Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

The thumping music and press of the crowd have me practically yelling, “Your place is awesome!” in Colt’s face. I’ve been here for an hour and just now found him, standing at the enormous two-story wall of glass at the far end of his living room. The view of the Seaport spreads before us, the lights of the buildings below glittering in the rain before the dark expanse of Boston Harbor begins. Through the rain, we can barely see East Boston on the other side of the Harbor.

“Thanks,” he says. “Glad you made it.”

“What are you doing over here all alone?” I ask.

“Just waiting for Jasmine to get back from the bathroom.”

“Who’s Jasmine?”

“Some hot friend of McCabe’s girlfriend.”

“McCabe has a girlfriend?” I don’t know why, but the image of our captain with a girlfriend does not compute. He’s so serious, and he’s got an infant daughter that his ex just dropped off on his doorstep a few months ago. From what I can tell, it’s been a huge adjustment and every minute he’s not playing hockey, he’s focused on her. I’m shocked he has the time to date, or that he’d be here tonight. Then again, team bonding—especially at the beginning of a season—is always a priority, and he’s our captain.

“Yeah, it’s a recent development. Her name’s Annabelle.”

I’m about to respond, when a pair of arms snake around Colt’s waist from behind, and then a petite brunette with long hair, fake lashes, and a top so small it could pass for a bathing suit slides up next to him. “Hey, big guy,” she says, and I try not to cringe, “sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Jasmine, this is my new teammate, Drew.” He nods his chin toward me.

She extends her hand toward me. “Nice to meet you, Drew.” But when she shakes my hand, her thumb strokes the back of my hand, and her eyes sparkle at me with interest. Ew, no.

“You too, Jasmine,” I say, and then in my peripheral vision, I see Zach Reid. He looks uncomfortable, like he doesn’t want to be here. “Alright, I’ll leave you two kids alone.” I raise my eyebrows in Colt’s direction, because I’m pretty sure there’s only one reason he’s interested in her, and it’ll be easier to get her into his bed if I’m not hanging around.

I turn and walk over to Zach, where he stands on one of the two steps leading from Colt’s dining room to the wide-open living room. “You good?” I ask as I approach.

“Yeah. Just counting down the minutes until I can leave.”

“Dude, relax. Hang out with your teammates, enjoy the fact that the women outnumber the men here by about three to one, and have a damn drink. Let’s go.”

I turn, and he follows me as we head toward the kitchen, where I get him a beer and grab another for myself. “Why are you so averse to fun, anyway?” I ask as we leave the kitchen and head through the dining room.

“I’m not. This just isn’t my idea of fun.”

“You need to get laid,” I say, and the two girls who were walking toward us stop, their faces clearly showing their interest in Zach now that I’ve made that announcement.

“Asshole,” he mutters under his breath as the women come to a complete stop.

I laugh under my breath, and then say, “Hey, ladies, have you met Zach Reid? He’s new to the team this year.”

“Hey, Zach,” they both respond at the same time, in nearly identical voices, which is creepy as fuck. Or am I just comparing every woman here to Audrey, who would never throw herself at a guy the way these women are?

I keep moving, leaving him with the two women who are now plastered to his sides. His night’s about to get a whole lot more interesting. But I’m only a few steps farther, just taking the stairs down into the packed living room, when I feel my phone vibrating in my front pocket.

I slip it out, and Audrey’s name flashes on my screen. It’s too loud in here to be able to hear her, so I reply with a text.

DREW:

I’ll call you back in just a minute.

I look around, searching for some part of Colt’s place that might be quieter. My eyes land on a door that leads out to a balcony. Because of the rain, no one is out there, even though the large space looks like it’s covered. So I make my way across the living room that’s turned into a dance floor, nodding at my teammates as I pass. When I open the door and step outside, I realize there are actually two people out here on the couch. They’re full-on making out with her straddling him, and I don’t want to interrupt, but there’s no way I’m not calling Audrey, so I turn my back and hit the call button on my phone screen.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask when she answers.

“I know when you said I could call you if I needed anything, you meant about Graham⁠—”

“No, I meant what I said. If you need anything.”

“What if I just need a quick delivery?”

“Of what?” I ask.

“Ibuprofen?”

“Are you sick?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Why is she being so vague? “What does that mean?”

“Well, I get sick like this once a month.”

Ahhh, okay. As someone who grew up with two sisters, this is becoming very clear. “Understood. I’m coming from the Seaport, so give me, like, twenty minutes, maybe more if there’s traffic.”

“No, Drew,” she says, “if you’re out doing something, I don’t want to take you away from that. I only asked because you live five minutes from me.”

It hits me then: there’s nothing I could be out doing that I wouldn’t drop for her. But I can’t tell her that without her thinking I’m crazy. Hell, I think I’m crazy. She’s the mother of my child, and unless I want to screw things up with Graham, that’s all she should be. I know this. I know that the responsible thing is to not get involved with her in any way. But when I’m around her, all that flies out the window, because I want her.

I want her just as much as I did my senior year of college, and possibly more. Because I thought she was amazing then, but the woman she’s grown into—the patience she has with Graham, the sacrifices she’s made to raise him, the business she’s built…a woman like her needs a man who can commit. A man who is dependable, and around a hell of a lot more than I am. She deserves someone like that, and for the first time in my life, I want to be that person for someone else. Not because it benefits me, but because it’s what she needs.

