Hot & Cold (Spears Players #2)

Chapter One

Lyndsey

March

Bees. That’s all I can hear when I come into consciousness. Bees buzzing around inside my head. Who let all these bees into my goddamn hotel room? That is the only explanation for the ringing in my ears.

There is always a moment before you wake up when everything in life is right and just. That lasts for a second before the reality of life sinks in.

Sometimes it comes in waves and sometimes it’s a tsunami of memories thrashing against you.

This morning is the former, a slow, soft trickle slowly bringing me back to the now.

Sunlight flitters in through the blinds and I take the moment to bask in the feeling of its rays warming my face.

As I lie here with my eyes closed, I feel like I’m sunning on a beach.

Soft sand under my warm skin and a hangover from all the sunset-coloured cocktails I drank lounging on a cabana instead of shots on the Vegas strip.

Coming to Vegas to celebrate the end of the Seattle Spears hockey team’s season was supposed to be a fun weekend with my best friend and boss Ellis, her fiancé and his teammates; but I might have taken fun a little far.

I’m not the type of person who parties all night long, not any more anyway.

Back in my early twenties drinking more nights a week than not was the norm in the circles I ran.

I thought I had found people who were going to be by my side forever, people who understood me and the struggle I had growing up.

I was wrong. Not only did those friends not understand, they didn’t care.

Looking back it’s not surprising that a bunch of party-central twenty-year-olds didn’t actually care about me or my problems, they cared about which bar to go to next.

That’s not to say I stopped drinking altogether: I didn’t have a problem with drinking; I had problems I was trying to hide from with alcohol.

Last night I drank, and drank and drank some more.

Ellis left the kids with Liam’s parents, Tracy and Alek, and she wanted to let loose.

I’m the master at getting loose. I just wanted her to enjoy her first time in a different state to her two beautiful kids.

Plus I wanted to get my ex out of my head.

For weeks Kayla has been texting me begging to have me back and no matter how much I ask her to stop, she just keeps going.

Once the plane touched down, I threw my phone into my bag and was determined not to check it, to get out of the funk Kayla has put me in.

I wanted to spend time with my friend and show her a good time on the strip.

Now I’m suffering for her enjoyment. Luckily, Liam ‘Ruin’ Ruinsky has just finished his final season with the Seattle Spears hockey team, so that means we all got the best rooms in the best hotel on the strip.

Another pro to having a handful of six-foot-tall hockey men around meant both of us felt incredibly safe to get sloppy because we knew we had protection. I used that to its highest degree.

I find myself wearing a mask around everyone, even on this trip, and I don’t even know why.

I’m the fun, sassy, flirty best friend in Ellis’ life.

I flirt because it is how I like people to see me.

I’m fun because I don’t want them to look at me differently, like I’m a disappointment for not being perfect.

I’ve seen that look before, when my parents found out I was not the perfect religious daughter they raised.

I wouldn’t be able to bear seeing that disappointment reflected in the eyes of my new friends, my found family.

I worry they would be disappointed if they knew that I’m not the fun, bubbly me all of the time.

Is that irrational? Yes, but nobody ever thinks their family would turn their back on them and, when that has happened once, you will do everything in your power to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

So I laugh, I smile, I dance and make jokes at my own expense because that is how I know how to let people get close to me.

So last night I did just that. Made sure everyone around me was comfortable and having a good time, even if it meant I drank more than I would have liked to make sure Ellis didn’t feel alone.

Stretching out on the bed, I hear my bones clicking into place and I definitely don’t want to risk making the impending headache worse by prying my eyes open just yet.

Instead, I turn over to bury my face into the pillow and pull the blankets up to tuck under my chin, trying to remember if I washed my make-up off before falling into bed.

I’m inhaling deeply when the first inkling that something strange is afoot enters the recesses of my mind. Something more than just hangxiety.

Like lightning striking, I realise what is wrong, and it’s just as painful.

My bed smells just like him. But surely not.

My mind must be playing tricks on me. We were in a big group last night, of course some remnants of aftershave are expected to hang in the air – the players certainly wear enough of it.

But this feels more familiar to me. I recognise it too well.

My body tingles with embarrassing realisation. It could only be one person.

Aiden Anders.

The bachelor captain for the Seattle Spears, Seattle’s very own cowboy hailing from the lone-star state.

He’s suddenly everywhere – I can smell him all over my sheets.

My senses are overwhelmed by his cologne and the smell of his damn body wash, the exact same woodsy smell that follows him around like a cloud. Shit.

While my eyes still adjust to the foreign bedroom, I find the second and most damning evidence of Aiden: his damn tattooed arm wrapped over my waist. He isn’t covered in tattoos the way that his offence player Jay ‘Edge’ Brink is.

No, Aiden picks his art more sparingly. Each one kills me, especially the snake wrapped around his forearm.

The one whose stark black ink is currently standing out against my pale skin.

I try my hardest not to wake him but he is holding me tight. Very tight.

Almost like he knew when it was time for me to wake up and I was going to want to escape.

If I can do it without waking him up, even better.

We have hardly spoken since New Year’s Eve when our strange relationship reached a disastrous peak and I don’t want to deal with his questions when my head is pounding like a drum.

Just as I slide a little bit out of his grip, he somehow manages to band around me even tighter still. His nose now burrows against my neck; my movements must have woken him slightly because his warm lips meet the skin of my shoulder, kissing lightly.

“Five more minutes,” he mumbles sleepily against me.

His voice is gravelly and his southern accent is so much stronger when he is still half asleep.

