Down to Puck (Buffalo Tempest Hockey Book 2)

by Sylvia Pierce

  She waited as he slid back into his coat and fished out his keys, both of them stepping aside to let a customer in.

  “Hello, beautiful,” the man said, cutting between them and deliberately brushing against Bex’s chest.

  Great. Her least favorite regular. And she hated when anyone else called her beautiful. That was Henny’s line.

  “Hey Logan,” she managed. “Be right with you.”

  He winked at her and took his usual seat at the bar, flipping through his phone like he had many important messages to check.

  “He’s totally looking at porn,” she said.

  “Sure you don’t want me to stick around?” Henny asked.

  “For Logan?” Bex laughed. “He’s annoyingly harmless. No, you go home. Sleep. Pub’s closed tomorrow, so I’m around if you need me.”

  “Closed?”

  “Fee’s uncle is coming in to work on the bathroom pipes. Said we need to shut off the water. I’m not sure what he’ll find in there, so I’m playing it safe.”

  “Smart.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, his warmth lingering on her skin even after he pulled away. “I’ll check in as soon as I know anything.”

  “The minute you know anything,” she said, “my phone better light up.”

  One more kiss on the cheek, and then he was gone.

  Before giving Logan the time of day, Bex joined Fee at the booth to finish clearing their table. Beneath Henny’s plate, she found a hundred dollar bill folded into a napkin with two hearts drawn on it and a message underneath.

  Nice try, slick. —H

  Fee snickered as she stacked the plates onto her tray. “You’re right, babe. He doesn’t like you at all.”

  “Would you stop? Seriously?” Bex handed over the money. “Go put this in the tip jar.”

  “What about the love note? Does that go in the tip jar, too?”

  “It’s a napkin. It goes in the trash.” She gave Fee a gentle shove toward the bar. “Just for that, you’ve got Logan tonight.”

  The moment Fee walked away, Bex slid the note into her apron pocket, biting back her smile.

  Oh, Henny.

  One of these days, she really was going to kill that man.

  Chapter Four

  After the hearing, Henny didn’t bother with a phone call. Just showed up on Bex’s doorstep with a six-pack of beer in one hand and a bag of tortilla chips in the other. It was Friday night, the ass end of a shitty week, and the best he could hope for now was a little company and a few Bex-inspired laughs to distract him from his thoughts.

  She opened the door, all shiny and hopeful and glad to see him, and something shook loose in his chest.

  Holding up the Coronas, he managed half a smile. “I brought beer. And all my usual charms.”

  She looked like a teenager—baggy sweats, messy bun on top of her head, baby blue eyes looking up at him all sweet and innocent. For a whole twenty seconds, she seemed happy. Really, truly happy.

  But one good look at him must’ve told her the state of things. Her face fell, and suddenly he felt like a dick.

  She doesn’t need this shit. Not now.

  “Sorry. If you’re doing your own thing tonight,” he said, “we can—”

  “Oh, shut up.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him into the house, closing the door behind him. “You are my own thing. Now tell me what happened at the hearing. I’ve been pacing this house all night!”

  He handed over the goods and stripped off his wet coat and boots, leaving a pile of late February slush on her doormat. “Four-game suspension.”

  “Damn.” Bex frowned, and he resisted the urge to smooth out the little wrinkle of worry that pinched her eyebrows together. “That sucks, Hen. I’m sorry.”

  “It was the right call,” he said, running a hand through his matted hair. It was damp and cold from the slushy weather. Totally matched his mood. “I screwed up.”

  The punishment wasn’t unexpected, but it stung. Four games was a lot of time off the ice, a nice chunk of change out of his salary, and another black mark on his record. It was also a major headache for the team.

  “You tell the guys yet?” she asked. “Eva’s been texting me all afternoon.”

  “Gallagher was calling them as I left. Dunn just texted me.”

  “Text him back and let him know you’re here,” she said. “Eva’s worried sick.”

