Cheap Shot (Scoring Chances #5)

CHAPTER ONE

January

“Hey, Crawford! You smell better with your equipment on!”

Luke Crawford stared out through the door of the penalty box, refusing to turn and look at Vintage Jersey Guy.

Since Luke didn’t know the guy’s name and he wore a vintage New York Rockets jersey every game, that was what he’d been calling him in his head.

For years now.

Luke thought it was years anyway. It fucking felt like decades at this point.

It had been bad enough when Luke only had to deal with the guy a couple of times a year in New York when the Harriers visited or the Rockets played in Boston.

But no. Now this fucking guy had apparently moved to Boston or whatever and was now at every single home game the Harriers played at the Hawk’s Nest. And he’d made it his entire fucking personality to be a dick to Luke.

“Hey, asshole,” Crawford called back. “Maybe you should get a social life instead of spending your time coming up with fresh chirps for every game.”

Crawford delivered the line staring straight ahead, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see the guy throw his head back and laugh.

The penalty was up and Luke nodded at the attendant holding the door open and skated out, hovering in the neutral zone as he scanned the ice.

There were four minutes left in the first period, and the Harriers were up 2–0 against the Portland Comets.

The puck was currently trapped in the corner in Portland’s zone as Connor O’Shea and Graham Pennington battled to get it out.

Anker Henriksen waited down in the slot, intently focused on the puck battle, ready to shoot it in the net the moment his linemates got it free.

Luke’s D-partner, Tanner Clayton, roamed as he always did, constantly on the move.

And just like they’d planned it, Connor rammed his shoulder against one of Portland’s players and broke his concentration, Graham darted a stick out and swiped the puck away, immediately firing it to Luke.

Luke passed it to Anker, who shot it in.

Portland’s goalie blocked it and by the time it rebounded, Tanner was there to poke it in.

The lamp lit up, and they were up 3–0.

They all collided in a celly, and Tanner skated to the bench, grinning, for his fist bumps.

Luke rolled his eyes as Tanner chattered nonstop for the rest of the period, then down the tunnel to the locker room. In the dressing room, he kept going, yammering on and on about absolutely nothing.

Luke usually tuned him out, because Tanner didn’t seem to care if he did anything but grunt occasionally in response.

But tonight, Tanner apparently expected him to say something, because he looked up as Luke stripped off his jersey.

Luke never wore a base layer on top—he got way too fucking hot and sweaty with them on—and he mopped at his skin with a towel.

“Hey! Crawford!” Tanner kicked him in the side of the calf. Thankfully, he’d taken his skates off.

“What?” Luke groused.

“I said, I liked the way the play went down for that last goal. The setup worked just as well as it did in practice.”

“Well, yeah,” Luke said, tossing the towel at the rolling laundry cart nearby. “You got the goal. Why wouldn’t you like it?”

“I know. But, like, it just looked really fucking cool. I bet there’ll be a ton of sweet clips of it online.”

“So you can jerk off about it like always?” Crawford asked, reaching for the bottle of sports drink in his stall.

“No.” Tanner grinned up at him.

Luke shot him a skeptical look.

“I don’t!” Tanner protest. “Okay, maybe a couple of times, but that was only the really good ones.”

Luke snorted. “Only you.”

“Nah, definitely not. One of my D-partners in Juniors and I totally jerked off together once to a goal we set up.”

Fucking weirdo, Luke thought with a mix of horror and affection.

Tanner was still talking as Luke walked away to use the bathroom.

One guy he’d played with previously had called it Luke’s first intermission load management and, well, by the time Luke flushed the toilet, he did feel a little lighter …

It wasn’t his fault that hockey got his system moving.

When he got back to the dressing room, Coach Hoyt was just stepping through the door. Luke took a seat in his stall and Hoyt gave them a quick rundown of the plan for the second period.

It was pretty much the same as it had been for the first. Namely, get pucks to the net and hammer Portland’s goalie. The guy wasn’t bad, but Portland’s defense was shit this season.

“But I don’t want to see you get complacent,” Hoyt called out when he was done. “Sloppy play causes blown leads.”

Luke nodded, tightening his skates.

Boston had been guilty of that in the past few seasons. Well, not so much last year. But before that.

Crawford had been here for the Harriers’ last Cup win.

He’d been acquired at the trade deadline that season and had helped the team to the playoffs and then to the win.

