From Chapter One...

©Mira Lyn Kelly

Vaughn

What’s pissing me off isn’t the phone call from my agent warning me that Coach is going to scratch me from the lineup if I don’t knock off my “confrontational” bullshit.

It’s not that I walk into Belfast, the one bar I like in this city, and find Greg fucking Baxter and half our team cheering for some chump as he pops the question to his girl.

It’s not even that I can’t get a fucking beer because all the waitresses are standing around moony-eyed, or that any plans I might have had of getting laid tonight are now securely in the shitter. Trusting my dick to some chick who just watched a happily ever after in action? Hard pass. Might as well cut the hole in the rubber myself.

No. What’s pissing me off is her, and that for a single second I wasn’t pissed at all.

For one second, my only thought was she’s here.

In Chicago.

In the bar I’ve been coming to once a week for the past month and a half.

Allie. The girl from Vancouver eight months ago. The one with the dark curls, gypsy blue eyes, and the sweetest, wettest mouth I ever tasted. The girl who blew my mind and then blew out of my life without even giving me her number.

Hell, I was half off my barstool, the beginnings of an honest-to-fuck smile fighting my chronic case of resting prick face when it registered… She’s not alone.

And it’s not some random hipster or suit with his arm slung around her shoulders, either. It’s Ruxton Meyers, my teammate. Fucking Baxter’s best friend.

That’s what’s pissing me off.

I thought she was different.

Hell, I knew she was a fan. She was wearing a Canucks jersey and hanging out at a bar with a bunch of players the first night I saw her. But she wasn’t on the prowl. She wasn’t eyeing every player there like a prize to score. Instead of some skintight getup that left next to nothing to the imagination, she’d had on jeans. Beat-up, loose, frayed-around-the-hems jeans. And a pair of white Chucks. Her hair was this sexy mess of dark brown waves that I watched her put up into a ponytail in the middle of the bar without a mirror, while she was talking to another player. She didn’t care what she looked like. Didn’t care what anyone thought. Didn’t even have her phone out taking selfies.

So not a puck bunny.

I’d have bet my life on it, especially when I saw her in the hotel lobby the next night. She was buying a Hershey’s bar and a lemonade from the convenience store and she just looked up and smiled. Like we were old friends or something. Like she recognized me without the double take. Without the rest of the team. Just me, standing in line behind her buying a water I didn’t need because I’d seen her there.

And hours later when I could still smell her on my skin, the only thing I had left of her was the note in my hand that no bunny ever would have written: I can’t do this. I’m sorry.

She’d told me from the start. She doesn’t date players. So what the fuck is she doing with Rux?

Was she lying? Because she sure looks comfy tucked beneath his arm.

My knuckles crack as fists form at my sides.

This is the kind of bullshit I’m supposed to be avoiding if I want a contract with Oregon. And shit, Allie isn’t mine. She’s just a chick who isn’t as different as I thought she was.

I can walk out of here. Forget I saw her.

Hit another bar and find another girl.

Great plan.

Thing is, I’m not going anywhere.

***

Natalie

Life isn’t fair.

After months of dodging out on plans and skipping games it killed me to skip, I join the guys for one stinking night to share a moment I’m honored to have been included in. One night and who the heck shows up but the one player I’ve been busting my backside to avoid since he was traded to the Slayers this summer.

Vaughn Vassar.

He’s our second-line center, my brother’s longest-standing rival, and the indiscretion I should have known would come back to bite me. Hard.

I gulp, hazarding another quick peek past the bulk of Rux’s arm. My belly knots around the butterflies that have been launching like missiles since the guy walked in. It’s definitely Vaughn. Even if I didn’t know every face on my brother’s team and most of the league really… for reasons I’d rather roll in hot coals than admit out loud, I would know his.

And in the eight months since I was this close to him, he hasn’t changed. The dark waves of his hair still hang loose around a jaw that’s heavy and square. But it’s that hard edge screaming doesn’t play well with others chiseled into every line of his rugged face I recognize first. Maybe because I know exactly what happens when it softens… when those hard eyes crinkle at the corners and that slash of a mouth lifts, changing his whole face.

Like the rest of him, that contrast is hard to forget.

Hard not to think about when I’m not supposed to be thinking about him at all.

Cripes, why does he have to look so good with those dark jeans hugging around the mass of his solid thighs, the assortment of tats peeking out from beneath the deep vee of a T-shirt that’s barely keeping up with the body it’s been tasked with covering? And why when I’ve been surrounded by guys with this body type for most of my life—guys I wisely don’t look twice at—is this guy so hard to ignore?

A breath shudders past my suddenly dry lips, and I lean back.

This is bad.

Honestly, the chances of him remembering a girl he spent a handful of hours with eight months ago are next to none. Most of the single guys I know in the league wouldn’t. But Vaughn Vassar is a man too many people sell short and I’m not willing to risk being one of them.

