BLAZE: Enemies to Lovers College Hockey Romance

by Eddie Cleveland

  BLAZE

  Enemies to Lovers College Hockey Romance

  E. Cleveland

  Blaze

  Copyright © 2021 by Eddie Cleveland

  Editor:

  Finishing by Fraser

  Cover Design:

  Eddie Cleveland

  Copyright © 2021 by E. Cleveland. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Playlist

  1. Working the Pole

  2. Becky Ball-Buster

  3. Kneel Before the Queen

  4. Amnesia Sex

  5. Prince Harry or Killer Clown

  6. Sleepy Fruit

  7. Happy Birthday

  8. Harry Douche-Nozzle, the third

  9. Dick Kazoo

  10. Chicken Tattoo

  11. Pull-Cord Cock

  12. Sex History File Cabinet

  13. Playing Games

  14. Malicious Compliance

  15. Blaze’s Balloon Bonanza

  16. Blunt the Pain

  17. Sneaking Around & Out

  18. Prissy-Whipped

  19. Dirty Little Secret

  20. Pulling a Blaze

  21. Restrained

  22. Actions & Words

  23. Olympic High Jumper

  24. Busted for Bustin’

  25. Tired Traditions

  26. Rookie Mistake

  27. Something to Prove

  28. Pussy & Parties or Prissy

  29. Love Mute Button

  30. Raising Roosters

  31. Epilogue

  Also by E. Cleveland

  Connect with E. Cleveland

  About E. Cleveland

  Introduction

  This enemies to lovers romance is impossible to put down! Full of fiery friction. Funny oil-and-water banter. And enough steamy tension that you’ll feel the fire! Blaze is a book boyfriend you won’t soon forget.

  I have a new job. My official title, public relations manager for the Westbury Warriors hockey team, is a mouthful. It’s also a complete lie. I’m a babysitter for the baddest boy on the Westbury Warriors hockey team: Blaze.

  All of the hockey elites have reputations, but there’s only one guy that breaks all the rules. And (thankfully) the only guy who made that bizarre grainy-green night vision video. The one with him and some random girl. She's wearing nothing but the smile on her face and he's wearing nothing but the university’s mascot head.

  It went viral.

  And now my job is to keep Blaze from being a public relations nightmare. The fact that he hates me means I’m doing it well. Blaze is the guy who cares the least but causes the most amount of stress headaches. He’s covered in tattoos and attitude. If he wasn’t one of the best players on the team, they would’ve kicked him out long ago.

  His name is stupidly perfect for him too. He’s fast. He’s hot. And he’s fire in bed. I’m not supposed to know that last part.

  But I do.

  Clearly, he doesn’t remember the night we shared back when he was a freshman. And that’s the way it’s gonna stay.

  I have to stay professional. Even if I crave his heat, I can’t get drawn to his flame, because if I do I know full well what will happen. I’ll get burned.

  Playlist

  Flaws - Bastille

  My Own Souls Warning - The Killers

  Animals - Maroon 5

  Midnight Sky - Miley Cyrus

  Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkey

  Blow Your Mind - Dua Lipa

  Without a Fight - Brad Paisley ft. Demi Lovato

  1

  Working the Pole

  Blaze

  “I expected us to be less… noticeable.” Rookie glances around the low-lit strip bar.

  He’s not wrong. We do stick out here. This place is so empty, I’m surprised they bothered to stay open.

  My mother calls me Dylan, but I’m Blaze to everyone else. Coach Wilson thinks it’s because I like to skate at bullet speed just to get warmed up. Some of the newbie Warriors might believe that official line, but most of them know the real reason - I know all about getting high.

  I’ve smoked a lot of weed. I’ve had those conversations with God, those moments in the mirror where you’re just watching your face morph. Most times I just use it to take the edge off. Blunts are aptly named. They blunt the pain.

  No high compares to the insanity at this strip club in September when all the college kids are flooding the bars, their hands burning up with Daddy's money. Nothing I’ve ever smoked has come close to the high of Foxies during Frosh Week. Strippers covered in baby oil were wrestling each other naked. No seats were empty. It was so loud, you couldn’t hear someone yelling at the top of their lungs, even if they were sitting on your lap.

  Or grinding against it.

  This is… well, I don’t know if it’s possible to have fun at a depressing strip club, but it looks like we’ll find out. Tonight, there’s only one of everything. One stripper on the stage. One bartender mixing drinks. One bouncer at the door. All of them have distant, bored looks fixed to their faces.

  It doesn’t matter if it sucks tonight because I’m still doing him a favor. The kid’s a virgin. Every guy on the Westbury Warriors hockey team knows it. We were already calling him Rookie as a generic nickname, like we did for all the new guys who didn’t have one sorted out yet. There was a night we all got too drunk. He got all confessional on us and spilled the beans about how he’s never spilled his gravy.

  That was the night Rookie was born.

