Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Hotshot! Hotshot! Hotshot!” Abe and Micah chanted, standing to greet me with high fives and fist bumps.
“Yeah, yeah. Very funny,” I grumbled without heat, flashing my first honest-to-God smile of the night.
Niall slugged my left biceps hard and slung his arm around my neck. “Good to see you, man. You’re fuckin’ kickin’ ass on the ice. How many goals do you have already this season? Twenty-nine?”
“Thirty-two,” Mary-Kate corrected, lunging for me. “Get over here! I missed you, Den.”
I hugged her, breathing in the scent of her favorite Jo Malone fragrance, something with wild bluebells…whatever that meant. Didn’t matter. MK always smelled amazing.
“Missed you too.” I kissed MK’s cheek and let her drag me to the stool next to hers.
Someone slid a beer in front of me. Someone else across the bar called out a greeting and asked me to say hi to Grams. And some wise guy belted out the first line of Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and raised their glass in a toast. So yeah, my cheeks were now on fire.
I buried my nose in my beer and took a big gulp.
If you haven’t caught on…I was one of those weird athletes who wanted to be the best player on the ice but didn’t want the spotlight off the rink. Coach Smitty, my old high school coach, called me a contrary conundrum, which was probably fair. The way he said it inferred that I was an interesting puzzle to crack or a mystery to solve.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I wasn’t mysterious in the slightest. I was just…extremely reserved—even amongst people I cared about and had known for years. Like this motley crew.
Niall, Abe, Micah, and MK were some of my closest friends from high school. We’d fought many battles together during our pivotal adolescent years when every little injustice had seemed like a call to arms. Dramatic, but hey, a gaggle of hormonal sixteen-year-olds with a chip on their collective shoulders was either a pitiful cliché or a powerful force to be reckoned with.
We’d been a little of both. As founding members of the first men’s and women’s teams to take the ice at Elmwood High, we’d all had something to prove. And we’d done it.
Actually, we’d been terrible.
However, we’d gelled at the right time and won the Four Forest Championship titles our senior year—a gigantic feat, and we fully credited Coach Smitty for making it happen. We’d formed unbreakable bonds and had promised each other we wouldn’t lose touch after we graduated, no matter what.
That was four and a half years ago now, and so far so good.
Sure, we’d all gone our separate ways and our lives no longer revolved around high school bullshit, practices, and games, but we’d stayed connected. Niall and Micah worked at the mill in Wood Hollow, Abe was an accountant at his dad’s firm, and MK ran the bookstore her uncles owned. She also coached women’s varsity hockey at the high school.
And me…well, I was an NHL rookie forward for the Colorado Condors. Life was good. Intense and sometimes terrifying, but good.
“How long are you home?” MK asked, nudging my elbow.
“One night. I have a meeting Sunday and practice Monday morning.”
Micah scoffed, brushing his longish brown hair from his eyes. “Don’t you guys know this shit about each other? I thought it was a mandatory boyfriend-girlfriend info exchange. Ally wants to know my schedule down to the minute. I swear to God, we might as well be married.”
That drew a few howls and wolf whistles and thankfully, a topic change. MK and I exchanged a look while our buddies teased Micah about the possibility of impending wedding bells.
I linked my pinky finger around hers and squeezed, sipping my beer as I studied her profile.
Mary-Kate Moore was petite but tough with long brown hair, pretty blue eyes, and a killer smile. She was also a fast skater and one of the most accurate shooters I’d ever met.
She’d been so good in high school that Coach Smitty used to ask her to join our practices a couple of times a week. He’d paired us up for drills because no one on either of our teams could match our speed. Maybe there hadn’t been a real competition at stake, but we’d chased each other like whirling dervishes on the ice, taking no prisoners.
MK was and always had been a badass—the uber-feminine version who wore bright-pink lipstick, tight jeans, and V-neck sweaters that accentuated her tits. Like tonight.
“You look good,” I commented in a low tone.
Mary-Kate grinned, whispering, “So do you. How’ve you been?”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Not bad, I guess.”
“Not bad? You’re on fire. The Condors must be falling all over themselves to make sure their new star forward is a happy camper.” She cocked her chin and fixed me with a shrewd once-over. “Are you happy?”