Which is why I need to get out of here. And why I’m going to continue missing games and dodging out on plans with the team until Vaughn’s contract is up and Chicago’s most reluctant player moves on to a team he actually wants to play for.

Peering up at Rux, I give his shoulder a light slug. “Hey, look, it was great seeing you guys, but I’ve got to take off.”

He checks his watch and shakes the overlong mess of ginger he lovingly refers to as his flow. “You got practice or something?”

That would be a great excuse. Unfortunately the 12U girls hockey team I coach doesn’t practice until Tuesday. “Not tonight. I’m just whipped.”

With an understanding nod, he pulls me in to his giant chest, practically suffocating me in his armpit, before setting me back with a wink. “Good seeing you.”

I steal one last glance at Vaughn. A waitress is taking his order, or maybe she’s just chatting him up. I can hardly see past the rack she’s got on offer about six inches in front of his nose. Subtle.

A twinge of jealousy blinks through me and it’s definitely time to go.

I cut around our group and slip out the front into the cool October evening. The streetlights are on and there’s a steady flow of traffic from either direction but no available cabs, so I order an Uber with less than a two-minute wait. The bar door opens behind me, and I turn toward the laughter, music and light spilling out onto the sidewalk—and freeze.

It’s not him. It can’t be.

He hadn’t even gotten a beer yet.

He didn’t see me. Wouldn’t recognize me even if he had.

It’s not—

My belly folds in on itself as eyes like granite lock with mine, and the one guy I was praying to avoid pulls the door closed behind him. “Thought you didn’t date players?”

God, he’s even hotter up close.

Arms crossed, he walks out to where I’m standing and props a massive shoulder against the streetlight.

The breath whooshes from my lungs, dragging his name behind in a shaky whisper. “Vaughn. I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

I’d been banking on it.

His brows lift, and his mouth—well, it’s not exactly a smile he’s offering so much as the absence of his scowl. “No?”

He looks like he’s waiting for me to say something, but when I don’t, the scowl returns, and he nods back to the bar. “So you and Meyers?”

What? “Rux?” God no. While most of Greg’s team thinks of me as a little sister in some capacity or another, Rux has taken the back-up-brother thing to the next level. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

He makes an indifferent sound like he couldn’t care less, but the way he’s looking at me says something different.

This I remember from Vancouver. This dizzying sense of there not being enough air when I had the full focus of his attention. This feeling of being caught in some kind of gravitational pull toward an object of greater mass. This borderline compulsion to reach out and touch. To run my fingers over the corded muscles of his forearm, trace the lines of black ink.

The door to the bar opens again, and I jump back, heart racing. It’s just a couple girls huddled close as their thumbs fly over their phones. But it could have been my brother. Or Rux, or any one of the guys in there who would turn around and tell Greg who I was talking to, pretty much ensuring the start of World War III right here on the sidewalk in front of Belfast.

Clearing my throat, I shake my head. “So, it’s umm… nice to see you again. But I’m uh… I need to get home.”

There’s another jump in that muscle beneath the scruff of his stubble, and even over the wind and roar of a passing bike, I’m pretty sure I just heard his molars grinding.

“Back to Washington? Yeah, quite the trip ahead of you.”

My mouth opens, but I exhausted all my lies the last time we were together. Not that I can give him the truth. Vaughn’s a better guy than most people give him credit for, but knowing how he feels about my brother… I’m not sure he could resist the temptation to shove our hookup in Greg’s face.

A teal Prius pulls up to the curb and my breath rushes out in relief. “This is my ride,” I say apologetically as I climb into the car. I know what I’m doing isn’t fair, but it’s the only way. “Take care.”

***

Vaughn

Take care?

No fucking way that just happened.

But yeah, I’m standing on the street in front of Belfast, the spot Allie previously occupied, as empty as my bed the night she skipped out.

I ought to let her go. That’s twice she’s taken off on me. Twice I felt that weird fucking pull toward a girl I barely know, twice I was ready to break a few of my own rules, and twice she’s left me standing wondering what the fuck just happened.

I don’t need that shit, especially now. Except—

“Christ, Vassar, what happened to laying off Baxter?”

I turn to find my left-winger, Quinn O’Brian, behind me on the sidewalk, accusation pouring off him. I get it. Laying Baxter out at the beginning of the season was a fuck-up. One I’ve been paying for ever since. And if I fuck up again, it fucks things for our line. It fucks the team. And while I’m basically biding my time until Oregon can pick me up, no fucking way am I going to make this team a loser.

“Look, man, I just came out for a beer. I didn’t know Baxter and half the team were here.” Or Allie.

Is this a regular hangout?

“Yeah, and what about her?”

Her? Now he’s got my full attention. “What about her? Who is she?”

“You don’t know?” He shoots me a pissy glare I’m not in the mood for. “Natalie Baxter… She’s Greg Baxter’s little sister, and she’s off limits, dipshit.”

No. Fucking. Way.