  Henny braced himself for another lecture, but after a beat, Bex just shook her head and wrapped him up in a hug. She pressed her ear to his chest and sighed, and for a while he just held her, lips pressed to the top of her messy hairdo, inhaling her sweet, tropical scent.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she finally said, pulling out of his embrace. Immediately he missed the warmth of her, the familiar feel of her body tucked under his arm, but she rewarded him with a bright smile. Bouncing on her toes, she said, “I’ve got just the thing to fix you up. My cure-all trifecta of goodness.”

  He gave her a dubious stare. “Which is…?”

  “Nachos, cheap tequila, and Netflix documentaries about the end of civilization, of course.”

  Henny laughed. “That’s your cure-all?”

  “Trust me. Once you see how bad things really are in the world, you can acknowledge the utter meaninglessness of life and the total insignificance of our own petty problems.”

  “Sounds like new-age hippie bullshit to me.”

  “It’s cheaper than therapy.”

  Following her into the kitchen, Henny sent a quick text to Dunn, Roscoe, and Eva: Nachos @ Bex’s place. Crashing here tonight. Cancel the APB. By the time Bex had pulled everything out of the fridge for the nacho prep, he already felt a lot less sucky than he had on the drive over.

  Being at Bex’s was like hitting the reset button. He loved this house. A little too warm, stuffed with mismatched furniture she’d rescued from neighborhood yard sales, magnets covering the entire fridge, plants growing on every damn windowsill.

  The whole place smelled like her, too. Like a smoothie on the beach, with just a hint of something spicy and mysterious. Something that was all Bex.

  While she browned the beef, Henny cracked open two beers and pushed a lime wedge into each bottle, the tension in his shoulders easing.

  “I miss this,” he said, handing her a beer.

  “It’s just Corona.” Bex clinked their bottles together, then took a sip. “They sell it on every corner.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She pressed a hand to her heart and sucked in a breath. “Is Buffalo’s Bad-Boy Bachelor actually admitting that he misses me?”

  “I don’t know about that asshole, but me? Yeah. Maybe I do.” He leaned against the counter next to her, watching her cook. It’d been a long time since they’d hung out like this, just the two of them, nowhere to go in the morning, no postgame or pregame workouts, no team meetings on the docket. Much as he loved the guys, Bex was the only person in his life he’d ever felt totally himself around. No pretense, no holding back. No bullshit.

  “Say it again,” she teased.

  “Sorry, no idea what you’re talking about.” He tipped back his beer, stifling a laugh.

  “That’s what I thought.” She turned back to stir the beef. Then, so soft he almost didn’t catch it, “Miss you too, jerkface.”

  Bex never gave him a hard time about his schedule, but he really did wish he could spend more time with her. Not just hanging out, but doing things for her—stupid shit like taking out the trash, shoveling the front walk, scraping the ice off her windshield. Yeah, she was a total badass who could handle just about anything life threw at her and still come out swinging. But Henny liked taking care of her. Liked being there for her, whether it was reaching the glasses on the highest shelf at the bar or just holding her tight when she needed a good cry.

  Thankfully, the latter hadn’t happened in a while.

  It’d been six months since her breakup with the asshole that’d just about destroyed her, and she’d come a lon
g way since those days. But the memory of her lying in her bed back in San Francisco, numb and shocked, totally despondent, not eating… Jesus. It still had the power to blast a truck-sized hole in his chest. That image would never leave him.

  “Take a picture if you love looking at me so much, stalker.” Bex stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. Still, he didn’t turn away. He loved having her back home, a five-minute drive away instead of a five-hour flight, and he’d look at her for as long as he damn well pleased.

  But depending on how things shook out with the Tempest this season, their proximity might not last.

  That fucking thought was keeping him up nights.

  Henny blew out a tired breath. What the hell was he doing with his life? Seemed like whenever something good happened, he found a way to sabotage it. After years of living on opposite coasts, seeing each other only on the occasional holiday, he and his girl were finally back in the same zip code. Yet here he was, acting like a man who wanted to get booted off the home team.

