4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
~DOMINIC~
My kitchen’s already busy when I walk in. Morning sunlight spills across the marble countertop while Jace manhandles my stainless-steel pans. Not that I don’t enjoy their company, but they have their own house, so I’m not sure what they’re doing in mine so often.
He flips something with one hand and grabs Melody’s waist with the other. He’s gone into complete lovesick puppy mode. He can’t stay away from her for ten seconds whenever she’s around. The only thing he hasn’t done is hang a framed picture of them hugging in the locker room .
Melody pokes him and giggles like she’s twelve. When he leans in and kisses her on the lips, she melts like something you can smear on toast.
I look away and grab a glass of water before I say something that ruins the morning.
“Morning,” Jace says without looking at me. “Hungry?”
“Not for whatever the hell you’re contaminating my cookware with.”
He snorts, and Melody shakes her head at me.
I’ve gotten used to a lot of shit since those two got together, but waking up to them playing house is still… a process. I’m not pissed. I’m adjusting. There’s a difference.
Just because I accepted their relationship doesn’t mean I want to watch Jace’s lips on my little sister from the front row.
I’ve seen Jace at his worst—fucked up, drunk out of his mind, buried in women whose names he doesn’t know, knuckles bloody from bar fights, one wrong word away from a career-ending scandal.
I’ve seen him raw-dog his way through Miami, and no matter how many green smoothies or self-help books Melody feeds him, I’ll never fully unsee that shit.
Just because Melody fixed him doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what needed fixing in the first place.
But she’s the happiest I’ve seen her. And if Jace ever goes back to who he used to be, I’ll put him in the ground myself. Slowly. Thoroughly. I’ve already got the blueprint in my head.
But the part of me that wants to choke him out every time he touches her is quieter these days.
“Want some eggs?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder.
“You gonna feed them to me too?” I can’t keep the crankiness from my voice. “Wanna sit on my lap while we braid each other’s hair?”
“And hold your dick while you piss,” Jace says, laughing.
“Stop being in a mood, Dom.” Melody gives me a look.
“I just need coffee, Mel,” I lie, trying to put on a more digestible expression.
Thing is, a certain blonde has put me in a mood .
The team’s been talking about it ever since the media blew up—the video, the PR, the event. The fact that I’ve gone full corporate PR whore and agreed to play boyfriend with a girl I barely know. Jace keeps calling it my Hallmark redemption arc. I keep not stabbing him in the throat.
They think it’s entertaining, but they don’t know what it does to me.
Something I’ve worked on for years, something that will outlive me, being in the hands of someone who hasn’t done jack shit for it—that alone should make me furious at the girl.
And it does. But that anger is morphing into something bordering on animalistic want.
I’ve been replaying the balcony ever since it happened: how her lips parted when I touched her, the silence between her breaths right before she asked what I’d be using her for.
I haven’t seen her since that night. A few days. That’s it. But the space between then and now feels like a fucking desert.
I can still see the print of her lipstick on the rim of that glass when I brought it to my mouth .
Let me rephrase that so the universe can fully appreciate the humiliation: I lifted her glass to my mouth and drank vodka just to feel the imprint of her lips against mine.
I. Drank. Vodka. Willingly. Just to taste where her mouth had been.
Pathetic? Absolutely.
But in that moment, the need to kiss her was so fucking strong, so bone-deep, I had to do something.
My cock, my mouth, my nervous system—they all voted without me.
It was desperation. Pure, pathetic, feral need.
It’s not just her face, not just her body—though Jesus Christ, that face…
No, what’s worse is she’s not stupid. It would’ve been easier if she were dumb. Or shallow. Or dull. If I could categorize her the way I do everyone else. Fuckable but forgettable.
If she were just a pretty face, I could rub one out and forget her. Or, better, fuck her once, get it out of my system, and move on.
But I know that one taste wouldn’t be enough. Not with her. She’s not a problem I can fuck away .
Every conversation with her makes my blood rush south. Every defiant glare she gives me sends blood straight to my dick.
I’m in a state of permanent half-hardness just thinking about how her mouth twitches when she’s about to say something she knows she shouldn’t.
