Offside Obsession (Frostwolves Hockey)

1. Maddox

1

MADDOX

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have dropped my pants.

Not that it would’ve prevented me from getting into trouble, but maybe the video wouldn’t have received as much attention. And consequently, not landed me in quite so much trouble.

Guess it’s not every day that a professional hockey player performs a striptease for a group of rowdy, screaming bachelorettes in a Rocky Mountain club.

“Honestly, Davies, what the hell were you thinking?” Victoria Lawson, the Frostwolves’ assistant coach, pauses the video of me waving my jeans over my head like a bull-riding cowboy. I’m mid-grind with my pelvis arching over the lap of a squealing, blushing woman wearing a headband decorated with hot pink dicks.

Vic looks pissed, but it’s her tone that has me wincing. It’s as icy as the frozen winter roads outside, and I know I’m skating on thin ice right now.

“They were looking for some entertainment, Coach. They’d planned to go to that place, you know, the one that closed over on the corner of—” Her eyes flash and I bite back the rest of my sentence. “No, maybe you don’t know. I was just trying to give the ladies a night to remember.”

“Not your job, Davies. You’re a playmaker on our top line. That’s your job.” She wafts a printed page in my face and stabs it with her finger. “Right here on the roster. What’s it say?”

I glance over to where her finger points. “Fear the Frost.”

Her jaw tightens and I suddenly see why they call her the Ice Queen. If looks could do bodily damage, I’m pretty sure my balls would’ve been severed clean off my body in about two seconds.

“Maddox ‘Mad Dog’ Davies, six-foot-three, a buck ninety, shoots left, plays left wing, from St. Paul, Minne, age thirty-two.”

Damn. Didn’t know she knew my stats like that.

“Don’t look so impressed. It’s my job to know my players, and unlike you, I take my role seriously.”

Now I sit up straight and wipe my expression clean.

“Hey. Low blow, Coach. I take the game seriously. I just like to have a little fun.”

She opens her mouth to respond but gets cut off when the door flies open and General Manager Robert “Wolfman” Anderson strides in with Head Coach Ryan “Iceberg” Sullivan behind him. I climb to my feet, hopeful that they’re about to clear me for ice time tonight.

“Think you’ve been having a little too much fun, son,” Robert grumbles.

Uh-oh. Son?

When words like that come out, I know that someone’s about to lower the boom. I curl my hand into a fist, straighten my back, and look him in the eye.

“Sir, I didn’t mean any harm.”

GM Anderson pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure you didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s fallout.”

“There are consequences for your actions, Davies. And not just for you,” Vic snaps.

I stiffen. “What do you mean?”

“The organization is being fined and you’re going to have to take a seat for a while.” Coach Sullivan delivers the news as gently as he can, voice calm, expression neutral. Cool as a cucumber, that guy. Never gets ruffled. A trait that served him well in his playing days and makes him a hell of a coach to play for these days, even if our season’s in a bit of a slump. But right now, he couldn’t shock me more if he shouted the words at me.

“What?” My mouth drops open. “I’m being benched?”

The coaching staff exchange glances with GM Anderson, like they all saw this coming. Like somehow this wasn’t a surprise.

Look, I know I haven’t been a Boy Scout throughout my career, but I haven’t been that bad.

Have I?

“But it was harmless. All I did was dance. I moved my body—” I start shaking my hips, but Vic interrupts.

“We saw. The whole world saw. More than they were bargaining for, it seems.”

Okay, yeah. That part was unfortunate.

Again, I should’ve kept my pants on.

“I didn’t take any of them home. Nothing inappropriate happened.”

“Thank God for that,” Vic mutters, crossing her arms.

It’s probably wise not to mention that there’d been offers. Multiple, in fact, but I turned them all down. I might like to party hard, but I don’t party irresponsibly. Especially when it comes to hooking up. That was more my brother’s style.

“That’s not how the league or the organization see it.” Robert smiles tightly. “This is a family friendly sport, son. Know how many kids out there purchase jerseys with your name and number on the back?”

My heart sinks. Thinking back to the team signing event, I can only guess.

“Please don’t do this. Don’t bench me.” I turn pleading eyes to Coach Sullivan, but he raises his hands in a gesture that says there’s nothing he can do. “Can’t we release a statement? I’ll can make my apologies to the public and put this behind me. I’ve learned my lesson. No more strip teases. No lap dances. Hell, I won’t even grind up on someone else even if I’m asked to by a reigning pageant queen herself.”

Vic groans and covers her face with her hands.

“No, Maddox, I’m afraid that’s not going to cut it this time.” Coach Sullivan scratches his brow and gestures for me to take a seat.

Now I know it’s bad. Real bad.

I plop down into a chair, fighting to keep my emotions in check while everyone sits across from me. The adversarial seating arrangement changes the vibe from informal chat into more of a disciplinary hearing, and it makes my palms itchy.

What I did was colossally stupid, sure. But how was I supposed to know someone was going to film the whole thing, throw it on the internet, and it’d be —what’d Vic say?— trending.

Viral.

Meme-worthy.

Sticking my tongue in my cheek, I let out a deep exhale. “How long do I have to sit out?”

Another look passes between the trio. This time, Robert pipes up. “A week.”

“A week?” I explode, laying my hands on the table and half-rising out of the chair. “We’ve got three games this week?—”

Coach Sullivan raises a hand to silence me.

“It’s one week you’ll be spending with a specialist.”

“A public relations consultant brought in from the Alpine Sports Entertainment Group,” Vic adds.

“I’m getting a babysitter?” I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling. “This is unbelievable.”

“A spin doctor. Sort of,” Robert says, raising an arm and gesturing for someone behind me. “She’s got a plan to get you back in good standing already approved by the ownership. She’s quite the results-oriented go-getter. I understand she’s already secured statements of support from the ladies you’d danced with and she’s already lined up your appearances for the week. You will do whatever she tells you to do. Every request, every command. Your answer will be, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Got it?”

Scanning their faces, I see that there’s no room for argument. Vic’s mouth is pursed, Coach Sullivan looks at me with sympathy in his eyes, and Robert rubs his temples like I’ve given him a massive headache.

Considering the man holds my contract and the fate of my playing career in his hands, I need to pick my battles. Even though I think this is bullshit, I can’t deny that the video has surpassed tens of thousands of views in the first twenty-four hours. I understand that it doesn’t paint me, the team, or the league in the best light.

So I have to suck it up.

Closing my eyes, I try to rein it all in and level my breathing.

The door opens and shuts with a soft sound. Someone enters with steady, sure steps. When I open my eyes and look over, I stop breathing altogether.

Jocelyn Tan, a woman I know better as Juicy T. from her days creating fresh dance routines for fun and flexibility on a web streaming platform, stands before me in the flesh. She’s still as stunning as I remember, even though it’s been a few years since she mysteriously parted ways with her dance partner and pulled the plug on her channel.

But there are differences.

Her pin-straight, jet-black hair is pulled back into a severe bun, not flying free around her shoulders or cutting across her face as she performs a body roll I’ve got memorized. Her delectable curves aren’t hugged by athleisure attire but clad in a snug pencil skirt tight enough to make my mouth water. Instead of a crop top baring a strip of her warm brown skin, she’s wearing a chunky, oversized cream-colored knit sweater that doesn’t do anything to hide the fact that she’s a buxom beauty.

“Hi,” she says in that same heavenly voice I heard tell me to like and subscribe at least a thousand times, “I’m Jocelyn Tan.” Then she holds up a fan-made poster that must have been confiscated at the gates before turning those gorgeous brown eyes on me. “You must be ‘Mad Dong’?”