  And he had no idea why. When the Buffalo Tempest picked him up from Detroit six years ago, Henny was thrilled to move back home, back to the city he knew like none other. But a restlessness had taken root inside him this season. An itch. It made him hot and jittery, wound tight as a drum. He knew it was no good for him—could see disaster looming on his horizon every time he pushed things too far on the ice, locked horns with Gallagher, blew off the media. Yet he felt powerless to stop it.

  Right now, the only thing that made sense in his life was the woman standing right next to him, cooking up her cure-all nachos. He leaned close, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear—same errant curl that’d been falling out of place since they were kids.

  She turned to him and frowned, reaching up to rub the crease between his eyes. “I do not like that face.”

  “Tough break.” He grabbed her hand, pressed a kiss to her palm. “It’s the one I got.”

  “Hey, what happened to the tape?” She glanced at his hand, then his forehead, realization dawning in her eyes. “And the stitches? Henny, you can’t just—”

  “Good as new.” He wiggled his fingers in front of her face, ignoring the stiffness he still felt. Punching Fellino hadn’t been his brightest idea. “I heal fast.”

  “You really are impossible.” Bex opened her mouth to say something else, then apparently changed her mind, nodding toward the knife and cutting board in the dish rack instead. “You’re on prep. Green peppers and onions. I want small chunks, not strips. After that, mash up the avocado with some garlic and the rest of the fresh cilantro.”

  “Which one’s cilantro?” He ran a hand over the leafy plants on the sill behind him. “You got a jungle growing here.”

  “Blue pot, not the red.”

  Side by side they worked, silent except for Bex’s soft humming and the sizzle of peppers and onions frying in the pan.

  He liked that he didn’t have to put on a show for her. Didn’t have to act like the bad boy or any of those other bullshit titles the media had given him. He hated that shit. Hamming it up for the paparazzi didn’t help his game, and it sure as shit wouldn’t fill up that gaping void in his chest.

  Not even a roll in the sack could fix that anymore. He’d stopped trying months ago.

  When all the prep work was done, including a not-so-terrible batch of fresh guacamole that might’ve included basil instead of cilantro, because who the fuck could really tell the difference anyway, Henny went into the living room to browse Netflix while Bex assembled dinner.

  “Here we go,” he said, settling on what he hoped was a suitably terrible documentary. “Nuclear Waste: A Love Story.”

  “Aww, Henny! Who knew you were such a romantic?” Bex came out with a tray full of all the fixings—salsa, sour cream, Henny’s guacamole. Then she brought in a steaming dish loaded with cheesy, heart-attack-inducing goodness… except for the healthy-looking crap on the bottom.

  “What the serious fuck is that?” Henny grabbed a fork, poked at the mountain of chips.

  “Nachos,” she said brightly.

  “Why are there leaves underneath?”

  “It’s a bed of steamed organic kale, and you’ll shut up and take it like a man.” She passed him a paper plate and sat down next to him on the floor, their backs against the couch. “You’re an athlete, Hen. You can’t live on fried food and cheeseburgers.”

  “Says the girl who lives on fried food and cheeseburgers.”

  “I’m a bartender. It’s practically research.”

  “Why didn’t you research how to make nachos? Because this sure as shit ain’t it.”

  “Sorry you feel that way.” She pulled apart a clump of chips dripping with melted cheddar and jalapeños. “More for me.”

  “Give me that.” He snatched the chips out of her hand and loaded up his plate, leaves and all.

  They were the best damn nachos he’d ever tasted, and by the time he’d finished scarfing down his third helping and learned all he could stomach about the contaminated state of the global water supply, his week of a thousand fuck-ups was damn near forgotten.

  When Bex handed him another beer and insisted on handling all the cleanup herself, he got to his knees, grabbed her hands, and said, “Marry me.”

  “Or I can just stick a fork in my eye and call it a night.”

  “Heartbreaker.” He dragged himself off the floor and stretched out on the couch, wishing he could take off his pants. “Tell you what. I’ll make breakfast tomorrow. Pancakes, eggs, hash browns, the works.”

  “You know how to cook? Since when?”

  “Maybe I didn’t go to culinary school, Chef Canfield, but I can make the fuck outta breakfast.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, one-nine.”

