Shutout (Rules of the Game, #2)(81)



“Okay, Tink.” I’m not going to argue with her over that asshole.

“Do you want your birthday present now?” Her hands coast up my thighs, past my hips, then tug at my waistband.

“What is it?” I tease, smoothing her hair.

She dips her head, kissing the dip of my cock through the black material of my boxer briefs. “Whatever you want.”





The good: Seraphina slept in my room last night without any sneaking out required.

The bad: Chase hasn’t said a single word to me all day.

Instead of carpooling with me and Dallas to the arena—which has been our routine for as long as I can remember—he left the house without telling either of us and drove alone. He beat us there, changed in silence, and stalked out of the dressing room, making a point to ignore both of us entirely.

This whole silent treatment thing is unnerving. I expected a heated confrontation, or maybe an ass kicking. Instead, he’s been quiet. Too quiet for someone who’s normally loud and outspoken.

It feels like the calm before the storm, and I have no idea when the sky is going to erupt or what the magnitude will be. The longer this drags on, the worse I suspect the fallout will be when it hits.

“You good, Donohue?” Reid nudges me with his padded elbow. Most of the team is already out on the ice, save for us and a handful of stragglers. I’m in no hurry to step onto the ice, even if it means Miller is going to chew me out for being late.

I grab my goalie helmet from my stall without looking at him. “Yeah.”

“Carter’s pissed, huh?”

“That’s an understatement.” Beneath my equipment, my chest heaves with a sigh. “Pretty sure he’s plotting my murder as we speak.”

Jokes aside, a physical altercation isn’t what I’m worried about. It’s that I fucked up our friendship. Fucked up my living situation in the process. And potentially fucked up the team dynamic along the way.

Even worse, I dragged Seraphina into it. I can live with Chase being angry with me but him icing Sera out would break her heart, and one thing I can’t live with is hurting her.

“He’ll get over it,” Reid says, grabbing his gloves. “He just needs some time.”

“Have you met Carter? He’s not exactly the forgive and forget type.”

“At the end of the day, he wants his sister to be happy. If you’re good to her, he’ll have no choice other than to be okay with it eventually.”

Will he, though? Not sure he’ll ever be on board with our nebulous “having fun” arrangement.

“I suppose that depends how you define ‘eventually.’ In a couple years, sure. Maybe. Any time soon, probably not.”

I start for the door and Reid deftly steps in front of me, blocking my path. While I’m broader than he is with my equipment on, he’s got a slight height advantage, and he’s clearly not going to budge until he deems this conversation finished.

“Would you take it back?” he asks.

I shuffle back a step. “What?”

“If you could go back in time, would you change anything with you and Sera? Telling Carter doesn’t count. I’m talking about you guys.”

Everything flashes before my eyes in a single breath. The first time I laid eyes on her dressed as Tinker Bell at XS. Move-in day. Our near kiss in the kitchen. Picking her up from Rob’s the night she called me. The time she lost her keys. The way her nose scrunches up when she laughs. Movie nights. Twenty-one questions. Falling asleep with her in my arms. Coconut shampoo. And so much pink.

“No. I wouldn’t change a single thing.”

“Exactly, so drop the fucking pity party. If he wants to stew, let him. His feelings are his issue. Problem ownership, my friend.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a lot of therapy.”

He grunts. “You don’t know the half of it.”

The first half of practice goes smoothly. The second half, not so much. Coach Miller breaks us into groups to run drills, and he sticks me and Chase together at the net for shot practice. As we skate over to our end, Chase refuses to even acknowledge me.

My eyes track the puck as he approaches, and I mentally calculate his next move. Knowing Chase, he’s either going to toe drag and snap it five-hole or fake me out and pull it across backhand. To my surprise, he does neither and levels me with a screamer of a slapshot instead. It narrowly misses my neck, one of the most vulnerable spots for a goalie.

I’m used to pucks barreling towards me traveling over ninety miles per hour, and the close call is still unsettling.

His second shot hits above my knee, where there’s a gap in my padding.

“Fuck!” I double over with a hiss, trying to breathe through the blinding pain. Getting hit is never particularly pleasurable, but some places hurt more than others—and this is one of them.

Resetting my position, I wait as Chase snags another puck and approaches the net again. He’s one of our best shooters, which is why I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his questionable aim. Maybe he’s off his game after everything that happened last night.

After his third shot nearly takes off my head, I know it wasn’t an accident.

“You know you’re supposed to shoot at the net, right?” I yell, gesturing with my stick.

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