A strong reminder of why Anders is the team player I’ve crushed for over a year – if we are only going on when I met him, and not the posters from my teenage wall.

Then I snap. Instead of going slow, which clearly wasn’t working in my favour, I jump out of the bed instead.

Maybe speed will be the best way to escape without any backlash.

In an instant I’m on my feet and scrambling for any clothes within reach.

Which there are none, the room is surprisingly clean, no trail of clothes hanging on lampshades.

One saving grace is that I’m not naked, I have at least my underwear to preserve my decency.

Admittedly, this isn’t the first time I’ve woken up from a one-night stand.

But I’m usually a lot more naked and smell a lot less like Aiden.

Also, I’m no expert in his anatomy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if we had slept together, I might be more touch-tender, which I’m not now. Maybe we didn’t have sex?

When we met last year as Ellis and her partner Liam started dating, I flirted with Aiden when I could.

It was harmless. And hell, I’m a woman, I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last. He helped me at work when Ellis was pregnant and on bed rest. He made me laugh when I was overwhelmed.

Plus he’s handsome. So damn handsome. His short blond hair with some darker pieces glow in the morning sunlight.

Stormy grey eyes that are flecked with blue when you look at them long enough.

And that damn southern drawl that he uses like the weapon it is.

Of course I flirted with him, of course I got butterflies whenever he gave me a helping hand.

That doesn’t mean I’m a fool. I know I was nothing but a way to pass the time between games, I won’t begrudge him putting me off to the side when he got bored, that wouldn’t be fair of me.

I got his attention for a while and I took that for the fun time it was, until last night apparently.

Now I’m near naked in a hotel room with him, that doesn’t feel like the carefully crafted bubble I placed him in.

My head protests the sudden movements from lying to suddenly running around the room but the only clear thought I can hear over the incessant pounding is the need to know how I got here. How we got here.

Beams of sunlight shining through the blinds are not enough to illuminate the room fully but one thing is for sure and that is that this is definitely not my hotel room.

My room this weekend is posher than anything I’ve stayed in before but this is a step above even that, avocado-coloured panel walls and solid wood underfoot cushioned by a sage-green rug.

They say lightning doesn’t strike twice but that doesn’t feel very true right now as the memories of the prior night cloud my vision.

Drinking.

Dancing.

Aiden.

Dancing with Aiden.

Shots with Aiden.

Then blackness. And the buzzing in my head every time I move.

I can feel Aiden’s eyes on me but I ignore that for now.

Once I have something over my underwear, I can meet his gaze.

Or not. Hopefully not. Maybe he will grant me the decency to let me escape with my pride and without sharing a word.

That would be nice, I know it’s not going to happen but it would be a dream.

His eyes rake over my exposed skin as I eventually find my travel bag thrown under a chair in the corner.

Looks like I had the forethought to stop at my own room to grab my stuff before coming up here. Yay drunk me. Drunk me should have gone to her own room, but this is better than nothing.

As I throw on a summer dress, I hear Aiden cough.

But still, neither of us breaks the precious silence.

Once the dress comes down over my head, I finally see he’s awake, and my heart skips a beat.

For the first time since I jumped from the bed Aiden isn’t buried in the sheets.

He’s looking at his hand. His left hand. And the ring staring back at him.

I stifle a laugh. How cliché and unrealistic. A wedding ring in Vegas, Something I suppose he or the other players would find funny. I want to crack a joke, ask who the lucky girl is. Until a new weight on my hand stops me.

It’s suddenly the only thing I can feel.

A tight heavy band around my left fourth finger.

I look down, and it all becomes real. A simple gold band with a small red stone.

Maybe a garnet, a ruby? Why is that what my brain is focusing on?

Jesus Christ, it looks like I’m married and I’m trying to guess gemstones.

Then I start laughing. No, not laughing, I start cackling.

“Darlin’, take a breath for me,” Aiden says as he slides out of the bed. I’m so distracted by my new jewels that I barely look at his naked chest. Just barely.

“Oh sure, husband, I will get right on that,” I snap sarcastically. “This can’t be real, can it? It’s just a messed-up joke – right?” I practically plead.

At this point I’m borderline hyperventilating in between bursts of booming laughter.

My eyes dart around the room trying to find some clue to tell me this is all fake.

It wouldn’t be my first panic attack, and I think if it was ever socially acceptable to have a panic attack it would be waking up next to the Spears hockey captain with matching wedding bands after dodging him for the past few months.

When my eyes settle on what appears to be a legal document my hands start to shake even harder.

My steps feel heavy as I edge over to the nightstand.

There, looking up at me, is a goddamn marriage certificate signed by both of us.

“Okay, how about we keep calm.” He walks closer in what I think is an attempt to soothe me, eyeing the paper himself.

“Has my brain broken or did you just tell me to calm down… WHEN WE JUST WOKE UP MARRIED!” I’m glad we are in his suite right now because the chances for a noise complaint are slim to none.

In a normal room someone would be banging on the wall with how loud I yell.

He just earned it, who tells a woman to calm down in a situation like this?

Actually he seems remarkably calm right now.

Way too calm for this situation. Maybe he has taken too many pucks to the head and has fewer brain cells than necessary, because there is no way he is relaxing right now after waking up with me wrapped in his arms. Apart from casting a glance at my body in front of him, he has barely twitched.

Yes, he is a professional captain and that means he is cool under pressure; but this isn’t a game and I’m not one of his damn teammates.

“Fuck, Aiden!” I rip the ring from my finger, launching it at his chest, and storm into the bathroom, slamming the door on my way.

What have I done?