Game Misconduct (Five for Fighting #1)

by Amber Lynn

  She threw the pillow he’d been sleeping on in his direction. Dylan caught it and tossed it back on the bed. He’d turned the lights off before going up to the loft, which made the purple overload of bedsheets and blankets brand new to him.

  “Let me guess, you like purple.”

  Casey rolled her eyes and rubbed her forehead with her left hand. “Duh.” With her other hand, she shooed him away.

  Dylan finally followed directions and headed down the ladder. It was made of solid wood, more than likely oak, and had only seven rungs, but seeing it in daylight made it just as clear that Casey’s days climbing it were going to be numbered.

  “So, are we building you some kind of stairs, or are you staying with me after the surgery? There’s no way you can use this thing if it’s hard to lift your arms above your head.”

  “Quit thinking logically this early in the morning and get ready. I need a shower after you’re done in there, so try not to use all the hot water.”

  “If it was a normal bathroom, I’d suggest we share the water. I’m going to be lucky if I can wash a leg at a time in there, so I won’t push my luck asking you to join me.”

  Casey cackled, more than likely about the torture he was about to go through. They were going to have to have a serious talk about her desire to live in a small house. Since she built it herself, there was a good chance she wasn’t going to want to move, and he had a lot of gear he needed to store.

  He already had them living together in his mind, which begged to question whether she’d been right about brain damage from being hit by too many pucks. A part of him had always thought that when he met his dream girl, she may not meet the expectations he had in his head. That was the furthest thing from the truth, something about Casey just clicked.

  She was definitely the one for him. Whether it was love at first sight or soul mates driving his actions, it really didn’t matter. He was mostly in love with her and he wanted to prove whatever had happened in the past had nothing to do with him.

  Hearing about the creepy ex was a little worrisome, but if bank robbers were what she was used to, it didn’t surprise Dylan that she stayed away from men. Trying to throw him off by announcing she couldn’t have kids was hopefully the depth of her repellant. He’d already figured out when her breast cancer was genetic that she wasn’t planning on having her own children. It was obvious that her character dictated she wouldn’t let her daughter worry like she had.

  Dylan finished doing his business and then stripped down to attempt the shower. It was a corner shower that wasn’t as terrifying as it seemed once you got in it. Late at night, while he was still digesting the drama of the day, seeing the shower was almost enough to make him run the other way. Okay, not really, but a guy his size needed a little room.

  When it came down to it, the water was hot, and that was all that really mattered. He scrubbed his head with Casey’s rosemary shampoo – the guys were going to have fun with that. The soap he used on his body didn’t have a particularly girlie scent, but the shampoo in his short hair was going to be enough to get everyone talking.

  Once he was clean, taking only five minutes to do so, he turned the water off and stepped out of the shower to find a towel. There were two, and being a gentleman, he took the one that smelled the most like fabric softener.

  Getting dressed took about as long as the shower itself. He’d draped his suit and tux over the shower during the night, so neither were extremely wrinkled. He didn’t have plans to change tires in a tux, so the suit was going back on. Since he had a lot of similar suits, most people wouldn’t even notice that he’d worn it the day before.

  After quickly running his fingers through his hair, he called it good and let the steam out of the bathroom. He heard bowls clanging in the kitchen, which was pretty much in front of him, so he headed there instead of back up the ladder.

  “See, it’s not as bad as it looks, is it?”

  Casey had two bowls out on the butcher block counters. There was really only a small two foot by two foot space, but it held the bowls, a gallon of milk and a box of cereal.

  “You won’t hear me complaining. Am I right in thinking you don’t do a lot of entertaining?”

  “Not in the house. You aren’t on any special high protein, no carbs diet, are you? If you are, you very likely will starve here, because I eat like a five-year-old.”

  “I can tell by your marshmallow cereal. I actually eat all the carbs I can get, especially on game day.”

  She poured them both bowls and handed one over to him. “Follow me to the dining room.”

  Unless there was a space Dylan didn’t see, there wasn’t a dining room, but he followed along, taking Casey’s bowl when she held it out to him. She walked over to the bench he’d noticed and started tugging on it. When she was done, a waist-high table appeared. Before he could ask about chairs, she turned to the wall of storage blocks behind her and extracted two wooden chairs that had blended in with the storage.

  “And you say you built everything yourself?” Dylan handed back her bowl and took a seat in one of the chairs. It wasn’t something he really wanted to spend hours sitting in, but it didn’t buckle from his weight.

  “I got the idea from some shows on tiny house living. I toured a few and decided it didn’t look that hard to do all the stuff myself.”

  “How easy would it be to add a second loft? I don’t have a ton of stuff, but if you insist on staying here for recovery, I’m going to need a place to store my gear and potentially sleep to make sure I don’t roll on you and hurt you.”

  Casey pondered the question over a few bites of cereal. It’d been forever since Dylan had marshmallows for breakfast, and he worked to eat all the oat crunchy parts so he could enjoy the pure sugar all at once.

  “It’d take longer than a week, but I think we could figure out the stairs issue in the meantime. The surgery is Thursday morning, and as I mentioned last night, I should only be in the hospital for a day.”

