Puck You Very Much (Pucked and Possessed #3)

Chapter 1

ZANE

First of all, you should understand that anything Jakob Martin tells you is a lie.

Never trust a Larkin Lion with the truth.

That brings me to my second point: the Larkin Lions started what happened that night in the bar.

My team’s hands were totally clean. If they hadn’t drawn first blood, none of this would’ve happened.

Yeah, I know, that means that what followed wouldn’t have happened either.

Shit. It's a little complicated. Okay, I’ll tell you how this whole thing started, and you can decide who was right and who has no business lacing up a pair of skates.

The Larkin Lions and Remington Riptides had been cross-town rivals since time immemorial. I’m pretty sure Larkin started that rivalry, too. Don’t ask me exactly what they did. I just know. Nothing surprises me when it comes to those people.

Anyway, because both schools are located in Buffalo, we wound up facing each other far more than any other team in the conference. That means we’ve each recorded our share of wins and losses against the other, and it also implies the bad blood between us runs deep.

Please don’t think this is some petty little rivalry like wars between fraternities that include toilet papering the opposing frat house or having twenty pizzas delivered to their front door.

This was hockey. This was different. You wouldn’t understand.

In years past, I and others checked our schedule the moment it came out to see when we would face Larkin University.

As luck would have it, we were scheduled to play them at Alumni Arena, their home building, the second game of the season.

No time to get warmed up, or let our animosity worsen, but that was okay.

We would beat their brains in because, by now, that seemed like the natural order of things.

The real trouble didn’t start on the ice, though.

Oh no. The Larkin Lions would never show that much class.

Trouble started at the Colter Bay Grill on the corner of Delaware and Allen the night before.

The boys and I showed up and crowded the bar but could barely hear anything over the blaring music.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like a bad idea to be out pounding beers the night before a game, but we were young, hungry for some fun, and could easily handle a night full of demons.

I noticed Jakob first. He leaned over the end of the bar, nursing a draft beer, and wearing a neatly trimmed beard and impeccably combed hair. If you ask me, he didn’t look like a hockey player. If not for the t-shirt and jeans he wore, I would’ve mistaken him for a GQ model.

Like I said, I barely noticed him, but couldn’t pretend like he wasn’t there either. When I looked closer, I noticed the Larkin Lions as a team. We’d all seen each other with our helmets off enough times to recognize one another on the street.

I turned back, trying not to look for too long. Rivalry or not, the usual social rules still applied. The sight of these guys in our bar made a knot form in the pit of my stomach. My fingers even raked the bar surface. The nerve of these guys!

“Check this out.” Jax Echlin, our team captain elbowed my ribs while glancing back and forth between the two teams “If it isn’t the Lions. Aren’t they the sorriest sacks of shit you’ve ever seen?”

He spoke loud enough to be heard even above the blaring music. If any of the Larkin Lions had heard him, they didn’t let on by glancing in our direction and definitely didn’t fire back an insult of their own.

I took a swallow of beer. No need to start something (although, really, I doubted there’s ever been a conflict between our teams not started by the Lions).

Our coach had drilled into us the need to eliminate distraction and stay out of trouble.

In my view, that made us even more superior to Buffalo’s shittiest hockey team.

What came next cemented that idea. An airborne sunflower seed landed on our end of the bar.

Think of spitballs in a ninth-grade classroom.

When I snapped my head in their direction, I found their goalie, asshole extraordinaire Ryan Detenbeck, wearing a shit-eating grin like you wouldn’t believe.

He tucked his hands behind his back, shifted his eyes around the bar, and whistled a nonsense tune, like he’d done and seen nothing.

Levi Dunn, the Lions musclebound right-winger, winced and couldn’t suppress his laughter.

And Jakob covered his mouth, giggling away like a complete idiot.

I drew a deep breath, exhaled, turned to look straight ahead and pretend the Larkin Lions didn’t exist. Seconds later, a couple more sunflower seed shells soared down the bar until one landed squarely in my beer, causing suds to lap over the rim.

I stood up and leaned over the bar to get a good look at which of those stooges had thrown it.

They all looked equally guilty, if you ask me.

They stopped laughing (although Jakob couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face completely).

I only cared that they’d come as close to heeding the seriously ugly look I flashed in their direction as they ever would.

