On the Ice (Stick Side #1)

Chapter 1

One

The two hundred-person capacity lecture hall was filled, with standing room only. Had Mitch Greyson known how popular this evening’s kinesiology lecture-slash-panel discussion would be, he would’ve shown up early instead of arriving at the last possible second.

There was one last empty seat in the back row sandwiched between a blonde munching on a granola bar and a slim dude who smelled like pot even from all the way over here. Fuck. No wonder no one was sitting there. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that jazz.

A shouted “Yo, Grey!” followed by an ear-splitting whistle had Mitch scanning the audience. About midway down, Chuck Yano, his teammate and closest friend on the college’s hockey team, waved at him and gestured to the empty seat beside him.

Mitch pointed at his own chest. For me? he mouthed.

Yano gave him the finger.

Taking that as a yes, Mitch wove his way around people propping up the walls and sitting in the stairs.

More than one person gave him the stink-eye when he settled into what looked like the second to last seat.

He dropped his cafeteria smoothie—dinner of champions—in the cup holder attached to his chair’s armrest.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said to Yano. He nodded a hello to their friend Marco Terlizzese sitting in the row behind them.

“Changed my mind,” Yano said. “What are you doing?”

“Huh?”

Yano flicked a finger against the notebook Mitch had taken out of his backpack. “What’s this? You taking notes? This is an optional lecture series. We’re not being tested on it.”

Mitch dug into his backpack and found a pen at the bottom. “It’s just in case someone says something useful. Possible career paths, helpful resources, post-grad degree or certificate programs that might be beneficial. Things like that.”

Yano squinted at him. “This from the guy who’s determined to get drafted into the NHL.”

“Well, yeah.” Mitch shrugged. “But just because I want to be a pro hockey player, that doesn’t mean I will be. I’m good, but somebody better than me could come along. Or I might get injured and have to quit.”

“Seems smart to me,” Marco said from behind them.

Yano shook his head at them. “Seems like you’re over-thinking things to me.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” Mitch said.

He inhaled half his smoothie, and took in the panelists seated behind a large table at the bottom of the lecture hall.

The table was draped with a pine green tablecloth depicting the school’s coat of arms, and each panelist had a microphone in front of them, as if this was a press conference.

Who knew Glen Hill College had anything so fancy?

Glen Hill College—or GH as the locals called it—was a small school in the college town of Glen Hill, Vermont, so named for the hill behind the school called, you guessed it, Glen Hill.

Or maybe the hill was named after the town, Mitch wasn’t sure.

Either way Glen Hill (the actual hill) wasn’t even really a hill. It was more of a hump, or a knoll.

“Do you think Glen Hill is a knoll?” he asked Yano.

Yano looked up from his phone. “The fuck is a knoll?”

“It’s definitely not a hill,” said Marco.

Mitch held his fist over his head. Marco fist-bumped it.

“The fuck is a knoll?” Yano asked again.

“Like a small hill,” Mitch said.

Yano stared at him as if nothing Mitch had said made sense, his dark eyes all small and confused. He brought up the browser on his phone and started typing.

“It starts with a ‘k’,” Marco said, peering over Yano’s shoulder.

Mitch snickered.

“Grey, dude, check this out.” Marco handed him a brochure. Kinesiology Lecture Series, it read, with a breakdown of the guest panelists speaking at each of the monthly talks. Marco pointed at one name in particular, Dr. Harry Hoare.

Mitch’s surprised burst of laughter had heads turning their way.

“Brutal,” Yano said. “I’d change my name as soon as I was legal.”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot you can do with it.” Mitch lowered his voice to a husky drawl. “Hey there. I’m Harry, Harry Hoare. Do you want to Hoare your way into my pants and lick my Harry balls?”

Yano and Marco cracked up. Even the guy sitting next to him tried to stifle a laugh. The girl in front of them, however, shot him a disgusted frown over her shoulder. Mitch waggled his fingers in her direction in a silent hello. She rolled her eyes and turned back around.

Well shit, what did she expect out of immature, horny sophomores?

“Dude,” Yano said through gasps of laughter. “You got no game.”

“Please,” Mitch scoffed. He had game. His game just didn’t involve women. Not that he’d ever tell his teammates that.

Only one empty seat remained at the table at the front of the room. He read the name tags in front of each panelist, double-checking them against the brochure he’d yet to surrender back to Marco.

