Forecheck (Detroit Warriors #1)

1. Brent

You Are My Business, Dickhead

I could think of a thousand places I’d rather be than at this fucking bar right now.

Visiting the dentist.

Getting a colonoscopy.

Letting my little sister tell me about her sex life.

Watching my parents have sex.

Maybe I was acting a little out of pocket. But I hadn’t wanted to come here tonight. The regular season started next week, and instead of damaging my eardrums under the bass-heavy remixes the DJ spun for the mass on the dance floor, I should’ve been home and relaxing. Enjoying my last few days of freedom and downtime until, at the earliest, May.

Instead, I’d come to the bar because my best friend and teammate, Mitch Frambough, had literally gotten down on his knees and begged me after practice earlier. Then, the fucker bailed at the last second, stranding me to spend my evening with the fucking rookies.

Okay, stranded wasn’t a good word. I’d only had two beers in the last three hours—the most recent of which having gone warm in my hand because I nursed the shit out of it—and my truck was in a parking garage down the block.

I could leave at any time, and when one of the rookies let a college-aged girl grip him by the hand and tow him to the dance floor, leaving me standing all alone at the bar like a fucking loser…I’d had enough.

I signaled the bartender to close out my tab, drumming my fingers on the bar top as I waited.

“Oh, my God, you’re even hotter in person.”

At the feminine voice from behind me, I internally groaned, and outwardly stiffened. I wasn’t in the mood for this, didn’t have the energy to deal with a fan throwing herself at me. Still, I was a nice guy, so I plastered on a terse smile—which felt more like a grimace—before turning.

And found myself staring into the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

Eyes that belonged to the girl who had captivated my attention earlier and had yet to let it go.

She was the only reason I’d stayed here so long.

The first time I’d seen her tonight, it was like the crowd on the dance floor had parted in slow motion, revealing this petite girl moving in the middle of the throng, hands raised, worshiping the music without a care in the world. Her unbound hair had bounced against her back, the bright blonde waves catching the flashing lights as she moved. It had been a beacon to my soul. As if something inside me had awoken and said, “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

Our gazes held for several long moments as I searched for something to say. Her eyes were glassy, and I wondered if her drunken state had urged her to approach me, or if she still would have had she been sober.

“And you’re just plain hot,” I finally blurted, shooting her a cheeky wink.

“You noticed me?” she asked, cocking her head to the side, that curtain of golden hair spilling down one arm.

I chuckled, then gestured to her person from head to toe. “Hard not to.”

The girl’s lips pursed as though she didn’t quite believe me, and I didn’t miss the way she glanced over her shoulder. I followed her gaze across the bar, to a tall brunette girl standing against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, eyeing us warily.

“When she’s around, I sort of fade into the background,” Blondie explained. “I love her to death, but it’s hard for me to compete with…all of that.”

My eyes darted back and forth between them. Objectively speaking, her friend was hot. She had to be close to six feet, her long legs fully on display in a pair of obscenely short shorts, chest propped up in a white corset top, lengthy brown hair unbound and falling nearly to her waist.

Only, even from here, I knew she wasn’t my type. Five years ago? Hell yeah, I would’ve been all over that. She would’ve been exactly the kind of woman I’d have gone for—tall, thin, model good looks, had an air about her like she’d be fine with one night together before going our separate ways and never speaking again.

But this wasn’t five years ago, and I wasn’t that man anymore.

No, these days, this sexy little blonde in front of me was much more my speed.

Blondie stared at me curiously, watching me watch her friend, eyebrows pinched together as she awaited my response.

So I stepped closer and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Trust me,” I said, my breath fanning the wisps of hair flying around her face, “it’s not a competition. I’ve been thinking about you since I saw you dancing earlier, hoping I’d get the chance to meet you.”

Even under the lowlights of the bar, I didn’t miss the blood rushing to her cheeks, turning the apples pink.

“Well…I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”

Oh, really? My skin tingled with the possibilities in those words. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn’t bothered by the fact that a woman knew who I was and approached me. Hell, I should’ve manned up and gone after her hours ago.

Before I could respond, before I could ask for her name or number or whole life story, the friend appeared and tugged insistently on her arm. “Berkley, can we please go? I’m starving,” she said dramatically.

Well, there’s one mystery solved.

Berkley.

Wanting to make a good impression, I stuck out a hand. “Brent Jean.”

The brunette simply looked me up and down, and the only way I could’ve felt more naked was to actually have been naked. Her honey gaze cut right to my soul. Her expression remained unimpressed as she said, “I know who you are.”

Okay then.

The awkwardness was broken by the bartender returning with my credit card and sliding it over the sticky counter to me. “Here’s your bill, man.”

