Fake Shot (Boston Rebels Book 2)

“Iknow I’m starting,” I tell Hartmann as we take the ice for warm-ups, “but you’d better be ready to play tonight.”

“Are your knees bothering you?” He asks the question with complete empathy, unlike my teammates who give me shit for being the oldest player on the team, because he knows what it’s like even though he’s only a couple years into his career.

“No. Because there’s at least a fifty percent chance I’m getting into a fight tonight, and if I do, I plan on winning.”

“Whose ass are we kicking?”

“You’re not kicking anyone’s ass, because we need you to goaltend if I get kicked out.”

“Okay, whose ass are you kicking?”

“Brock Lester.”

Hartmann snorts. “That guy’s such a douche. What did he do this time?”

I consider what I can say that won’t betray Jules’s confidence or invade her privacy. “It’s an old grudge about something that happened a long time ago.”

“And it’s just rearing its ugly head now?” His eyes squint as he looks at me, then he looks past me at the stands and nods his chin in that direction. “You sure it has nothing to do with her?”

I turn and find Jules descending the steps toward her family’s seats right behind our bench. I didn’t think she’d be here—when I left for the arena this afternoon, she still wasn’t sure. But now, she’s strutting down the stairs like she owns the whole damn arena. Her hair is in loose, bouncy curls and she’s wearing a touch of makeup. Her bootcut jeans with heeled boots make her legs look a mile long, and over her tucked in scoop-neck T-shirt that shows quite a lot of cleavage, she’s wearing a Rebels playoff jacket.

I’m pretty sure the WAGs start working on those way in advance. I think they wore them for the first round and Jules wasn’t wearing one, so I’m not sure where this came from. But the navy-blue satin material of the oversized starter jacket shimmers, while the Rebels logo on the front breast sparkles.

When she sees me looking at her, she gives me a little fist bump in the air with her left hand, and her ring almost blinds me. Good. I want everyone to know she’s mine.

I skate toward her, and she walks straight past her family, sitting in their seats, and meets me down at the glass. And just like the first time I saw her in my jersey, I loop my finger through the air so she’ll turn around. Like last time, she rolls her eyes at me but turns, sweeping her long blonde hair over her shoulder so I can see COLTIER where it arches across her shoulder blades.

When she’s fully turned around and facing me again, I say, “You trying to kill me, Tink?”

She just smirks at me and presses both her hands against the glass. And that’s when I notice that not only is she wearing her engagement ring on her left hand, but she’s got the gold silicone ring on her right.

Someday, I’m going to propose to her for real—I’m certain of it. And I hope she’ll still want these same rings, so we can remember where we started, and see how far we’ve come.

“Where’d the jacket come from?”

“Marissa unexpectedly dropped it off at my house a couple hours ago.”

“That the only reason you’re here tonight?”

She gives me a small smile. “You’re the only reason I’m here tonight.”

My fucking heart is in my throat as I drop my gloves and press my hands against hers. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck,” she says. “You got this.” Then she blows me a kiss and turns to head up to her seat. I stand there, watching the way her jeans cling to the curve of her ass as her hips sway with each step, until McCabe skates up, spraying me with ice.

“Dick.”

“Get your head in the right place, Colt. This is too important of a game to be distracted.”

“I’m not distracted,” I say, now even more focused on the game, and on giving Brock Lester the beating he fully deserves. “Speaking of this game. You should know that I’m probably going to get a game misconduct, so just be prepared.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” Half the things that come out of McCabe’s mouth sound like he’s growling. Good luck to the woman who ends up having to put up with his surly ass.

He’s a single dad, and his dating life was severely curtailed this past summer when his ex showed up at his place to drop off their newborn—whom he didn’t know about until that moment. Since then, he’s a dad first. He rarely goes out anymore, but he was dating this chick named Annabelle at the beginning of the season, which is how I met her friend, Jasmine. Seeing her at the bar the other night reminded me of exactly why I stopped sleeping around.

A shiver runs through me when I think about how meaningless all the sex I’ve had in my life has been . . . It only makes me want Jules more. I want to know what it would be like to sleep with someone I actually care about.

“Dude,” McCabe growls when I don’t respond. “What the hell are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“About that penalty, then?”

I tell him the same thing I told Hartmann about Lester. “I’m surprised Lover Boy doesn’t want in on that fight,” McCabe says, referring to Hartmann’s nickname, which Walshy gave him because he said the heart in his last name equates to lover and his baby face makes him look like a boy, not a man.

“Why would he?”

“They played together in high school, I think. Or juniors or something. I know there’s bad blood there, somewhere.”

“Well, tonight, he’s mine. I’m just waiting for him to say something, and then it’s gloves off.”

“You sure? In all your gear?”

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

It’s near the end of the first period before Lester makes it anywhere near my crease. But from that point forward, he makes it a point of being there as often as possible. Not because he’s looking to score, but because he’s trying to be an agitator.

The first few comments he throws my way could be mistaken for friendly banter. Things like “Nice save, keep” and “Way to not be a sieve.”

When he gets a little too close, skating back onto the crease, I reach out and shove him forward so he’s out of my way, telling him to “move along.”

At the beginning of the second period, he shoots and I knock the puck away with my glove when I really should have caught it. “Sloppy,” Lester mutters as he skates up, “just like your fiancée.”

“The fuck you say?” I spit out.

“You heard me. You enjoying my sloppy seconds?” he asks as he skates just out of reach like the fucking coward that he is. The puck is still in play, and I can’t take my eyes off it for a second, but the minute he’s close enough again, he’s going down.

I get my chance half-way through the third period, when he skates backward just as the whistle blows to stop the play, and says, “Just remember, I had her first.”

“Like hell you did.” Dropping my stick, I reach out and grab him by the neck of his jersey, pulling him back and slamming him to the ice where he slides into the net. He tries to get up, but I’m throwing my mask off and pinning him to the ice with my knees as I rip my glove and blocker off before pummeling his face.

“You were too drunk to get it up, you fucking lightweight. So don’t ever speak about Jules as if you’ve known her in that way. She might have worn your ring for a night, but she’s going to wear mine for the rest of her life.”

I don’t actually know if that’s why they didn’t have sex, but I have to imagine that being too drunk at least had something to do with it. And I’m relishing the thought of him thinking that this is what Jules remembers about him, that this is the story she tells about their wedding. It’s so much better than the reality of how he shook her confidence and made her question herself.

In a matter of seconds, I’ve pounded his face until it’s bloody and his nose is twisted and ugly—all before the refs are able to pull me off him. It’s only then that I notice the fighting going on all around me.

And when I’m given a game misconduct penalty, I happily skate off the ice and head to the locker room. Whatever fines I get from the league, or whatever lecture my coaches give me, it’ll be worth it. Because for the rest of his life, Brock Lester is going to look at his now-crooked nose and remember the beating I gave him for disrespecting Jules. And she’ll remember that she’s worth fighting for.