Then I sat back down, fished the shell from my beer, and lobbed it in their direction.

I was normally the kind of guy to act much more sharply when pushed.

You can’t let your opponent think you’re a wimp, cross-town rival or not.

Still, our coach had instilled in us a sense of maturity, one the Larkin Lions would’ve done well to receive.

“You know, it really takes a bunch of shitheads to throw things down the bar at people minding their own fucking business,” Jax Echlin said.

“What was that?” Levi Dunn called down to us with one hand cupped beside his mouth.

“You heard me. I think it takes a bunch of wimps to throw things instead of coming over here and facing us like men.”

Oh, shit.

Sometimes it only takes one little thing to start trouble.

I tugged on Jax’s sleeve, hoping to grab his attention, but he ignored me.

I would’ve told him to chill, that these guys weren’t worth it, but Jax was my team captain, and I was in no position to lecture him on any subject.

Besides, the Lions had encroached on our turf.

What’s our turf, you ask? Anyplace the Riptides go is our turf.

It didn’t matter that the Lions had entered the bar first. They should’ve excused themselves the moment we appeared, because the Colter Bar Grill was our bar, and obviously not big enough for both of us.

Don’t blame me. I don’t make the rules.

Anyway, I really hoped that would’ve been the last of it, and the two teams could co-exist peacefully.

But no, of course things couldn’t work out nice and neat.

The Larkin Lions team I’d come to know and loathe didn’t operate in the same manner as normal, intelligent people.

This band of blockheads always had something to prove.

Now a chicken wing bone sailed down the bar and crashed in front of us. Jax stared at the bone for a moment, as if digesting the offense, and stood up. Maybe I should’ve held him back, or begged him to chill out, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.

When he puffed his chest out like he did, there was nothing I could do anyway.

“Okay, guys,” he said, “you’re asking for it.”

Levin Dunn, who one could easily mistake for linebacker J.J. Watt, stepped away from the bar. He hulked himself up as if to remind us of his size and brute strength. He didn’t scare me. In my world, he was another musclebound moron.

“Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, I guess you’re gonna act like a big man, huh?” Jax asked.

“I don’t need to act, bro.”

“I’m not your bro, dude.”

“So?”

“So, don’t fucking call me that.”

Dunn took another shell and flicked it at Jax’s face in what anyone would’ve considered a taunt.

And that was it.

Jax shoved Levi. Levi shoved Jax in return, but hard enough to knock the team captain flat on his ass. Jax’s arm struck me on the way down, but I barely noticed because a shitstorm kicked up almost immediately with bystanders clearing the room for the battle to go down.

Now blaring music didn’t matter because the shouting and cheering of those same bystanders, along with the sounds of beer bottles crashing and bar stool legs dragging along the floor, took center stage.

When Jax crawled to his feet, he charged at Dunn, spearing his abdomen with his shoulders, but failed in wrestling him to the floor. Instead, he backed the ginormous right-winger into the wall hard enough to knock loose a framed picture that crashed onto the floor.

By then, everyone from both teams had entered the fray—myself included. Yeah, yeah, I know I was the one who said I wanted Jax to chill out and not let trouble start. Problem was, we now had a heap load of trouble, like it or not, and I couldn’t leave my teammate high and dry.

I ducked a punch from Ryan Detenbeck and then threw one of my own. I missed, but the Lions’ goalie took a fist from Harrison Moore before he could hook me in the gut. And then I saw Levi Dunn lay Jax out on the floor.

Seeing our team captain unconscious lit a fire under me.

No way could I let the Larkin Lions win this fight.

So far, I hadn’t dirtied my hands, but that would soon come to an end.

You see, Levi had decided to gloat. I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that he thought he’d won both the battle and the war.

He had his back to me. I so totally meant to pop him one. Don’t give me any business about fighting dirty. All’s fair in love and war, right?

When Levi turned around, I swung at him, but he ducked.

Look, I never said I was the greatest fighter.

I’m just a guy that’s not afraid to stand up for his teammates.

I expected him to take a shot at me, but when I turned, I didn’t find Levi Dunn.

Instead, I saw Jakob Martin. I would’ve thrown a punch, but I was too late.

Before I could think, I saw his fist rocket toward my face.

And then the lights went out.