Dr. Harry Hoare—don’t laugh, don’t laugh—expert in treating athletes with diabetes was a surprisingly good-looking guy in his early thirties.

Then there was a specialist in drug prevention among athletes, a sports nutritionist, a massage therapist, and the ever-elusive fifth panel member, the guy Mitch was here to see: Chris Blair, director of sports science and rehabilitation for Tampa Bay’s NHL hockey team.

But where the fuck was he? The lecture should’ve started five minutes ago.

The crowd was getting restless and Mitch was sure the panelists who’d arrived on time were about to lose some of their audience.

As if he’d conjured the missing Chris Blair, the door at the bottom of the lecture hall opened and in walked someone who was decidedly not Chris Blair.

According to the picture in the brochure, Blair was a fifty-something gentleman with salt and pepper hair and a goatee.

Good-looking in an older-dude way, if Mitch was the type to go after a guy three decades older than him. But the guy who walked in was—

Holy jumping hockey sticks! The tall, jacked guy who’d just come in was none other than Alex Dean, a Tampa Bay defenseman who’d recently been put on the injured reserve list due to a broken arm.

He was huge and muscled, his almost-black hair in disarray, khakis and checkered shirt wrinkled, as if he’d gotten dressed in the dark or in a hurry.

Mitch might’ve drooled. Just a little.

“Is that who I think it is?” Marco whispered in his ear.

The crowd half-hushed as recognition of the newcomer set in, and dozens of hockey fans surreptitiously dug out their phones. Or not so surreptitiously, in the case of Yano, who stood to get a better angle.

Marco kicked his seat. “Dude, have some decorum.”

Yano made a face at him and sat.

“It means—”

“I know what decorum fucking means, douchebag.”

Mitch ignored them both. He only had eyes for Dean.

The man wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense.

Rugged features, big eyes, thick eyebrows arrowing across his face, a nose that had been broken a time or two or six.

Added to his pink lips, stubbled jaw, and the sheer commanding presence he entered the room with, it made for a highly attractive combination.

In the looks department, Alex Dean was leaps and bounds beyond anyone Mitch had ever met, and that included the guys on Mitch’s hockey team, the GH Mountaineers, many of whom were certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Take Yano and Marco. Yano, with his tawny-gold skin tone, sharp cheekbones, high forehead, and hooded, wide set eyes could’ve modeled for a men’s fashion magazine.

And big, burly Marco, who babied his shoulder length hair to a glossy shine and somehow fit his man bun under his goalie mask, had a dark, sexy smolder that mesmerized women.

Had Marco been gay—and more importantly, had they not been friends or on the same team—Mitch would’ve tapped that.

As it was, they were friends, on the same team and Marco wasn’t gay. So the point was moot.

Mitch didn’t sleep with friends. Anonymous hookups were just fine, thanks. No muss, no fuss, and above all—no emotions.

Dean had a brief conversation with John Halley, director of the kinesiology department at GH, then took the vacant seat at the end of the panelists’ table. Halley stood behind the podium and raised his hands to quiet the rest of the crowd.

“Good evening, everyone,” he said. “Thank you for coming and apologies for the late start.”

“My fault,” Dean said into the microphone in front of him, his deep voice resonating through the lecture hall. The half-grin on his lips practically oozed charm and confidence.

The crowd tittered. No lie, they fucking giggled, as if even the non-hockey fans knew they had a celebrity in their midst.

Halley introduced the lecture series, then the individual panelists. “And finally, we have Mr. Alex Dean, NHL defenseman with Tampa Bay.”

The crowd applauded loudly. Mitch felt for the other panelists, who’d gotten only mild claps, but, well, they weren’t celebrities.

“Unfortunately,” Halley continued, “Chris Blair, Tampa’s director of sports science and rehabilitation, was unable to make his flight due to unforeseen circumstances. However, as Mr. Dean was already in the area, he kindly agreed to take Mr. Blair’s place at the last minute.”

What the hell was Dean doing all the way in Vermont? It was a long way from Tampa.

“As some of you may know,” Halley continued, “Mr. Dean is a GH alumnus and he’ll be speaking this evening about his experience from the perspective of a patient.”

More applauding from the crowd. Dean shifted in his seat, embarrassed.

“Without further ado, I pass the microphone over to this evening’s highly qualified panelists.”

Finally, each person spoke about his or her field of expertise. Mitch jotted down relevant notes every now and then, but his gaze kept moving down the line of experts to focus on Alex Dean.