Chapter 3
THREE
SLONE
“That’s a hard loss.”
“That it is, but with Captain Trey Malachek spending nearly ten minutes in the penalty box, the Maulers just never found their groove.”
“I know Petrov played fast and loose with the rules when he played, but you know Donald and Donnie Malachek can’t be happy with their prodigy’s showing today.”
“Nor the New York Wardens. Known for being rule followers, they have some of the lowest penalty minutes assessed across all thirty-two teams. They can’t be happy their numero uno draft pick is playing what can only be described as dirty hockey.”
My eyes widened in response to the commentator’s post-game analysis currently blaring through the arena’s PA system. “Wow! That’s fucking harsh,” I said, standing to police the area around our seats, refusing to be one of those people who left their trash for others to pick up.
Ewen scoffed as he cleaned up his mess as well. “And everyone wonders why the kid acts the way he does.”
“I’m confused?” I asked. Unlike Ewen and his brothers, Ollie and Will, I didn’t grow up playing hockey, even though I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Football was my sport. Always had been. Go Pack!
“You always are,” Ewen laughed, giving me a shove as we climbed the steps behind all the others in our section.
At the top of the stairs, Ewen dumped his trash, then tipped the attendant. He always did that, probably because he cleaned the rink after games as one of his first jobs.
I dropped my trash in a big commercial trash cart, smiling at the attendant before turning to Ewen. “Don’t push your personality traits off on me,” I told him.
He didn’t say anything, just pointed at me in agreement.
“I’m still confused.”
“About?” Ewen asked as we walked through the arena toward the exit.
Not wanting to discuss the kid in the lobby of his home arena where anyone could chime in, I bit my tongue. Frigid air laced with razor-sharp snow that was more ice than snow pelted our faces the moment we stepped through the arena doors into the dark winter night.
“Fuck, it’s cold!” I swore.
Ewen looked at me. “Where’s your fucking beanie?”
I fished it and my gloves out of a coat pocket, pulling them on. Hunching deeper into my coat to block the wind, I asked, “If the kid’s drafted, why’s New York sitting on him?”
Ewen’s groan told me what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. “You and your fucking fascination with the NFL. Quit confusing your inferior sport’s weirdness with the greatest sport ever played.”
My eyes rolled so hard they watered. Not the first time he’d said something like that to me. “Okay, Mr. Hockey Fan, tell me how the draft for the ‘greatest sport ever played’ differs from the ‘best sport on earth.’”
A blast of cold air swept around us in a way that left you wondering where it came from and no way to escape it. Ewen took off across the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his parka, and I followed. We could talk when we got in the fucking truck.
His feet slipped, forcing a grunted curse from him as he rounded the bed of the pickup. I jumped in just as he slammed the door with one hand and pushed the ignition button with the other.
“Shut the door!”
Ignoring his surly attitude about the cold, I did just that, laughing at his idiot self.
The man grew up here in the frozen north.
We had spent years freezing our balls off or dealing with swamp ass, depending on where the Marines sent us, and he settled here, in the cold, which he hates, when the Marines medically discharged us.
“You gonna answer my question over there, princess?”
“Fuck you. It’s cold.”
I laughed, flipped the defroster on high, and smacked the dash. “Tally ho, good chap. Take us home where the heat’s on.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Takes one to know one. Now weave your lies about the ‘greatest sport ever played’ so you can distract your fragile constitution from the current temperature.”
“Do you just string words together randomly, or do you think this shit up ahead of time?”
“Depends on the day. Now start talking.”
Ewen finally began his long-winded explanation when he pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the truck to EDGE, the kink club we’d started when we first moved to Manchester a couple of years ago.
Since neither of us had any plans to settle up north, we’d started putting down roots in Nashville after the service with Priest and Cam, two buddies who served with us.
All of us were on the kinkier side, some more so than others; Nashville’s scene fell short. Very short when you consider that Priest and Cam, who at the time were in a situationship with a couple of boys whose identities needed protecting, wanted something discreet and exclusive for their polycule.
So, we did what Marines do: we adapted and overcame, and built our own club: EDGE.
We turned an old hotel in Nashville into a kink club with everything a kinkster could want, no matter their kink.
But then Ewen’s parents both developed life-altering health issues.
His brothers were here, but they needed help, so he asked us to buy him out.
Priest and Cam agreed without issue. But when it came time for Ewen to leave, I refused to let him go without me.
He needed support, and eight hands were always better than six, so Priest and Cam bought us both out, and I came north with my battle buddy.
I loved it here. It reminded me of home, but something was missing. Or maybe someone.
“Did you go to fucking sleep over there?”
Turning toward him with raised brows, I said, “Of course I did. You’ve bored me to death with all your yammering.”
“You fucker!”
Instead of being offended, because this was what twenty years of friendship got you, I laughed. My laugh triggered his, and before long, we were pulling into the parking lot at EDGE. We were both due to work the bar tonight.
“So,” Ewen started, turning to me with a smirk. “Trey Malachek?”
I rolled my eyes with a groan and shoved open the truck door. No way was I touching that. The boy’s presence on the ice tonight captivated me in a way nothing had in fucking months.
“Oh! This is gonna be good!”