It had been downhill from there for a couple of years, and when Patrick O’Shea had retired from the Harriers and the captaincy had been passed to his younger brother, Connor, things had really hit the skids.

The team had struggled, Connor had struggled, and without any depth scoring they’d been fucked.

Until last season when they’d acquired their goaltender Jesse Webber and the Harrier’s general manager, Gavin Racine, had started fitting in the right pieces around him.

Tanner—annoying as he could be—was one of them. So was Arkady Romaschenko—the Belarusian netminder who was their very capable backup to Webby—and then Mickey Krause and Rafe Moon on defense.

Goal scorer Tom Bass had been acquired late last winter.

And with the rookie Erik Wyatt adding to their forward depth, the team was really starting to come together.

After Coach Hoyt left, Tanner resumed his yammering, and Luke tugged on his still-damp jersey.

“Do you ever fucking stop talking?” he asked.

“No.” Tanner gave him a cheerful grin. “People I hook up with say I talk in my sleep. And kick sometimes.”

“I believe it,” Luke said grimly.

He still couldn’t get over the way Tanner handled his hookups. He fucking invited people back to his place and let them sleep over.

No way. No fucking way.

It was asking for trouble and while Luke knew that Tanner had about three brain cells in his head and they were all working overtime, he would’ve thought he was smarter than that.

Apparently not.

But the intermission was winding down so Luke turned to face the room and yelled, “Alright, who’s ready to do this?!” because he knew how to get his boys pumped up.

A cheer went up from around the room and Luke gave a feral grin as he bumped fists and punched chests when they lined up to go down the tunnel for the second period.

Hockey was the goddamn best sport out there.

The buzzer sounded at the end of the third period, announcing the Harriers had captured a 5–0 win.

Arkady had been in net tonight. Jesse had been resting because of a groin sprain—a fact the team had poked endless fun at him and Connor for.

While Luke waited in line to thank Kady for a game well played, he had to admit, as fucking insane as it was for their captain and goaltender to be dating, they seemed happy together.

Of course, it had only been a year and a half.

The cracks hadn’t shown up in his relationship with Autumn until they’d hit the two-year mark. He’d also been eighteen when they met and Autumn barely twenty, so what the fuck had they known at the time?

Unlike all of his other teammates, he’d never felt the need to fall in love and have a relationship. He’d tried a few more times anyway, just because it was what everyone else was doing, but finally learned his lesson.

He was happy with his life just the way it was.

When Rafe skated away from Arkady after a helmet bonk, Luke was up next.

“Good job tonight!” he said, grabbing Kady’s mask and shaking him.

Kady grinned. “You did good too! You fight for me.”

“Of course I did,” Luke said gruffly, patting him on the shoulder and skating away.

That was his tendie. He had to protect him.

The Comets had gotten frustrated late in the third period and had spent way too much time in Kady’s blue paint. Luke had barked at a couple of their players about it, which had turned into a shoving match.

The next shift out, they’d tried it again and that time, Luke wrestled the guy to the ground. Although they’d both gone to the box, Luke had no regrets. The team had won and hopefully Portland had learned its lesson.

Luke went through his usual post-game routine—a quick cooldown workout, some time with the trainers because he used his body hard and at the age of thirty-four, everything took way fucking longer to recover from, and a shower—and could still feel the energy coursing through him.

After games like this there was always a buzz under his skin. An itchy restlessness that was difficult to shake.

The only thing that had ever worked was sex.

He’d tried working out harder, tried drinking. Nothing else did the trick.

Luke thought guys who let themselves get tied down were fucking idiots, but as he dressed after his shower and watched Mickey murmur something in Rafe’s ear that had Rafe giving him a plainly horny look from under his lashes, Luke did have to admit, they had one thing going for them.

There was someone at home to have sex with.

Was it worth all the other bullshit that came with it? Nah. But at least they didn’t have to deal with hookup apps like Luke did.

They just kept getting worse too. More bots, more fake profiles, more people looking for a sugar daddy.

He just wanted to get his dick sucked. Why was that so fucking hard to accomplish?

Luke tugged on a white collared shirt, buttoning all but the top couple of buttons, then slipped on a charcoal gray suit vest that matched his trousers. He tweaked the collar so it lay right just as Tanner walked past him.

“Doesn’t matter what you wear, you’re still ugly, dude,” Tanner threw out.

Crawford dug a hand into Tanner’s curly hair and messed it up.

He squawked. “Hey! I just styled that.”