32. Sneak Peak - Puck King
SNEAK PEAK - PUCK KING
The click of high heels on the hardwood floors above me echoed throughout the mansion. As they stomped down the stairs, I knew she was pissed off even before she slammed the magazine on the table.
Everleigh crossed her arms and leaned against the ornate dining room table. I glanced at my sister but didn’t look at the magazine.
She pointed to the glossy cover and then put her hands on her hips. “What is this?”
“Good morning, Sis.” I continued scrolling through my phone as I ate my protein bowl. “It’s oats, chia seeds and bacon.”
She pulled out the heavy chair beside me and flipped open the magazine. “I wasn’t talking about your disgusting breakfast. I’m talking about this story.”
I set down the spoon and dabbed at my mouth with the linen napkin. “What story?” I knew what she was talking about, but didn’t feel like discussing my recent breakup.
“Will you look at it?” Her voice quivered as she jabbed at the pages with her dark manicured nails.
I sighed and replaced my breakfast with the magazine. The word ‘cheater’ took up half the page and the bottom half was filled with photos of me and Brittany. Tacky lightning bolt graphics split each of the photos in two.
I raised my eyebrows and then shut the magazine. “This is a tabloid.” Alongside the story of my breakup was a grainy photo of an extraterrestrial and a picture of Elvis. “Nobody reads these.”
One of our kitchen staff, an older woman named Sheila, stepped to my side and offered me some more coffee. As she filled my blue and white New York Thunder mug, her eyes flickered to the story. Everleigh snatched the magazine, rolled it up, and shoved it into the designer handbag.
“Coffee, Miss King?” Sheila asked.
“Please.” Everleigh pulled a travel mug from her bag and handed it to Sheila.
“Colton.” Everleigh’s voice was low. Our staff were loyal, and most had worked for our family for years, but we still tried to keep any drama to a minimum.
The fewer ears that heard the dirty goods of the King family, the better.
“Everyone sees these magazines. And, it looks like Brittany is doing a tell-all interview.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
Everleigh cleared her throat and rubbed her hands on the skirt of her dress. My sister worked for the family business but she dressed like she worked at a fashion magazine, not the King Corporation. “Is it true?” Her voice was barely audible.
I stared into her narrowed eyes. “Are you serious?” I seethed.
She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. “Is it true?”
I stood and chugged back my coffee. “Thanks, Ev. I just lost my appetite.”
Sheila reappeared and handed Everleigh her travel mug. “Thank you.” Everleigh smiled. Sheila must have picked up on the tension in the room and quickly cleared my dishes, disappearing into the staff kitchen.
Everleigh crossed her arms. “You know I have to ask.”
“Do you?” I growled. “After everything we grew up with in this house,” I slammed my fist onto the expensive table, disrupting the polished silver place setting, “you are going to stand there and ask if I cheated on my girlfriend?”
“Shhh,” Everleigh hissed.
“You’re something else.” I was shaking as I walked upstairs.
Everleigh and I were rarely back at the country manor at the same time, but Dad insisted that we spend the holidays there.
He was trying to keep us together, but since mom died, nothing had been the same.
I glanced around my bedroom, but it no longer felt like home.
Before college, Mom had let me hang hockey posters on the walls and display all of my trophies, but one of Dad’s wannabe-designer girlfriends had redecorated all of the bedrooms. At least Everleigh and I had found something we both agreed on – she sucked.
It looked like Marie Antoinette was about to burst out from behind the heavy floral curtains and hand me a piece of cake.
I took the back way through the house to avoid Everleigh, but she was waiting at the side of my Range Rover.
“What?” I threw my hands up in the air and tossed my bag into the back seat.
“Don’t you realize what a PR nightmare this is going to be? The hockey team is already…” Her voice trailed off.
I paused halfway in the driver’s seat and faced her. “The team is already what?”
“I didn’t mean…” she stammered, unable to look me in the eye.