  Between the nachos, the overly hot living room, and Bex’s soft humming at the kitchen sink, Henny was cruising right into rapid onset food coma. Damn cell phone buzzed in his pocket, though, shattering his bliss.

  He unlocked the screen—group texts from the Dynamic Duo, Dunn and Roscoe.

  DUNN: Hey, Slick. How are those “nachos” working out?

  ROSCOE: And by nachos he means sex.

  Henny snapped a picture of his middle finger, then sent it back to them.

  DUNN: Dude. Seriously?

  HENNY: Would you rather a shot of my balls?

  ROSCOE: You know Dunn’s taking bets, right? Kitty’s up to a thousand bucks.

  DUNN: That’s just for the first kiss. Pool goes up accordingly.

  HENNY: You know what else goes up accordingly? My foot. Up your ass.

  DUNN: Save that kinky shit for the bedroom.

  “You guys are like a pack of teenage girls.” Bex swooped in and snatched the phone out of his hands. He hadn’t even heard her shut off the sink, but now she loomed over him, water soaking the front of her shirt, thumbs sliding across his phone screen. “What could possibly be so urgent?”

  He tried to grab it back, but she was faster than him, already on the other side of the living room before he even sat up.

  “Your friends are such pervs!” She continued scrolling through, then cracked up. “Okay, we need to find Roscoe a woman. He’s obviously got some pent-up stuff going on there. And Dunn? That boy needs to keep his eyes on his own paper.”

  Henny pinched the bridge of his nose. The guys always gave him shit about Bex, but he didn’t like her seeing it. “Ignore them. They’re cavemen.”

  “Rich cavemen. A thousand bucks? Just for a kiss?” She flopped back on the couch next to him, enveloping him in a wave of her tropical scent. Her knee rested against his thigh, warm through his jeans. “Can we split the cash? Because I’d totally kiss you for five hundred bucks. Hell, I’d do it for a cool hund-o.”

  “How about I give you a cool hund-o to never say cool hund-o again?”

  “Done and done.” She tapped out a rapid-fire message, the glint in her eyes wicked.

  “What are you up to now?”

  “Just told them we’re down
for a three-way with Roscoe. He’ll be here in ten minutes.” She flashed him another crazy grin, then lowered her eyes to his crotch, wriggling her eyebrows. “We should probably change into something a little more…accessible. Be right back.”

  Tossing the phone into his lap, she hopped off the couch and scooted down the hallway into her bedroom.

  Henny’s mouth went dry, stomach threatening to revolt.

  She had to be fucking with him. And if she wasn’t, and Roscoe had agreed to it… holy shit. There wasn’t a grave deep enough to bury that sonofabitch…

  “You should totally see your face right now.” Bex poked her head out from the bedroom doorway down the hall, laughing her ass off. “You thought I was serious. Oh my God, Henny. Gross!”

  “Oh, please.” Thank fucking God. “I knew you weren’t serious. I’m—”

  “My clothes are soaked and it’s way too hot for sweats. Sometimes you are such a weirdo.”

  “Whatever.” Henny didn’t get embarrassed. Not ever. But his face was feeling pretty damn hot at the moment, his stomach twisting up into his throat. “Dunn and Roscoe are a pain in my left nut.”

  “I can’t believe you thought I’d be into a threesome. With you guys.” She was out of sight now, opening and closing dresser drawers. Henny tried not to focus on the fact that she was stripping on the other side of that half-open door, casually tossing out words like threesome.

  The night was not going according to plan. He was here to blow off steam about his suspension, kick back with his best friend. When the fuck did he start thinking about her naked?

  The phone buzzed in his lap. He’d forgotten all about it. He saw now that there was nothing in the messages about a threesome. Just Dunn and Roscoe, shooting off more of the same stale jokes.

  “For your information,” Bex went on, “if I was going to hook up with someone on the Tempest, there’s really only one candidate.”

  Henny did not want to know.

  “Check me out.” She sauntered up the hallway in a Tempest jersey that came down past her hips, and for a split second Henny thought he’d seen his number curving over her chest.

  His heart dropped into his stomach again.