Overtime Positions (Cedar Bluff Penalties #1)

Chapter 1

My eyelids closed as I took a deep breath in the quiet, cold air, letting it fill my lungs as I imagined it moving through my veins, pushing away the fatigue. The heavy black weight of exhaustion kept my eyes closed as I leaned against the freezing cold shelf, resting my forehead on it.

I just needed a moment to collect myself, and then I’d go back out to face the day. Just one quiet second.

“Yo, Boss,” a voice interrupted my solitude, and I jumped, whacking my head on the top of the shelf and cursing as I rubbed the spot. “Wait, were you sleeping?”

“No, I was doing a fucking jazz number,” I barked in frustration, staring at the man who irritated me like it was his full-time job. “What do you want, Rick?”

The old man stood up taller as if my tone offended him, but I knew better. He ball-busted twenty-four seven.

“A beer. It’s ten after eight. If I don’t drink two brewskies before hitting the ice—”

“You’ll break your hip,” I droned on, brushing my bangs off my face. “I’m on it.”

I went to step around the jolly green giant, who kept the entire rink afloat most days, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Perfect,” I said and then sighed when his face tightened annoyingly. “How do you do that?”

Pleased with himself, he crossed his arms with a smirk. “I spent years studying misfits who were silent verbally but said everything they could with their actions.”

“You were a teacher at a prep school,” I glared. “And don’t call me a misfit.”

“Spill it, kid.”

“I’m not a kid either.”

“Spill it, lady?” he joked, leaning on the heavy metal door, still blocking my way.

“I’m just tired,” I sighed. “Toby was up at three.”

“Ugh,” he grimaced, “Stomach ache, or insomnia this time?” he asked, moving aside and following me out of the walk-in cooler to the rink-side bar. Some days he made it hard to ignore that he knew my kids better than their—nope, never mind. Not a spiral I was about to go down.

“Worse.” I went behind the bar as he took his usual seat, glancing at the scores above my head on the television. “He wanted to know how caterpillars grow wings inside their cocoons.”

He snorted and shook his head. “That kid is too fucking smart.”

“Agreed.” I cracked the top of his beer and grabbed his mug from its honorary hook behind the bar, pouring it in.

It was a gag gift from years ago when he took on the imaginary position of coach and captain of the team, and it stuck.

Watching him drink his brew from a coffee mug that said World’s Okayest Coach always made me smile.

It didn’t hurt that the man who gave him that mug made me smile for no reason at all, he was just that great.

“You’d think a simple Google answer would have sufficed, but no.” I rolled my eyes. “We had to watch three Nat Geo shows to quench his thirst for knowledge.”

“Thank God you get to sleep in tomorrow, huh?” He picked up his beer for an air cheers, and I nodded, moving down the bar to set a round of cans up on the end.

“Small miracles.”

I bartended the night shift at the ice rink on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which meant I usually crawled into bed after my kids were deep into their REM cycles. Thankfully, my mom kept them over for sleepovers on those nights so I could actually get some sleep.

Lucky for me, she lived right next door—and Emmie and Toby loved her more than me most days.

I would be lost without my mom.

Even at thirty years old, she was my best friend, the only thing that kept me afloat when the single-mom chaos got to be too much. I moved back home four years ago, with a one-week-old strapped to my chest and a two-year-old on my hip. Alone, scared, furious, and ashamed.

And my angel of a mother opened her arms, gave me one of those warm hugs that reminded me of sunshine, and patted my head, telling me I’d be fine, and everything would work out in time.

Four years later, I was still waiting to feel fine.

As soon as I set the last beer on the bar, the doors opened and the team started filtering in, joking, roughhousing, totally amped up to do their favorite thing in the world—drink beer and beat the shit out of other smelly, sweaty men in an old man’s hockey league.

Beer League, as we called it.

“Ay Boss,” Billy The Bull, called as he shouldered his bag and snagged his beer. “Always looking out for your favorite team.”

“Eh, I’d hardly call the Net Crashers my favorite.” I grimaced with a smirk, drying a glass from the sanitizer tray.

“Yeah, sure,” Slick Sam walked up behind him, picking up his can, “But we all know Sam’s your man.”

“Oh, fuck all the way off,” Mitch, The Brick, slapped the back of his head with his beefy hand. “We know Boss is sweet on Sunshine.”

My cheeks reddened as I hid behind the counter, just as the overly charismatic firefighter in question—Elliot Sunshine Torres—showed up.

