Chapter 2
Griffin
Senior year of college is starting off with a fucking bang.
And I mean several bangs, technically.
My roommates, who also happen to be my teammates, decided we absolutely needed to kick things off with a massive party before the school year starts.
The result? Our house is now a fucking zoo.
There are bodies everywhere: on the floor, spilling out of doorways, making questionable decisions in various corners. I swear, this place is one bad life choice away from being a crime scene.
Normally, I live for this shit. I thrive on watching people embarrass themselves for my amusement. Hell, sometimes I can even convince my girlfriend to make out with me in questionable positions with a captive audience.
But tonight? Tonight, I'm not the drunk asshole for once, which means I'm stuck playing babysitter to my teammates’ ridiculous antics.
Take Mack, for example.
Mackenzie Wallace, son of a goddamn U.S.
senator and future NHL hopeful, is currently sprawled out on the recliner in the living room.
A blonde in a crop top is perched on the armrest, aggressively making out with him like she’s trying to inhale his soul.
Meanwhile, a second girl, a brunette, is kneeling between his legs and not-so-subtly giving him the sloppiest blowjob I’ve ever seen.
Jesus Christ, Mack.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh, mentally preparing myself for the intervention I’m about to deliver.
But before I can drag Mack’s dumb ass out of his current situation, I hear a roar of laughter from the dining room. I turn my head just in time to see Terrance “Terry” Zilkov, our fearless team captain, stripping on the dining room table.
Yes, you read that right.
My captain. My leader. The guy who is supposed to lead into battle on the ice. And he is fucking stripping.
He’s pulling his shirt off in slow motion while grinding to the beat of “Pony” by Ginuwine, which someone, of course, queued up the second he climbed onto the table.
The girls surrounding him are screaming like they’re at a Chippendales show and throwing dollar bills and…
Jesus Christ, I think someone threw a fucking thong at him.
I put my hands on my hips and shake my head as I storm into the kitchen. “Terry, what the actual fuck are you doing?”
He points at me mid-hip-thrust, grinning like a goddamn idiot. “Taking one for the team, bud!”
“No, you’re about to take one for the internet,” I shoot back, gesturing to the ten different phones recording this absolute circus. “You realize Coach is gonna rip the ‘C’ off your jersey with his teeth if this gets out, right? Get the fuck down.”
Terry, of course, ignores me.
Why? Because he’s too many tequila shots deep and doesn’t give a single fuck. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth risking my life to wrestle his drunk ass off the table before someone uploads this shit.
A loud, dramatic sigh pulls my attention to my left. I glance over and spot Hughie Rourke, our goalie and the human equivalent of a brick wall, standing there with his arms crossed.
Hughie looks pissed.
And when Hughie’s pissed, everyone within a ten-foot radius should start saying their prayers. He takes in the shitshow unfolding around him with a look of pure disdain: Terry’s impromptu striptease, Mack’s free porn demonstration, and the general chaos of the party.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. Then he looks at me like I’m somehow responsible for this disaster. Which, I mean, I guess I am. It is my party after all. “I’ll wrestle Terry down. You deal with Mack. After that, we’re shutting this shit down.”
I blink at him. Hughie helping with drunk bullshit? That’s rarer than a goddamn solar eclipse. He rarely, if ever, shows up to the party. He prefers to go home and study or work out or…I don’t really know. He’s a quiet, scary as fuck, kind of guy.
“Deal,” I say quickly, because I’m not about to argue with the big guy when he’s already volunteering. I’ll take the help, no questions asked.
Now, wrangling Mack? That turns out to be an Olympic-level event.
First, I have to pry the two girls off him, both of whom are wasted and clingy as hell.
One of them actually hisses at me when I try to pull her away, and I’m momentarily stunned because I wasn’t prepared to get cat behavior from a human being tonight.
Eventually, I manage to untangle them and send them both stumbling toward the front door.
Then comes the hard part, convincing Mack to put his dick away and stay in his room. This is when I discover that drunk Mack is approximately ten times more stubborn than sober Mack.
