Dear #47, You’re the Worst (Seattle Havoc Hockey #1)

Chapter 1

Juliet

My feet are screaming in these five-inch heels and I've got about thirty minutes left on my shift at Foxies.

Thirty more minutes of smiling at drunk assholes who think my uniform is an invitation to grab whatever they want.

The white crop top barely qualifies as fabric, the purple shorts are more like a suggestion, and the push-up bra underneath makes me feel like a caricature of myself.

I hate this outfit. It fits my five-foot frame like someone who thinks women exist purely for decoration designed it. Customers look at my chest and assume I’m too dumb to be anywhere else. I know it, and it fills me with incandescent rage.

They don’t see me. They see a sexy body with a name tag.

If I could make this kind of money anywhere else, I’d already be gone.

The table in section three has been nursing the same pitcher of beer for two hours, getting progressively louder and grabbier.

The guy in the backwards baseball cap just tried to pull me onto his lap when I dropped off their wings.

I laughed it off like I'm supposed to, like their disgusting comments are the highlight of my evening, because tips pay my rent and my student loans.

Two ass grabs tonight. Three lap-pulling attempts.

One guy literally offered to take me home for two hundred bucks.

Like I'm some kind of bargain-bin escort? I don’t even have words for that one.

All of that harassment and I only made three hundred and fifty dollars.

Not even enough to cover my credit card payment.

I head for the back of the house, rolling silverware in Foxies-branded napkins and trying not to check my email every thirty seconds.

Our manager Derek is a five-foot-nothing Napoleon with a clipboard fetish and a serious power complex.

He's been hovering around the kitchen all night, making notes about our customer engagement and brand representation like we're high-level executives instead of servers in glorified lingerie.

I know all about customer engagement and brand representation. They are my bread and butter for Monroe Strategies, the boutique PR firm I run out of my tiny apartment here in Seattle. By boutique, I mean just me. A company of one.

Hopefully, I can get out of here someday and make ends meet by pulling in some bigger clients. Clients who hire me for my strategy deck, not my bra size. Until then, I’m still here. Rolling silverware. Pretending this is temporary.

My phone buzzes on the stainless steel counter. Another voicemail from Mom, probably reminding me that my LSAT scores are still valid and I should reevaluate my life choices. I delete it without listening. The only thing worse than corporate law would be corporate law with a side of body glitter.

This job is temporary. That's what I tell myself every single shift.

The tips are decent, I'm saving money, and it's just until I land a real PR client who isn't a toddler pageant mom or a used car dealership that wants influencer synergy with a ton of cleavage.

But if I'm being honest, I feel like I'm treading water, and the shore keeps getting farther away.

My phone lights up with a text from Jessa.

Jessa: Got tix to the Havoc box for tonight. You in?

I stare at the message. Hockey. Of course it's hockey.

I swore off hockey players, hockey games, hockey anything after the disaster that was my relationship with Patrick.

He liked his women pretty, agreeable, and quiet.

I could never manage all three. Five years of my life wasted on a man-child who thought advanced stats were more important than basic human decency.

She’s my roommate. And one of the few people who doesn’t treat me like a punchline. Plus, she works part time for the team, which means these are fantastic seats, not nosebleeds behind a pillar.

Me: Can I dress up? I need to feel pretty after being here all day. BTW when I quit, I’m burning these shorts.

Jessa: Yes! I’ll dress up too. Meet you at the arena.

I finish my closing duties, change out of the uniform from hell, and drive home to our tiny apartment. Jessa's already gone, probably setting up whatever promotional nonsense the team has her doing tonight. I stand in front of my closet like I'm preparing for battle.

Which, honestly, I am.

I pull out my emotional armor. Slinky black cocktail dress, perfectly tailored.

Black heels, sky-fucking-high. They’re not comfortable, but damn if they don’t make my ass look amazing.

I twist my wavy black hair into an updo and secure it with a billion bobby pins.

Bright red lipstick that’s as sharp as my wit.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone who belongs in a corporate stadium box.

I can't be dismissed or categorized so easily.

If I look like I belong, they won’t touch me. If I’m composed, I’m safe.

They are men, mostly. There are a few exceptions; some are ladies, too. People look for flaws in everything and everyone they see.