  “And you’d rather build those instead of just staying at my three-bedroom house? It’s not as secluded as this, but it’s not an apartment either.”

  “Seclusion is important to me during my recovery. I still want to go to games, but I’m going to try to hide the fact that I’m flat-chested for as long as I can. Knowing my dad, that will be a whole ten seconds. I don’t want sympathy from anyone, or looks of pity, and I’m sure most of the people I deal with on a daily basis aren’t going to be able to hide those things from me.”

  “Okay, then stair building we will do, obviously not today. I’m off tomorrow, so we’ll have to see if we can get a truck and buy some lumber.”

  Casey finished drinking the milk out of her bowl and set it back down on the table. “No need. I have leftover lumber and supplies in the shed. We should have enough for what I’m envisioning. I’m going to have to adjust the storage a little to make it work, but it’s doable in a day.”

  Dylan deferred to her for construction project timetables. He’d built some mean dioramas in school, but that was the extent of his building skills. He hoped all she needed him for was hammering and maybe turning a screwdriver, because those were tasks he thought he could do.

  “Any solutions for me not smothering you while we sleep?”

  “Let me take a shower to think about it. I tend to do my best thinking in there. I’ve already texted my dad to let him know we lived through the night, so we shouldn’t have to deal with him banging on the door.”

  “That’s good to hear. I’ll check-in with Nelson while you get ready. Maybe he can shed a little light on what happened to your tires. I know you said there were others watching us last night, but none of them were as vocal as Steph.”

  “You can imagine how much I’m looking forward to seeing her at the game tonight. If she stuck around, she more than likely realized my words ended up being lies. It’s kind of difficult to say there’s absolutely nothing between us when it was hard letting your hand go last night. There’s got to
be some kind of calming solution that secretes through your sweat, because I’ve never felt relaxed at one of those events.”

  Casey got up, grabbing Dylan’s bowl on her way to the kitchen. She quickly did the dishes, while he figured out how to put the chairs and table away. The table took a second to master, but he worked it out.

  “I had a good time too. A hell of a lot better than I thought I was going to when I sent the RSVP.”

  Casey pulled open a door and grabbed clothes from a small closet, then made her way into the bathroom. Dylan had brought his tux out of the bathroom and stored it on the storage shelves, so he got his phone out of it to see if it had any juice. It was low, but it’d get him through the twenty text messages and hopefully a call to Nelson.

  Fifteen of the texts were from his best friend, asking him to call and apologizing for the drama. The abundance of the messages made Dylan think Nelson thought he wasn’t talking to him. The other five texts were from other teammates, letting Dylan know how hot Casey was, because of course he cared about their opinions.

  Dylan dialed Nelson’s number and held the phone up to his right ear. He’d never really had to wait on a woman to get ready, but he assumed Casey wouldn’t take much longer than he had. She’d been able to get in her ball gown and touch up her makeup in less than ten minutes, so dressing for a normal day couldn’t take long.

  “Hey, dude. I thought you’d call last night. I’ve been freaking out.”

  “I was kind of busy entertaining my date, and trying to keep my lips free from random kisses.”

  Dylan sat down on the bench to see how many cushions he needed to buy. The wood was a little more comfortable than the chairs, but he planned on buying some purple padding to make it even more comfortable.

  “That was totally messed up. I can’t believe she went crazy like that. She tried to convince me to let her stay, but I told her we had to figure out where she was going to live, because there was no way I wanted her in my apartment.”

  “Shit, Nels. Did you kick her out, or give her a chance to find a new place?” Hearing Nelson had finally grown a pair where Steph was concerned was music to Dylan’s ears, but the timing could’ve been better.

  “I told her she had to stay in a hotel at least for the night, because I wanted to strangle her. She’s got a bank account with an allowance, so I figured she set herself up in a penthouse suite somewhere to make a voodoo doll of me.”

  “Have you seen her since? Casey’s tires were slashed last night and we were going to check the tapes from the security cameras, but if you didn’t have Steph with you, I think there probably isn’t a lot of doubt about who did it.”

  Dylan had been counting on Nelson keeping track of his sister. Hearing no one was watching Steph made him a little paranoid.

  Nelson let out a few curses. “I seriously don’t understand how we’re related sometimes. One of us has to be adopted. I’ll pay for the repairs. If the car is still at the banquet hall, I’ll take care of changing the tires myself.”

  “Sorry, buddy. I’m able to change tires, so I want to show off for Casey. Once she gets out of the shower, we’ll be heading that way if you want to meet us there to take a look at the slashes.”

  Dylan didn’t really want to share Casey, but he wanted Nelson to know there were no hard feelings. Walking on eggshells around someone who was supposed to have his back during a game, usually led to mistakes on the ice.

  “You sure? If you’re somewhere with her and she’s taking a shower, it sounds like things are going pretty good for you. I don’t want to third wheel my way in.”

  “Casey, is it okay if Nelson meets us there? He kicked Steph out last night, and he should probably see what she’s been up to.” Dylan didn’t think there’d be a problem, but it was always nice to ask.