  If that placeholder hadn't fit as tight as, well... a virgin, there’s no telling what his nickname could have been. Maybe I’d be looking over at my friend “V-Card” and wondering why he looks so uptight. He might be nervous or maybe he’s excited. Whatever it is, he’s tense… like his head and his feet are attached to two different cable weights, stretched in opposite directions on a wire about to snap.

  “You gotta relax, man.” I laugh because he looks so fucking serious.

  I’m sick of serious. This year, all my roommates at Hector House have all been getting knocked out of the game like a tennis match between mosquitoes and those electric tennis rackets.

  Last year, Player and Kaylee hooked up, and yeah, it cramped our style a bit. I didn’t mind though. Having Kaylee to fawn over and fuck has kept our most noble and high-horsed Team Captain, Player, from staring down his nose at me twenty-four seven.

  Now, almost all the guys I live with are shacked up and it fucking sucks.

  “I am relaxed.” He’s not convincing. Worry pinches his face.

  “We’ll just have a beer, watch some girls and get back before the fucking curfew. It’s not a big deal.” I walk him over to a booth. The lighting is lower away from the stage, and Rookie really seems to want to avoid the spotlight.

  “Why push it, man? It’s crazy enough they let me in here. They’re not gonna serve my baby face any beer. Besides, this isn’t really our crowd.” Rookie looks around the room, and it doesn’t take him long to soak it all in. Foxies is fucking dead.

  “Pfft, come the fuck on. There isn’t a bar in town that’s gonna turn down serving that baby face as long as they know what team it plays for. You think you’re the first guy they’ve served underage? That’s like, ninety percent of their business. Not tonight, obviously.” We both look over at the aging sadness sitting next to the stage.

  “Obvi
ously.” Rookie cringes, like it’s burning his eyes to look at them.

  “It’ll be a good time.” I try to convince him. “This actually works better. Look, we can sit where we want. There’s no line at the bar. There are fewer guys. Who do you think a girl wants to dance for? Them or us?”

  We look back over at the handful of men. They look about the same age as my Dad. All of them are sitting around the stage, bellied up to perv alley. They’re drinking until they’ve got enough whiskey dick that a lap dance won’t make them blow a load in their sweatpants, but it’ll still bring them close. Not the type of sweatpants I pull out in the fall when college girls smell like pumpkin spice and everything nice, but they’re hungry for some sausage. Nah, these are threadbare and full of stains. The kind of stains you get when you’re too sad, and you can’t stop crying... from your dick.

  Turns out hump day is not a good night for naked dancing. Who knew? Not me when I decided to bring him here.

  Rookie sighs, and it’s quiet enough in here that I have no problem hearing it. “Alright, I’ll stay, but I’m not drinking.”

  “Come on, are you serious? You won’t have one beer?”

  “Fuck that. Pricilla will get me cut off the team. I’m not fucking around with a temper that cold. Girls like that will fuck you up.”

  “How do you know so much about girls all of a sudden?”

  “I’ve got three sisters, and two of them are like Pricilla. They would cut me without blinking.” I start to laugh, but I’m not sure if he’s kidding.

  Pricilla Stevens isn’t the first hard-ass I’ve come across over the years, but she is — without question — the sexiest. It’s not a fair scale since the other two currently are Player and Coach Wilson.

  Prissy has proven one thing since she came into my life: no amount of sexy can fix annoying. Her personality is like porcupine quills doused in rubbing alcohol. She needs to smoke a blunt herself and fucking relax.

  “Fuck that, Prissy isn’t here. She’s not going to find out we’re here. This is a you problem. You don’t know how to go with the moment. Live a little.” A waitress drops some drinks off to the sweatpant crowd, and I wave her over.

  “No, man. All the restrictions suck, but it’s not worth throwing away hockey for.” Rookie shakes his head.

  The waitress walking our way is hot in a hard-life, take-no-shit kind of way. Rookie isn’t looking at her. His eyes are on the stage. The stripper rocks her hips. Slowly. Her dance is completely off the beat of the music. Whatever song she’s gyrating to, it’s in her head.

  An angry hive of irritated hornets buzz in my brain. I told Rookie I’d take him out and show him a thing or two about picking up bunnies. Honestly, I’m the one who needs the night out. I’m sick of constantly being watched, lectured at and controlled.

  Have I made some mistakes in college? Who the fuck hasn’t? Drinking underage and partying aren’t things I invented… I just perfected them. So, sue me. Sex with countless consenting college chicks doesn’t make me some kind of criminal; it makes me your typical, single college guy.

  Still, if I knew I’d end up with a watchdog-nanny just for making a sex video, I wouldn’t have done it. The only reason it went viral is because I fucked that chick wearing the Westbury Warrior’s mascot head. That and because the video was filmed on night vision mode. And because of the part when I cum and yell out, “I am a Warrior!”

  It’s hard to pinpoint what makes things popular on the internet.

  “Maybe a strip club isn’t the best place to pick up girls?” Rookie says, his eyes still locked on the hypnotic dance.

