her nose wrinkles. “I was afraid of that,” she whispers.

  I grunt. “Watch her,” I repeat.

  And then I leave.

  Thought she was being smart, taking my keys.

  Got a spare set.

  Who’s smart now?

  Z and Joey are waiting when I get to the hotel Chase and Ambrosia stayed at last night. They flew in this morning since Z rolled back into New York after an away game in Chicago last night. My old team.

  Z kicked their asses.

  He got to play. I had to watch my sub kick ass for me. Kid’s good.

  Could take my place full time.

  Fuck.

  Chase and Joey climb in the back seat. Ambrosia tries to get in the third row, but Chase stops her. “Need the room, Bro.”