  “I have soap in my ear, but I think I heard something about Nelson showing up. I don’t know if there was a question, but okay.”

  “I think her confused response means she’s cool with it. We’ll probably be another ten minutes here and it will take twenty to drive back to town, so let’s say we’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

  “Where in the world are you? I can understand you wanting to be alone with her, but your house is five minutes from everywhere, along with most of the houses in the city.”

  “I would be in one of the houses that don’t fall into that circle. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  Dylan hung up before Nelson could ask any more questions. Casey had turned off the water, so he wanted to be free to talk to her before Nelson had a chance to steal her attention.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Casey didn’t generally care how she looked, but she ran her brush through her hair an extra time and made sure to draw out the color of her eyes with a little makeup. It showed she made an effort more than anything else. It sounded like Nelson was going to make an appearance, so looking a little more put together than just rolling out of bed was her goal.

  When she opened the door, Dylan was standing just outside it. Of course in her house, just outside of it was by the front door. He had his tux draped over his arm and his keys in the other hand. Seeing him there, Casey had to wonder if his looks factored into the fact they’d magically become boyfriend and girlfriend in a day, when she had strict rules in place that prevented it.

  “If I asked you to wear a bag over your head the rest of the day, would you?”

  His face scrunched a little as he considered her words. “I’m pretty sure that is the weirdest thing anyone has ever asked me, and I hang out with guys who act like kids. Can I ask why I need to start wearing this bag? I’m pretty sure a bag wouldn’t meet safety standards during the game.”

  “But you’d have your helmet on, so that’d be okay. I’m trying to figure out if your looks are somehow influencing my decision-making skills.”

  “What decisions have you been making? I thought the only question you had to answer during your shower was where I was sleeping in the days to come. I don’t think I need to hide my face to help with that.”

  “You never know, it might help. So is Nelson coming here or are we going to him? I heard his name and it sounded like there was a question involved.”

  Steph’s name wasn’t included as far as Casey could tell, and she doubted Dylan would include her. Casey had spent part of her shower trying to figure out where she was going to sit at the game. Her dad would probably ask her to sit with him, but she couldn’t yell at Dylan from there. Not that her voice physically couldn’t handle it, she just couldn’t sit in the owner’s box and make fun of one of the team’s star players.

  “He kicked Steph out last night and I’m guessing it was a lot messier than he just described to me.”

  “So he essentially picked you over his own sister? I think you might need to wear that bag for him too, just to make sure he’s thinking clearly.”

  “He’s been trying to get her to move out since she showed up, so I think he probably just took the opportunity when he had it.”

  Casey made her way over to Dylan, grabbing her phone, keys and wallet on the way as she slipped into a pair of tennies.

  “Hearing how her night went, I’m surprised Steph didn’t slash your tires.”

  Dylan nodded and opened the door. “Makes sense to me, but I’ve never thought Steph was fully there when it comes to thinking things through. Nelson’s going to meet us at your car. He’s a tad insecure and I want to calm him down a little.”

  “Are you going to hold his hand? I’m sure that will make him feel better.”

  “Very funny,” Dylan said as he opened the car door for Casey.

  It was a little easier to relax into the seat on a new day. In the morning light, she could see more of Dylan’s car. Casey wasn’t familiar with the make, but it was similar to hers, even though they had two different manufacturers. Dylan’s was a little more top of the line, but Casey’s did a good job of seeming expensive, while costing probably ten or twenty thousand less.


  “I’m not joking. I have proof of your handholding skills.”

  Dylan started the car after he got in and put it in reverse. All he needed to do was drive around the house, but Casey didn’t point that out.

  “Please don’t tell any of the guys about those skills. As it is, they’re going to laugh at me when I show up smelling like you.”

  “I’m sure there’s been plenty of times when you showed up smelling more womanly than usual.” Casey assumed he wasn’t claiming she smelled bad.

  “I know I have a bit of a reputation, but that’s never been a problem for me.”

  “Are you telling me that reputation isn’t true? I was counting on being one of the women routinely tied up in your dungeon.”

  They were waiting for cars to pass so they could get on a real road when Casey asked the question. It was good that they weren’t moving, because Dylan started laughing, and it wasn’t just a little chuckle.

  “I don’t have a dungeon, but while we’re talking about putting a loft in your house, maybe we can work in a few restraints.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to talk about that later. About you hanging out at my house, I’ve made it obvious that I don’t want my dad to know why you’ll be around, but I’d also really like to keep the reason between the two of us and my doctors.” Dylan didn’t seem like the type to start rumors, but she wasn’t sure what he’d already told Nelson.

  “We’ve had one date, and I’m trying to figure out if you’ll kill me for introducing you as my girlfriend. Telling people you have cancer, isn’t something I have a right to do.”

  Casey looked out the window next to her as Dylan worked his way through traffic. She was used to driving, so sitting around and observing everything around her without having to worry about hitting things was different.

  “As long as you aren’t pushing for fiancé or wife, I think girlfriend would be fine. I hope you don’t mind that I’m going to use the term when I give my excuse for why I need a week and a half off work. I think I can keep things hidden at games, but spending hours with people in the office isn’t going to be easy to cover up.”