The team wasn’t in last place, but we were damn close. “That story has nothing to do with the team.” I pushed the button for the garage door and one of ten grumbled as it opened to a wintery landscape. “It’s all lies, Ever.” I sighed. “Don’t worry about it, it will go away.”
Everleigh put her hand on the car so I couldn’t close the door. “Move your hand, unless you want it decapitated.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Decapitation doesn’t work.”
“You know what I mean,” I groaned. “I’m not giving Brittany ANY money. That’s all she wants, is to be paid off. She knows that we will throw money at anything that taints the King name.”
Everleigh’s lips pursed. She knew what I was talking about. Our father, William King, was known for a lot of things: for being a billionaire, the owner of the New York Thunder hockey team, and a serial cheater. “I’m nothing like Dad,” I whispered.
A shimmer appeared in Everleigh’s eyes. “I know.” She inhaled before any tears could fall.
Growing up as Kings we were taught that showing emotion was a sign of weakness, and my sister was an expert at being icy-cold.
Behind her back, the staff called her the Ice Queen.
I heard them, but didn’t feel the need to stick up for her.
She was tough, but I knew that she was also soft and kind, something not many others did – and she liked it that way.
“You get to practice.” She swiped at her eye with the back of her hand and shut the door.
“I have physio first.” The SUV roared to life. “My shoulder is almost back to one hundred percent.”
“That’s good to hear. Maybe now you can score some fucking goals.” She grinned and then shut the door. The tension from earlier had dissipated. Everleigh had inherited all the business smarts, and I had gotten the athletic genes, but her trucker mouth? We didn’t know where that came from.
I rolled down the window. “Classy, as always.”
She smiled and gave me the finger. As she walked in front of the car, I honked the horn. I couldn’t hold in my laugh as she almost jumped right out of her shoes. “Asshole,” she mouthed.
“Love you, Sis,” I shouted, then rolled up the window and pointed my car toward the city.
I listened to the talk radio weather report, and when the sports highlights came on, I turned up the volume.
The two sportscasters rambled on about some Northern Professional League games before getting to the National League discussion.
“Can you believe the drama surrounding the Thunder?” Sportscaster One said in an overly dramatic tone. “A story like that has got to rock the team. Especially when it involves the captain, Colton King.”
My ears burned. This wasn’t a discussion about hockey, this was a discussion about my personal life.
They were two separate things. I was a professional, a goddamn expert at keeping my focus on the things that mattered most to me – hockey.
The areas of my life were separated so firmly, there may as well have been concrete walls between them.
Mr. Jokey Sportscaster continued, “For those of you who didn’t see the tabloids this morning, Colton King, one of hockey’s biggest and best stars, cheated on his girlfriend and got caught.
We don’t know the identity of the… what would you call the other woman?
It looks like she’s being paid to stay quiet. ”
“Mistress?” the other announcer suggested.
“Well, whatever she is, she’s just gotten herself the golden ticket from the royal family of hockey.”
They segued in the song “Money”, by Pink Floyd.
As the sound of coins and a cash register rang through the speakers, I felt like I had taken an elbow to the gut.
I pulled to the side of the road, gripped the steering wheel, and tried not to rip it right out of the car.
There were two people that knew the truth about what had happened, me and Brittany.
One of us was lying, and it wasn’t me. I didn’t have time to cheat.
When I wasn’t playing hockey, I was thinking about hockey.
My phone rang and when I saw that it was my father, I quickly declined the call. He listened to the sports report every day too. I had to put a stop to this gossip before it ruined everything.
I dialed and she picked up on the second ring.
“What? Do you miss me already?”
“Everleigh, I need your help. None of it is true. You have to believe me.” I surprised myself with the anger in my voice. It felt like my throat was closing in on itself.
I could hear her take a deep breath. “I believe you, Colton. And, I will help you. I’m going to ruin her fucking life.”
With Everleigh on the job, I knew it would get taken care of, and a part of me felt sorry for Brittany.
But only for a split second. After all, she was the girl trying to ruin me.
We’d only dated for two months and now she was going after what she’d always wanted from me – money.
She deserved everything Everleigh was going to dish out, and more.