He made it on time to their morning session, but just barely, and Coach Neilson asked if he needed a reminder about the Shower Before Practice policy as he skated by—loud enough for the whole team to hear.
And a few guys snickered, which meant Keane would have to spend the rest of the week checking them into walls whenever they even thought about going for his side’s puck. As violently as possible. He’d learned early never to let a rich prick get away with laughing at him.
On top of that, he hadn’t gotten the chance to eat breakfast this morning, and there was no time to sneak in a bowl of Wheaties after practice, just a shower. He opted for the shower. Because he hated getting laughed at…he told himself. But a small, no-bullshit part of him knew the real reason.
That real reason stood around 5’5 with deep brown eyes, tits to literally dream for, and had made “More Than a Feeling” blast inside his head with just one look. And no, he didn’t want to smell when he slammed the real reason’s boyfriend into a locker this morning.
But he did take a moment to text his little brother who was still in middle school before heading off to the campus’s main classroom building.
“How’s it going.”
“Fine.”
Shit. The single word answer from his normally chatty brother meant he was anything but. Also…why wasn’t he in school?
He didn’t bother to ask, because he already knew the answer. It was six feet and liked to beat on whoever was around when it got drunk and pissed off about its shitty left behind life. This was one of the reasons he’d agreed to transfer from his boarding school in Connecticut to one in Boston. He needed to be able to go home on the weekends. Protect his brother as much as he could from their asshole father.
But apparently his father had decided to switch things up and get punchy on a week night.
So yeah, Keane’s mood was charting at Pretty Fucked by the time he got to school. He ignored all the people calling out to him as he strode down the main hallway. There were mostly girls anyway. And none of them were her.
In fact, Band Nerd and his girlfriend were suspiciously absent when he walked past their section of lockers.
More F-bombs exploded in his head as he continued down the hallway, without today’s lunch money offering. Obviously, Band Nerd & Co. had decided to avoid him, but after he stowed his books, he’d hunt them down like a Catholic priest whose collection plate had come back to the front empty.
Just like the dorm rooms on the fourth floor of the residence hall, the school kept all hockey players’ lockers together. Sin, Con and a few of his other teammates had already arrived and were shoving books into their lockers.
“Boston!” they intoned as he opened his own locker.
Unlike Con, and Sin, he hadn’t had to split up his name. Not to say Boston Glenn was elitist as fuck. But the only other Boston propers who attended the school were either brown and here on scholarship (like Lena), or descended from Founding Fathers, which he guessed made them too anemic and inbred to play hockey. Whatever, he liked having Boston all to himself. And it really didn’t matter today anyway. The main point was him needing to hunt that ass tool down to beat the five out of h—
The imaginary film of him beating Band Nerd to a pulp froze frame when he saw the envelope waiting for him at the top of his locker.
A white envelope…his heart stopped beating. If there was one thing he’d learned after two years at elite boarding schools, it was that rich kids were a bunch of mean cunts. And the guys were the worst. None of them knew how to fight for shit, so if they had a problem with you, instead of settling that beef with fists, they took the girly way out and fucked with your head.
Had one of those skinny pale-ass Founding Daddy fucks figured out his Dad collected envelopes for the Charlie Gang and decided some mocking was in order? Keane fisted a hand, wondering who he’d have to knock out first.
But then he caught sight of the words written across the top of the envelope in neat looping letters. A girl’s handwriting for sure. When he and most guys he knew bothered to write neatly, it was always in block letters, spaced out with nothing touching. No fucking loops.
Keane picked the envelope up and read:
Dear Keane (sp?),
It has come to our attention that your Boston Glenn Scholarship does not cover your lunch money needs. In the spirit of helping, here is the first of five dollars that will be delivered every weekday, so that you may enjoy your mid-afternoon meal without impeding the lunch time needs of others.
All our best,
Scholarship Kids Helping Other Scholarship Kids
Keane read the words on the front of the envelope, then looked inside. Sure enough, there was a five-dollar bill.
He’d noted all the “our” this and “our” that, but he knew exactly who had left this envelope for him. And a slow grin spread across his face as he went from simply wanting to bang the girl with the big tits to actually starting to like her. Sending a note like this to a guy like him required major balls, and he had to give her respect. Not just the mental kind, either.
From that day forth, he never messed with Band Nerd again. And even though he put himself on a monthly rotation of easy pussy after a week of not seeing her in the hallway, he continued thinking (and occasionally dreaming) about the girl who left an envelope with a five-dollar bill in his locker every school day.
That had been the first time she surprised him. But it wouldn’t be the last.
Chapter One
“Excuse me, could I have your autograph?”
Keane raised his head from the glass of whiskey he was about to down, already preparing to say fuck no. Politely, if he could manage it. His brother, Bono, had warned him before this year’s annual black-tie event for the Keane Hockey Academy that his habit of telling anyone who asked him for his John Hancock to go fuck themselves might not help them hit this year’s fundraising goal.
Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Five minutes before going on stage to deliver his required speech, he had zero desire to talk to anything but a stiff drink.