“I was just vibing, bro!” he slurs as I shove him toward the stairs. “You’re cockblocking me, man!”
“No, I’m saving you,” I snap back. “You’re welcome.”
He finally stumbles into his room, and I slam the door behind him.
Alone at last.
Jesus.
I’m not the kind of guy to preach about morals or whatever, but one thing I can’t fuck with is sex while intoxicated. Don’t care if you’re a guy, a girl, or somewhere in between, it’s just a hard line for me.
And seeing Mack like that? Yeah, I’d rather kill the vibe than let it spiral into something worse.
By the time I make it back downstairs, I’m shocked to see the chaos has started to…disperse. People are actually leaving. Slowly but surely, the crowd is leaking out the front door, taking their bad decisions and empty beer cans with them.
I stand there for a second, just soaking it in, and I swear, I don’t think I’ve ever been this goddamn relieved in my life.
Hughie comes back into view, dragging a very shirtless and very disgruntled Terry off the table.
“He tried to grind on me,” Hughie deadpans, his expression completely flat.
I can’t help it. I laugh. “Well, maybe if you didn’t look so fuckable, Hugh.”
He glares at me. “Shut up and grab a trash bag.”
Fair.
“Zilkov! Connelly! Thatcher! My office. Right. Fucking. Now.”
The locker room erupts like a middle school cafeteria, with ooohs and ahhhs bouncing off the walls.
My teammates are childish fucks who thrive on other people’s misery. I would usually join in on the childish antics but unfortunately, it’s me that is in trouble this time. I really, really wish I hadn’t agreed to take that A on the chest this year.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that option but to trudge behind my teammates towards a very unhappy lecture. Because Zilkov’s little Magic Mike moment at the party went viral, and lucky me, I was caught on camera standing there in the background like a fucking idiot.
I wasn’t participating or stopping it. Nope, I was standing in the background with my jaw on the floor while I watched the absolute chaos ensue.
Which might honestly be worse than participating if you ask coach.
So yeah, I’m about to get roasted for association, which is peak bullshit if you ask me.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, scrubbing a hand through my hair.
Beside me, Samuel Connelly looks like he’d rather be getting a root canal.
And honestly? Same.
Connelly, Mr. Grumpy Shit himself, doesn’t even go to parties, so I can’t imagine how pissed he is about being dragged into this.
But he’s the other assistant captain, same as me, which means he gets to join me in the firing squad lineup.
He also happens to be our roommate, though you’d never know it.
The guy disappears into his room like it’s a bomb shelter anytime there’s a party.
Now he’s glaring at me like I’m the reason we’re here and not, you know, Zilkov.
For the record, Connelly wouldn’t be caught dead at a party full of hockey players.
He’s so uptight I’m convinced he irons his fucking socks.
He doesn’t drink or hook up, and he definitely doesn’t attend parties.
Doesn’t do anything, really, besides hockey and school.
I’m honestly not sure he even likes either of those things, he just does them with this militant, soul-crushing consistency.
Sometimes I wonder if Connelly came out of the womb as a fully formed 40-year-old suburban dad.
So yeah, when he moved in with us last year, I thought maybe, maybe, I’d been wrong about him. Thought maybe the guy was secretly cool and just needed a change of scenery.
But no. He doesn’t even show up for house nights when we’re just chilling and watching movies. It’s like living with a ghost who judges you for breathing too loud.
Meanwhile, Zilkov, the reason we’re in this mess, strolls out of the locker room ahead of us like he’s about to receive a fucking award. There’s absolutely no urgency or guilt. Just vibes. He even throws a wink over his shoulder like he thinks this is a joke.
I could strangle him. And I might.
“Thatch, you look stressed,” Zilkov says, smirking as he pushes open the door to Coach’s office. “Relax, man. It’s just a strip tease. Not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” I hiss, following him into the office while Connelly mutters something about ‘morons’ under his breath. “You went full Magic Mike in front of half the fucking campus, and now we’re about to get verbally obliterated because you couldn’t keep your clothes on.”
“Technically, I kept my boxers on,” Terry says, grinning like that makes it better.