  “Yeah? Watch this, then.” I kick his foot under the booth and snap him from his daze.

  The waitress, whose brown hair is pulled back in a messy bun, stops beside the booth with a curt nod. “What do you wanna drink?”

  Instead of that fake smile you’d expect from someone in a customer service job, she’s making zero effort. There’s no trace of friendliness on her lips. Her eyes barely look alive when they flicker over us. She’s putting in the bare minimum, and she wants to make sure every guy here knows it.

  “We’ll get a couple of house drafts,” I answer.

  “Sure.” She starts to turn away.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” I get her attention, and she turns back.

  She scans me over with one hand perched on her hip. She looks like she’s deciding if I’m a creep or not. I think she chooses not because she tilts her head, gives a pressed-lip smile and squints. “Ayla.”

  “That’s your real name?”

  “Yeah.” She sorta shrugs.

  “I’m Blaze.”

  “That’s not your real name,” she scoffs.

  “You’re right, it’s my stage name.” I manage to twist that fake smile up on her lips higher. It almost reaches her eyes. “I play hockey for the Warriors and like weed, so…”

  “Blaze.” She fills in the blank.

  “Yep.” I nod.

  “Alright, Blaze. I’ll be back with some beer in a second.” Ayla’s face relaxes, and she gives me another quick head-to-toe before walking away.

  Rookie shakes his head. “I thought that chick was gonna tell you to get fucked. I don’t know how you do that.”

  “Confidence.” I don’t look at him until Ayla is completely out of sight. “Listen, all girls want three things. Most of ‘em want all three, but usually they’ll settle for at least one.” I hold up three fingers and start ticking them off. “A good time. Some good love. Or good dick.”

  I feel like a college professor imparting my wisdom to the next generation, except Rookie is only a few years younger than me.

  “If you wanna keep the good times rolling, you need cash flow. Unless you’re a trust fund baby, no college guy has enough bills in the bank for that. You’re way too fucking young to settle down with that good love. That leaves one option… you gotta learn to work that dick.”

  Rookie shakes his head and looks around a bit, like he thinks the guys over on perv alley give a fuck about his struggles. They do not. “Sure, but how is this the place to figure any of that stuff out?”

  “You can’t give good dick if it never leaves your pants. Listen, if you’re fucking up your crossovers or you can’t get the flick on the wrist shot, what do you do?”

  “Go to a training camp?”

  “Exactly. You go to the professionals. I’ve got you kid. After a couple of drinks tonight, you’ll have all the girls grabbing at your hockey stick. I brought you where women work the poles so you can get a woman to, you know, work your pole.”

  Rookie still looks skeptical, but Ayla comes back to our booth with two glasses of beer on a tray and her more genuine-looking smile.

  “Thanks, Ayla.” She doesn’t look like she’s in the same rush to get away from talking to me. She kind of hangs back by the edge of the table for a second. “What are you doing when you get off work? Got plans?” I ask her and take a drink.

  “Why do you want to know?” She gives me a bit of tough-girl attitude, but I know it’s for show.

  “Because, I think you need to cancel them.”

  “Really. And why would I cancel my plans?”

  “Because I don't share.”

  She smiles but tries to hide it. Ayla glances at Rookie and then back at me.

  “We’ll see.” She walks away, knowing full well I’m watching her go.

  Rookie laughs. “Ok, man, you proved your point. Teach me your wise ways.” He slides his drink across the table to me. “But I’m still not drinking.”

  “Fine. More for me.”

  2

  Becky Ball-Buster

  Blaze

  The light in the bathroom burns my retinas like an interrogation spotlight after sitting in the club. I finish pissing two beers into the urinal, shake a couple times and head back out. The dimness of the bar is a warm blanket over your head on a Saturday morning when you’ve got nowhere special to be.

  Up the hall is the next girl about to
go on. She’s heading from the changing room, which is idiotically located near the men’s toilet.

  “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Fuck off, creep.” She tilts her head back slightly to yell over her shoulder at me.

  I mean, fair enough.

  “I’m not a creep. Promise. I want to pay you.” Yeah, those words have done nothing to help me.

  “What are you saying?” She turns around, and her anger is fire in her eyes. I don’t think I was what she was expecting because she looks me over, and that fire seems to douse down a notch - like from inferno to moderate blaze.

  “Sorry.” I shake my head. “That sounded bad, right?”

  “Well, it didn’t sound good.” Her tone softens, but nothing else about her does. She stands tall, shoulders back, and looks me straight in the eyes.

  “I’m Blaze.” I hold out my hand.

  “Bambi.” She accepts my handshake but narrows her eyes…like she’s trying to figure me out. Given her usual Wednesday-night crowd, I’m not surprised. Rookie was right, we stand out here.

  “I’m here with a friend. His girl just broke his heart.” I’m not about to spill Rookie’s secret. “I’m trying to get him out of his funk. I was wondering if you could dance for him?”