But he reconsidered his no when he spied who was doing the asking. Perky blonde. Early 20s. Hopefully not younger. But rich enough to be milling around this six-figure a table black tie fundraiser. Plus, she held his Hawks Upper Deck card in her perfectly manicured hand. Not a napkin or some bullshit like that.
“Yeah, you can have an autograph.” He took the card from her and immediately flipped it over, before the younger him could give him any grief. Yeah, technically he made more money off the ice than he ever did on, but pictures from when he was whole still hit him like a puck to the chest.
“What’s your name?” he asked, giving her lots of eye contact.
“Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for my dad. He got called away on business, but he’s a huge fan still. His name is Gary.”
Well, shit. He scribbled his name across the card and asked bluntly, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” she answered, dipping her head in a way she probably practiced in the mirror. It was wicked cute. “How old are you?”
He handed the card back to her. “Thirty-three. You coming back to my place for dessert after this is done?”
He watched her calculate out a response. The younger women knew how to put on event make-up like nobody’s business thanks to YouTube. But they couldn’t hide their feelings for shit when it came to sober, in person come-ons. He knew her answer way before she carefully gave it. “I’d like that. I’d like it a lot.”
Huh…nothing.
Keane liked winning. He’d built a hockey career and then a multi-million-dollar real estate investment group on winning. But this didn’t feel like a win. There was no victory flare, no stirring in his pants. Just a whole lot of hollow numb. Same as before the blonde had walked up to him, right before he ordered his usual pre-speech drink.
Speaking of which. “You want one?” he asked, beckoning over the man bun tending the bar in a crisp white shirt and bow tie.
“Yes, thank you,” she answered, laying a hand on his arm.
Without warning “More Than a Feeling” started blasting, flooding him with memories of the last girl who had made him hear that song with just one touch.
Logically, Keane should have been on top of the world. His two years at Boston Glenn couldn’t have gone better. They’d won the state championship twice. He’d yet to go more than three or four days without pussy. And now here he was dancing with the hottest girl in school with a crown on his head. He’d morphed from a South Boston peasant recruit to king of the school, with little to no off-ice effort required.
“Babe, I’m going to blow your mind tonight,” Cordelia whispered in his ear, giving him even more reason to show some gratitude for getting named prom king along with his current girlfriend.
If he had to listen to her talk for more than a few minutes, Cordelia annoyed the hell out of him, but she fucked like a porn star. Always down for head. Knew how to give him plenty of eye contact and seemed to have been born without a gag reflex. She kept everything bare, didn’t even have hair on her arms. And she knew what she was doing when she got on top. He could already see her taking her pretty blonde hair out of that princess bun, and swishing it back and forth as she rode him like the horse she boarded in the Boston Glenn stables.
Yeah, euphoria should be running through his veins, like the good stuff he was known to peddle at college parties when his funds ran low.
But instead he continued to psycho stare over Cordelia’s shoulder. Not at another girl, but at Band Nerd, who was dancing with some skinny Jewish-looking guy. Keane had never seen him before, but he had his arms wrapped around Band Nerd, and was dancing just as close to him and as Cordelia was to Keane.
Band Nerd was gay. That motherfucker had been letting Lena pay Keane five dollars every school day for two years, but then couldn’t even wait until after prom to come out of the closet. Couldn’t even take her instead of that equally band nerd looking fuck.
Anger continued to rise, filling his body until it became so rigid, his normally self-absorbed girlfriend, leaned back to ask, “Are you all right?”
Instead of answering, he walked away from her.
“Keane? Keane? Where are you going?” Cordelia demanded.
He ignored her as he headed straight toward Band Nerd with his fist balled. Nearly two years, he’d been whacking off to fantasies of Lena Kumar. But he’d never touched her. Never let himself approach her. Because she was already taken. And now her “boyfriend” was here with another guy? If this fucker thought, he was going to get away with this…
Unfortunately, Con popped up in front of him halfway through his beeline. “Hey, hey,” he said, following the direction of Keane’s gaze. “We’re all pissed about that fag showing up with a date, but hockey season’s over, bro. If you say or do something to him, the gay student coalition’s going to shit a sheep. The school will kick you out just to be PC and that could put your place on the UBoss’s hockey team in danger. Think, bro, think.”
Keane did think about it. True, if he kicked Band Nerd’s ass, the school would probably expel him. Now that they’d gotten what they wanted; they didn’t need him anymore. He understood that. But with his record and NHL trajectory, he doubted much would endanger his hockey team placement at the University of Boston—or UBoss as the locals called the division one school.
Still, he held only three basic truths to be self-evident since discovering hockey.
Don’t get assholed.
Do whatever it took to make it to the NHL.
Don’t let shit come between you and the NHL.
He went back to his girlfriend. Let her fuck him good for making her prom queen dream come true.
But was that enough?
Did he stop obsessing over Lena? Or the fact that she was free? Had been free this entire time?
No, no…he didn’t.
By Monday morning, he’d decided to do something nearly as fucked up as Band Nerd showing up at prom with a guy on his arm.