Before I can respond, Coach slams the door behind us. The sound echoes like a death knell. We all snap to attention like trained dogs.
Coach crosses his arms and levels us with the kind of stare that could freeze a lake. At first, he doesn’t speak which is unsurprising. The man has mastered making you shit your pants without saying a single word.
“Do you know what I woke up to this morning?” he asks, voice low and deadly. “Huh? Do any of you dipshits want to guess?”
Zilkov opens his mouth, but I elbow him hard before he can say anything that’ll get us murdered.
Connelly, ever the overachiever, steps forward with his arms locked behind his back like he’s reporting to a superior officer. “Sir, I was not at the party. I believe my presence here is unnecessary-”
“Oh, you’re staying,” Coach cuts him off with a snarl.
“Because I need both my assistant captains to explain how they plan to keep this team under control when this,” he jabs his finger at his phone screen, which is playing a loop of Terry grinding on a table, “is the kind of shit happening under their roof. When their fucking captain is the one doing the dumb shit!”
I’m screwed.
We’re all so fucking screwed.
“Coach,” I start, clearing my throat to sound a little less like a fucking pussy. The words barely leave my mouth before Terry, the little shit, lets out a low chuckle. Real helpful, bud. Real fucking helpful. “The party got out of hand. It won’t happen again-”
“Out of hand?” Coach’s voice is deadly calm, the kind of calm that makes your stomach drop because you know he’s about to verbally rip you apart.
His eyes are boring into mine, and I can feel myself shrinking under the weight of his glare.
I know better than to say anything else, so I shut the fuck up as his gaze slowly slides over to Terry.
“Zilkov,” Coach begins, voice ice-cold. “You’ve always been an upstanding student and an excellent member of this team. This shit?” He jabs a finger at his phone. “This is so beyond disappointing that the dean even suggested releasing you from the team.”
That shuts us all up. Like, completely. I mean, I knew it was bad, I knew it was gonna be a long, awkward meeting and some well-earned ass-chewing.
But career-ending bad? Holy shit.
I glance at Terry out of the corner of my eye, expecting him to crack a joke or roll his eyes like he usually does when someone lectures him. Instead, he just sits there, pale and silent, like someone just punched him in the gut.
“Coach, you can’t be serious,” Connelly jumps in, and for the first time in his miserable, uptight life, I decide he isn’t a complete waste of space. He actually sounds… human. He genuinely sounds concerned and maybe even a little desperate.
“Deadly,” Coach replies flatly.
Terry’s shoulders slump, and for the first time in a long time, I see actual dejection on his face.
It’s definitely not his usual cocky grin and not that ‘nothing-can-touch-me’ attitude.
Just pure, gut-wrenching regret. He doesn’t say a word, just stares at Coach like he’s waiting to hear his death sentence.
“Luckily,” Coach continues, his voice softer now but no less serious, “I talked him out of it. This time.”
Relief floods the room, but it’s laced with tension. Because we all know what that means, this is Terry’s one and only get-out-of-jail-free card. If anything remotely similar happens again, he’s done. It will be game over. And it won’t just be him, it’ll drag the whole fucking team down with him.
Coach leans forward, his elbows resting on his desk as he levels us with that hard, unforgiving stare again.
“Now, I don’t care how much fun you think you’re having, or how invincible you think you are.
If anything even close to this happens again, Zilkov, you’re gone.
And as for you two,” he points between Connelly and me, “you’re supposed to be the leaders of this team.
Start fucking acting like it. Am I clear? ”
“Crystal,” Connelly says immediately, his voice clipped and serious.
“Yeah, Coach. I understand,” I echo, resisting the urge to sink into my chair like a scolded kid.
Terry just nods, his face still pale as he whispers, “Yes, sir.”
Coach nods once, sharp and final, before leaning back in his chair. “Good. Now get out of my office and start fixing this shit. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
We shuffle out of the office in silence, the door clicking shut behind us.
Finally, Connolly breaks the silence. “You’re a fucking idiot, Zilkov.”
Terry doesn’t even argue. That’s when I know just how bad it hit him.
He just mutters, “Yeah, I know.”