“I’m already on my way. See you soon.” I hang up on her before she can object anymore. I know what it took for her to call me—she must not have any other options right now—and I’m not giving up my chance to see her, especially since I’m guessing this means Graham’s in bed already, and she’s alone. As much as I loved spending time with Graham the other night and am looking forward to seeing him again, the thought of having more time alone with Audrey doesn’t feel like it’ll ever lose its appeal.

I take the elevator down to the bottom of Colt’s building and ask the doorman to point me in the direction of the closest pharmacy, which turns out to be just around the corner.

There, I grab some ibuprofen, some stick-on heating pads, and three pints of ice cream in a variety of flavors. And when the car drops me off at her doorstep, I practically run up the steps of her brownstone because I’m so damn eager to see her.

She answers the door in sweatpants and a fitted t-shirt, under which she does not seem to be wearing a bra. But I force myself to focus my eyes up on her face, rather than on the stiff peaks of her nipples, because I’m trying not to be an asshole.

“Thank you so much,” she sighs, leaning against the door frame like it’s taking effort to stand.

“C’mon,” I say, sweeping my hand forward like I’m gesturing her through the door, “let’s get you patched up.”

She furrows her brows. “Patched up?”

“Yeah, I got you some of those stick-on heating pads, because I hear heat works well for cramps,” I say, thinking of all the times Missy would curl up with one of those microwavable heating pads to help with her cramps. “Between that, the ibuprofen, and the variety of Ben & Jerry’s options I have in this bag, you’ll be feeling much better.”

“You want…to come in?”

Even though she’d asked about a “delivery,” the idea that she just wants the supplies and not my company hits me right in my gut.

“You were just using me as a delivery service? Ouch.”

“Actually, I thought you were busy and were just doing me a favor by dropping off some ibuprofen. I figured you’d want to go back to whatever you were doing.”

Don’t make any jokes about who you want to be doing right now, I have to remind myself. Every time I’m in her presence, all I can think about is the last time I saw her before the draft. The way her skin felt beneath my hands, the sound of my name rolling off her lips, her grunts of pleasure, the way her nails felt as they raked along my shoulders—all of it was better than I’d imagined, and I’d imagined it plenty.

“I’d rather hang out with you, if you’re open to company.”

She sighs, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to send me away. “Well, I guess you did bring enough ice cream for two, so come on in.” She turns and walks into the house, leaving me to shut the door. I almost forget to lock it, though, because I’m so focused on the way her ass looks in those sweats as she walks into her kitchen.

I follow her, taking in the terracotta patterned tile, the dark cabinets, and the stone countertops of the room, with its crisp walls and black-framed windows. “Your house looks like one of those after pictures you see on social media—you know, like when a designer posts them?”

“Well, since this is basically what Jules and I do for a living, it’d be sad if our house didn’t represent our style, right?”

“Did you guys do this whole place?” I set the bag on the counter and start taking the contents out one at a time as I glance around the open first floor of their brownstone.

“This is our childhood home. Jameson did a barebones remodel while Jules and I were in college, just to freshen everything up,” she says. “He made the third floor into a one-bedroom apartment that he lived in until he moved in with Lauren this past spring—there’s a great roof deck up there that I turned into a garden once he moved out. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor, which is where Graham and I ended up living after I graduated from college, and then there’s another bedroom off the living room for Jules. So anyway, once we moved back here post-college, we worked on some redesign and redecorating.”

“Colt said you guys were featured in some fancy Boston magazine recently.”

“Did he?” She gives a small laugh. She holds her hand out as I unpack the ibuprofen and then open the box to remove the pill bottle. “Yeah, that was a bit of a turning point. Our company is still really new, and all the attention is a lot to balance. We don’t want to turn people away, but we also don’t want to overbook ourselves and do a bad job. We’re working on forcing ourselves to expand at a manageable speed because we’re both kind of workaholics—but especially Jules.”

Once again, I feel so damn proud of her for all she’s accomplished, even though I had nothing to do with it. “Well, it’s incredible. You’ve done so well already.”

“We’re trying.” She shakes three pills out into her palm, then reaches for an acrylic tumbler sitting on the island and swallows them down. “Thanks so much for these, I really needed them. Normally, I’d have asked Jules, but she’s in Maine for this whole next week, or Morgan, but she’s in Las Vegas for the weekend.”

“And Morgan is?”

She explains her relationship with Lauren and how she’s become one of her and Jules’s best friends over the past eight months.

“So, how did you not have any painkillers in your house?”

“I ran out and forgot to replace them.” She shrugs. “I thought about just taking some kids ibuprofen that I have for Graham, but there wasn’t enough left in the bottle to equal one adult-size dose, much less a dose and half, which is what I need when I feel like this.”

I grab the box of heating pads off the counter and open it. “Let’s get one of these on you and see if that helps too.”

“Alright. Thank you for thinking of that, too.” She pulls her shirt up as she turns toward the counter and plants her elbows there so she’s bending forward with her lower back bared to me.

As I step up behind her, I make sure to keep my distance because the peach shape of her ass in those sweatpants has me growing hard just looking at it. It’s all I can do not to step up against her and settle myself right between her ass cheeks so she can feel exactly what she does to me.

Instead, I peel off the backing of the sticky pad, ask her to point out where it hurts the most, and then gently press the pad against the offending muscles. “Do you need one for your abdomen too?”

“No, it’s really my back that hurts the most. My belly is fine if I just curl up into a ball—that’s how I spent the last hour on the couch.”

“Let’s move you back there. I’ll bring the ice cream. Pick your poison,” I say, gesturing to the three options. She points to one, then heads to the living room, so I pick one for myself, throw the other in the freezer, grab two spoons and follow her.