I blinked at the kid in surprise, having completely forgotten that’s why I’d been standing here when Berkley approached me.

And now, I wasn’t sure I still wanted to leave.

Offering him a smile, I said, “Thanks, man. Just one second…”

But when I turned back, Berkley and her friend had already disappeared. I rose onto my tiptoes, using my six foot, three inch height to scan the crowd for a flash of blonde hair or her friend’s dark head and white top, but found nothing.

Berkley had simply vanished.

“What the fuck,” I murmured, turning back to the bar and quickly scribbling my name on the credit card receipt.

The bartender chuckled, and I lifted my head slowly, shooting him a glare that typically had stronger men withering. The kid only shrugged, unperturbed. “It’s just not every day you see Brent Jean get rejected.”

“Shut up,” I scoffed, though there was no heat behind the words. “She didn’t reject me. She just…left.”

“Yeah, without giving you her name or any way of contacting her.”

“I know her name,” I said defensively. “Berkley. And just because she didn’t give me her number doesn’t mean anything. Haven’t you ever heard of Cinderella? We all saw how well that worked out for them.”

The kid—whose name I really should’ve learned by now—snorted. “Yeah, you’re a real Prince Charming alright.”

“Fuck off,” I said, but I couldn’t help but laugh along with him. “Mark my words. I’m going to make that girl mine one day.”

“How was the bar last night?”

I rolled my eyes at Mitch, shoving past him to my stall in the locker room, answering his question with one of my own.

“What exactly was worth ditching me for?”

Mitch smirked, wiggling his eyebrows. “I’ll give you one guess.”

I gagged. “You’re disgusting.”

“My partner didn’t think so when I had my head between her—”

“Fucking hell, dude,” I said, raising my hands to plug my ears. “I don’t need details.”

Mitch shrugged. “You didn’t answer my question.”

I returned his gesture. “It was fine.”

My best friend’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There’s a lot I don’t tell you,” I shot back.

Still, Mitch knew me too fucking well for a man who’d only been my friend for roughly three years, and he crowded my space enough that the backs of my knees hit the stool in front of my locker. I sat down hard.

Arms crossed, he loomed over me, patiently waiting for me to spill. Mitch’s searing gaze never wavered, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of giving him something.

Feigning nonchalance, I said, “I might’ve met someone last night.

“Who? Someone at the bar?”

“Yep.”

“Well?” Mitch prompted. “Care to share with the class?”

“Her name is Berkley, and…hell, I don’t know. I felt something.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“She’s pretty,” I amended for him, a bit wistfully.

“Christ, you’ve got it bad,” Mitch said, snorting a laugh. “So how exactly did this happen?”

I succinctly relayed the story of Berkley approaching me at the bar, and how I could tell there was chemistry there. Mitch looked skeptical, but it wasn’t only wishful thinking. I knew to the very marrow of my bones that I hadn’t imagined the tiny something sparking to life between us as we spoke.

“So…what are you going to do about it?” Mitch asked.

“I haven’t quite decided.”

“Slide into her DMs!” one of the rookies shouted at me. “That always works for me!”

“I’m also nearly a decade older than you,” I grumbled. “And an actual adult.”

“That’s offensive,” Tommy Grey, the rookie in question, said as he padded over. He was shirtless and clad only in a pair of bright pink boxers with cartoon dogs decorating them.

I gestured at the shorts. “No, those are offensive. What the fuck are you wearing?”

Grey spared only a passing glance for his underwear, waving my question off. “My mom got them for me. Quit deflecting.”

“Look, I know you’re trying to help, Grey,” I said, standing and dropping my hand onto his naked shoulder. “But dating at my age is a lot different than the Netflix and chill bullshit kids like you and Rat get up to.”

Hank “Rat” Ratelle made a noise of protest from across the room, but Grey shrugged. “I’m just saying. If you want to talk to her, the easiest way to accomplish that is by sliding into her DMs. Have you even tried to stalk her Insta?”

I frowned. “I don’t know her last name.”

“With a name like Berkley, I doubt she’ll be hard to find,” Mitch said, and I cut him a scathing look.

“Mind your business.”

“You are my business, dickhead,” Mitch said, shooting me a grin. “As your best friend, it’s my job to get your ugly ass laid.”

“That’s hardly within the realm of best friend duties,” I scoffed. “You don’t see me walking around trying to get you laid.”

“That’s because I don’t need help. You clearly do.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said. “And I don't want to have sex with her. I want…” I trailed off. I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t that.

Well, okay, it was, but not only that.

“You love me.”

I snorted but didn’t argue.