I’m flawless.

The arena is buzzing when I arrive. I hate how easily I still know my way around this place.

Patrick dragged me to enough games here before he went pro that I know this place as well as I do my college campus.

We came to almost every game before he was drafted to play in Texas; it’s no great secret that Patrick wanted to play here with the Havoc.

But they never put in a bid on him, so when Houston offered him a stellar signing bonus, he didn’t hesitate.

The ushers at the corporate level eye me like they're trying to figure out what I'm doing here. I get that look a lot. My chest enters every room a beat before the rest of me, and no matter what I wear, some people only see cleavage and assume I'm dumb.

Smart women with curves make people uncomfortable. I learned that early.

As Dolly Parton once said, “There’s a heart under all this hair and a brain beneath these boobs.” Dolly is an icon, especially for a petite woman built like me. Her being hysterically funny is just icing on the cake.

“Juliet!” My roommate Jessa waves me over to our suite. We’ve only been roommates for a few months now, but I absolutely love living with Jessa. It’s really freeing, especially after I moved back home, fleeing living with my ex.

The rink is nicer than I remember. Having grown up in Seattle, I used to come to games and concerts here at the Havoc Dome. The Seattle Havoc hockey team has been in this city forever; the players themselves have insanely devoted fans that border on psychotic.

The view from the box is incredible, right at center ice, with actual comfortable seating and a server who brings us overpriced wine without making it feel like a transaction.

I settle in and try to look like I belong here. Watching the team as they skate around the ice, it’s impossible to keep my thoughts to myself.

“If their point man can’t keep the puck in the zone, that power play’s just cardio.”

"You didn't tell me you were a hockey nerd," Jessa says, watching me track a power play setup.

I shrug and take a sip of wine. "My ex was a pro. You pick things up when you spend five years pretending to care about advanced stats and penalty kills."

"Five years. Damn."

"Five years wasted," I mutter, mostly to myself.

The words taste bitter, but they're true. Patrick taught me to love hockey, then used it as another way to make me feel small. Every game was a test I didn’t know I was taking. Every new rule just proved I didn’t belong.

I force my mind away from him. He’s not allowed to take up any more of my brainpower.

On the ice, something violent is happening near the boards. A massive player in a Havoc jersey just laid out someone from the visiting team, and now he's dropping his gloves. Even from up here, I can see the rage radiating off him as he starts throwing punches.

Hunter Huxley. The Chainsaw.

I swallow.

Jessa points to the crowd erupting around us. Half the arena is on their feet, waving foam chainsaws and screaming for blood. "His fans are insane. Look at them. They cheer every time he punches someone. Bloodthirsty little freaks."

I don’t answer. But I know all about Hunter. We both went to the University of Washington at the same time. He was on the hockey team. And me? I was the girlfriend of his rival.

Once, I thought we would be more than just acquaintances. But Hunter let me know just how wrong I was.

I know Hunter. He’s not misunderstood by his fans. He’s just an asshole. If I had to write a letter to him about my feelings, it would start with:

Dear #47,

You’re the worst.

And it would only get darker from there.

Hunter is enormous. 6”6’. His height is always mentioned in his stats. He’s just a big guy. His wingspan is huge, his hands are giant, and his build resembles Frankenstein’s monster. Except his movements aren’t jerky and spastic. No, they’re graceful.

Damn him.

He moves across the ice like a shark cuts through deep water. Focused, intent, his mere presence threatening. A player on the other team seems to take issue with Hunter and drops his gloves.

I watch Hunter shed his gloves faster than it seems like someone that big ought to move. Then he skates right up to the guy, landing a right hook that sends the other player sprawling. A jet of blood sprays across the ice. Hunter has a smug look on his face that makes me want to scream.

Asshole.

The guy that he’s fighting with comes back with a weak blow to Hunter’s nose.

Hunter straight up uppercuts the guy and the other player collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.

Hunter pulls at his helmet, pulling it off.

He has dirty blond hair with a messy cut and gray-blue eyes absolutely furious as the refs herd him backward from the other player.

He skates toward the penalty box, jaw clenched, blood on his knuckles and his face.

When he passes the rinkside camera, something low in my stomach tightens.