He arrived earlier than usual to school the Monday after the big dance, with a plan to ask Lena Kumar out. Thanks to the Mindfuck gods, all the other seniors’ lockers had been grouped right up the hallway from the hockey players’ this year. That meant he’d been gifted season tickets he didn’t want to the show of her and Band Nerd, laughing together, like besties since September.
Keane had figured his chances of putting her in the monthly pussy rotation were zero to negative, which was why he’d stayed away. Yet watching them had made his chest burn funny. He couldn’t keep his interest up for a girl more than a few weeks, much less the two years Lena and Band Nerd had been together. And despite himself, his heart had pounded at the thought of someone like Lena being as sweet and loyal to him as she was to her weak as fuck boyfriend.
But lucky, Con had stopped him from bashing Band Nerd’s face in, because that shit had been a total illusion. Apparently, Lena had known all along that “her boyfriend” was gay and had volunteered for beard duty to make his life easier.
Con had sounded especially pissed when he reported all this back to Keane on Sunday. “I knew that guy was a fag, but I let him get away with it, while we were still on hockey god status, because I thought what he had with Lena was for real.” He’d shaken his head bitterly. “I should have trusted my gut and beat him down.”
But Keane couldn’t figure out whether to admire her for her loyalty or go bitter, like Con over the wasted opportunity. Did she know…did she have any idea what he would have done to her if he’d known she was free?
He knew now, and his heart pounded louder than ever as he strode from the front entrance of the school toward the senior lockers. He could see her at the end of the hallway, laughing with Band Nerd. So yeah, Con must have gotten it right about her not being mad.
Keane headed straight toward her. No pretending not to see her today. No more sneaking looks.
“You’re here early!”
His heart went from pounding to a full-on sink when Cordelia appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his arm. Latching on to him like a fucking leech. Seeing the two of them walking down the hall together, people started calling out congratulations. Hell, if it didn’t feel like prom night all over again. Especially with Cordelia waving back, like she was still wearing a tiara.
But fuck that. “Cord, we need to talk,” he said, figuring in public would be as good a place as any to dump her. Less chance of her making a scene.
Instead of answering, Cordelia’s scrunched her face and asked, “What’s that girl doing at your locker? Is she…is she trying to give you a love note?”
Keane blanched when he saw Lena standing at his locker with an envelope in her hand, obviously preparing to slip it between the front metal grate.
Fuck!
Before he could stop her, Cordelia rushed over to her with a “Ew, what are you doing?”
Then she snatched an envelope Keane had gotten to know well out of Lena’s hand. Over the years, Lena had gone from handwriting her made-up slogan to printing it out in a pretty-legitimate-looking capital letter font with a logo and everything.
He could see the orange-and-black SCHOLARSHIP KIDS HELPING OTHER SCHOLARSHIP KIDS logo from here, but instead of chuckling like he usually did at the sight of it, he cursed himself.
“It’s…it’s nothing,” Lena answered Cordelia, reaching for the envelope.
But Cordelia held it back, her perfectly made up eyes flashing angrily as she said, “No, you’re going to tell me why you are putting envelopes in my boyfriend’s locker.”
“Cordelia, seriously, just give it back—”
Instead, Cordelia opened the envelope like she was auditioning for Mean Girls 2: Over the Top. Probably expecting to find a love letter she could read out loud to the crowd of kids that had gathered to watch this post-prom show go down. However, she scrunched her face even tighter when she saw the five-dollar bill. “Money? Why are you putting an envelope with money inside my boyfriend�
��s locker? Is this some kind of joke?”
Keane cursed himself for letting that lunch money shit go on for so long. It had never been about money really. His dad was mafia for Christ’s sakes. Low down on the totem pole, yeah, but still, Keane could make $500 in the time it took her to put her Abe Lincoln in an envelope and slip it in his locker. All it took was one call to the any of the many uncles he wasn’t really related to, and a trip to a frat house on any one of Boston’s many college campuses.
He’d thought about telling her to knock it off a few times over the past two years, but he’d never been able to bring himself to do it. The lunch money was stupid, yeah, but it was the only connection he had with this girl he’d been obsessing over.
“Yes, it’s a joke,” Lena answered Cordelia, her voice sounding weak and scared.
Cordelia had a way of inspiring that reaction in other girls.
“Just a joke, right, Keane?”
The gazes of all the students staring at them felt like bugs crawling over his skin. In an instant he was transported back to his first real deal hockey summer camp. He’d had to take a T and two buses to get to Marlborough. Those rich kids had pointed at the Southie in second-hand skates covered in duct tape, and they’d laughed every time he fell. Teaching him how things worked here at this elite summer camp, just as they had in South Boston. Here and everywhere you went you either assholed or got assholed.
Don’t get assholed. As his original truth rang even more self-evident in his head, everybody was staring at him, waiting for his answer. Including Lena.
Christ, Lena…. She was stupid loyal, wasn’t she? Too damn loyal to guys who didn’t fucking deserve it.
He slammed his hand against the row of lockers, hating her for her stupid loyalty as she jumped at the unexpected sound of his hand bashing into metal. Hating himself even more for what he was about to do.
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 80