Was I sweet for Elliot? No. That’d be weird.

We couldn’t be more different. I was a black cat, for fuck’s sake.

Sarcasm was my love language, sass and dry humor were my fallbacks, and I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I felt as bright and optimistic as Elliot was daily.

He was the coffee mug guru, for Pete’s sake. He was perfect.

The man oozed freakishly happy vibes.

I oozed day-old coffee and fatigue.

Opposites.

Did that stop my stupid stomach from getting butterflies every time he winked at me? Also no.

“Hey Boss,” Elliot said with his pretty-boy smile, “Cheer loud for me tonight.”

Rick, their honorary captain and the father of the entire rink, chuckled from his seat, giving me a knowing eye as he cut in. “She might, though I’m not sure you have what it takes to handle all of Frankie, Sunshine. She might have better luck annoying Saw into smiling with her sass.”

Insert blush number two for the night. Damn it, it was only eight p.m.

Travis The Saw Hayes followed his best friend Elliot to the bar for his drink. And once again, I peeked out from behind my wayward bangs to watch the two men—polar opposites—existing in the same space in their weird yin-and-yang way.

Travis stood six and a half feet tall, and nearly as wide, covered in dark-tanned skin from working outside at construction sites every day, with tattoos running up and down his hands and arms. He never smiled unless he was slamming some poor son of a bitch into the boards or celebrating another victory with his buddies.

And that stare—the one that held mine like a silent movie, captivating me with no words until I was lost on the other side of it.

Damn.

Elliot, on the other hand, was—well, Mr. Sunshine.

Tall, lean, with ripped and defined muscles under his tight shirts that hugged his biceps like another layer of skin, full of smiles, charisma, and witty one-liners to entertain even the surliest of beasts that he skated circles around for fun.

Yet, they were two peas in a very odd pod.

Teammates on the Net Crashers, the best beer league team on this side of—well, I wasn’t sure. There weren’t many stats for their league, but they were pretty good around these parts in sleepy little Cedar Bluff, Wisconsin.

I didn’t dare make eye contact with Travis as he picked up his beer, but I could feel his stare. That was the thing about him, he was just so damn intense.

Everything he did felt monumental.

Which was why I kept my eyes down as the rest of the team grabbed their superstitious beers and disappeared into the locker room before their practice.

I had no business getting wrapped up in a headfirst tailspin over the big, surly attack dog, or his golden retriever bestie.

Life was complicated enough as a single mom, living next door to my mom in our sleepy hometown, slinging beers at the skating rink while simultaneously finishing a degree in business management.

Twelve years ago, when I left my small hometown, I had stars in my eyes, watching the world pass by from the back seat of a motorcycle, ready to take it on.

And all I got in return was heartache and bruised dreams.

“Hey Boss.” Rick’s voice pulled me from the stack of glasses I’d been zoning out over, lost in the what-ifs and has-beens and everything in between.

“Yeah?” I looked up at him and found that thoughtful, knowing look in his eyes.

“It’s good to have you home.” He sent a wink my way as he finished his first beer of the night.

“I’ve been back for four years, Ricky.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Is the dementia hitting already?”

He chuckled and stood up, taking the last can off the pile on his way to the locker room and pouring it into his mug. “Either way, this is where you belong. Even if you don’t think so.”

A snort escaped my lips as I shook my head. “Maybe, maybe not. I guess only time will tell.”

The hum of the cooling system was the only noise in the massive arena; the lights were off in every rink besides the one I stood in, and the whole place was empty. Which was the only reason I even dared to step off the rubber mats in the bench box and place one skate onto the fresh ice.

If Rick knew I stayed late after closing and messed up his freshly smoothed ice on Wednesday nights, he’d have a coronary. But it was the only time the place was ever truly empty.

And my embarrassment didn’t require an audience.

Wobbling onto the ice, I held onto the wall and then forced myself to take a few deep breaths before pushing off.

I had to get the hang of it. There was no other choice.

I couldn’t let my girl down any longer, she only had me.

One foot push, one foot glide.

It was easy. Or it should be. I watched people skating every single day, yet the second my own feet stepped onto the ice, I felt like a newborn giraffe.

All leg. No coordination.

I struggled my way around the rink, staying close enough to the boards that I could get to them to pull myself back up if I fell, but not too close that I’d hit my head on them and knock myself out.