When Mitch had signed with the Warriors three years ago, he and I became fast friends. His first two years, we’d lived in the same building, so we’d often ride to practices and the airport together, or get drunk watching football on Sundays if we weren’t playing. What started under the ruse of welcoming a new guy to the team had morphed into one of the best friendships I’d ever had.

“I’m still not sliding into her DMs,” I ultimately announced, sitting once again and fishing my phone out of my bag. “But…I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see if I can find her Instagram.”

“Atta boy!” Mitch said, clapping me on the back as he dropped onto the stool next to mine.

I opened the app and clicked into the search tab, but as I began typing, I realized something.

“Does anyone know how to spell ‘Berkley’?”

“Is it like the college?” Rat asked.

I typed B-e-r-k-e-l-e-y, but after scrolling for what seemed like ages and clicking on profiles at random, I decided that wasn’t it.

By now, Mitch had taken his own phone out to aid me in my search. “How about…B-e-r-k-l-e-y,” he said as he tapped out the letters.

I looked over at Mitch’s screen and squinted at the tiny profile pictures that popped up alongside usernames.

A flash of blonde hair caught my eye. I shouted, “That’s her!” and snatched Mitch’s phone out of his hand before he could react. I clicked onto the profile…and was greeted with over four hundred photos of my mystery girl.

Fuck, she’s beautiful.

Someone whistled low like a catcall, and Grey said, “Damn, Jean.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled, though there was no venom in the words. I was too focused on the screen. “Berkley Daniels.”

Her full name at last.

“Third year law student at Wayne State,” Mitch said as he read her profile. “That’s impressive.”

“Beauty and brains,” I agreed. “Love that.”

“Look, she went to MSU!” Rat said just as my eyes snagged on the line in her bio that read “Michigan State alumna.”

“That’s gotta be some kind of sick joke,” I murmured.

“Why?” Grey asked.

“Because,” I said, swallowing hard, “what are the chances we were there at the same time?”

The boys were quiet as they considered that. Knowing I was twenty-nine and had forgone playing juniors to head right to college at eighteen, Rat tapped his fingers as he did the math.

“How old is she?” Mitch asked.

I scrolled through her photos, searching for anything to indicate when she’d finished undergrad or celebrated a birthday.

At last, I landed on a photo of her graduation day from Michigan State two and a half years prior. And about six months before that, after carefully studying photos of her in various poses with various groups of friends at bars or events around campus, or perfectly curated outfit photos or selfies, I found what I was looking for.

Berkley was surrounded by three girls—one of which I recognized as the tall brunette she’d been at the bar with—all squished together on a dilapidated couch in a room that clearly belonged to one of those quintessential rundown college houses. They were all dressed to the nines, and Berkley wore a black sash across her chest emblazoned with the words “BIRTHDAY GIRL” in sparkly gold.

The caption read, “I don’t know about you, but I’m feelin’ 22” with a string of birthday related emojis.

“Okay,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as I did the math. “If she turned twenty-two in 2017, she had to have started college in…”

“2014,” Mitch supplied.

“My fifth year.”

“Shit,” Rat said. “That’s wild.”

It was wild. To know that she and I had been on campus together for an entire year and we’d never crossed paths? Then again, eighteen year old Berkley would’ve wanted nothing to do with twenty-two year old Brent.

I had been a bit of a fuckboy.

In fact, I’d remained a bit of a fuckboy until about a year ago, when I finally decided to stop messing around.

One day, it hit me like a ton of bricks. After a game, the Warriors’ organization invited family and friends of myself and my teammates onto the ice for a family skate type of thing. The only person in my family who lived even remotely close was my brother, but Nate was busy with his own life and medical residency in Ann Arbor.

So I spent the evening hanging out with my other single teammates, but looking around at the guys whose wives and kids had joined us—I experienced an unexpected pang in my chest.

I wanted what they had, and I realized I wasn’t going to get it by endless one night stands and absolutely no emotional connections.

From that moment on, I’d been playing for keeps. Or…trying to. Frankly, no one had caught my eye in a long time. Not like Berkley.

Was this the beginning of the rest of my life?

I shook that thought off. It was way too early to be making those kinds of declarations. For starters, I’d barely spoken to the girl.

“Are you going to follow her?” Rat asked, and I looked up, meeting his eyes, then Grey’s, then Mitch’s.

“I don’t know.”

“You should,” Mitch said, extricating his phone from my hand. “She’s hot. Follow her, work that pretty boy charm, make her fall in love with you, get married, have a bunch of babies, and live happily ever after.”

I rolled my eyes. “One thing at a time, bud.”

Five days later, moments before I was about to step onto the ice in Anaheim, California, for the Warriors’ first game of the season, I finally pressed that follow button on Berkley’s profile.