And it makes my blood roar in my veins. Some of it goes to my fists. Most of it goes to my cock.
Jace’s eggs are decent.
Which pisses me off, because it means he’s done something right, and I’m running out of ammo to insult him with.
I push the plate away halfway through and go back to my coffee.
“Not hungry?” Melody asks, eyeing me.
“Don’t wanna throw up during practice, unlike Jace.”
Truth is, I’m starving, just not for eggs.
Her brows lift and Jace snorts into his orange juice.
I check my phone for an email from Tinnie with Jessica’s conditions .
I hate that I even let her say that. I should’ve shut it down right then, on that balcony. But I let her look me in the eye and say she had terms.
Now I’m checking my phone every twenty minutes.
I want to know what they are. What’s in her head. What she thinks she can negotiate.
I don’t like other people writing the script and handing me a role. My parents tried to do that for years, and they became a distant ghost in my life.
Tell me to do something, and I’ll tear it down out of spite. It’s just how I am.
I should’ve torched the whole plan. Should’ve told the board to shove their strategy up their collective ass. Should’ve let that storm burn out on its own.
But then she walked in, and all that evaporated. Which pisses me off even more, because it means I’m complicit.
That I want this.
Her.
And I’d rather choke on a branding iron than admit that .
Call it childish, but I’d rather lie to myself six different ways than admit I’m okay with a narrative someone else is controlling.
The slap of tape against sticks echoes off the walls. Showers hiss behind closed doors, and someone’s blasting old Drake from a speaker.
Practice is done. Jace is bitching about a stick check that didn’t get called, Matt’s towel-whipping rookies in the corner, Tanner’s yelling about someone stealing his protein bar, and Addams is holding court, re-enacting a fight from last season with zero accuracy and way too much pelvic thrusting.
I’m half-listening, half-texting Tinnie for the fiftieth time like a desperate ex.
No update.
Still no word from Jessica.
Not a single fucking condition from her end, and it’s eating at me like acid under my skin.
“You know, you could just ask for the girl’s number and call her,” Jace mutters next to me .
I shoot him a look.
“So that’s a no, then.” He grins.
My phone goes dark. So does my patience.
“I need everyone’s attention.” The room rumbles with the sound of a deep voice.
The noise in the locker room recalibrates. Voices drop, and movement ceases.
Guys start shifting, turning, adjusting their focus to our goalie.
Zed Mercer.
Six foot seven of go-fuck-yourself aura and ink.
His black hair is pushed back, damp from the shower, a few strands falling messily across those unnatural eyes—light greenish-blue and eerie as hell. His neck is covered in tattoos. So are his knuckles, his hands, his ribs, his back, and God knows what else.
He walks past the rookies and they part like the Red Sea. This is his second season with us, but I know him from before. Back in juniors, Zed was the sun—loud enough to make coaches roll their eyes but never told to shut up. He used to call me Dommy just to piss me off .
He used to make every practice feel like a party. Now? He barely talks.
Addams lowers the volume on the speaker and sits next to Matt.
Zed stands near the whiteboard with his arms crossed, tattoos flexing as he looks around the room.
He’s played with us for a year now, and in that entire time, I can count on one hand how many times he’s addressed the whole room. And every time, we won.
“It’s the Lions next,” he says, voice deep and measured. “I played for them when I first got into the league. I know how they operate.” Every word is chosen, weighed, sharpened.
“May I, Captain?” He glances at me with a look that’s not asking; it’s informing.
I nod for him to keep going.
“The Lions play high-speed transitional hockey,” Zed begins. “They rely on speed off the rush, quick neutral-zone regrouping, stretch passes to their wings, and collapsing defense to trap you on the boards.”
He doesn’t play with his hands while he speaks, unlike most guys. Every movement is intentional and controlled .
“Their weak point is their second line. You apply sustained pressure and force them to dump and chase, and they lose structure.”
He grabs a dry-erase marker and starts sketching a triangle breakout.
“Their left winger, Holloway, is still favoring his right knee. Took a brutal fall into the boards last February. He won’t engage physically if you press him at the hash marks. Force him wide, and his follow-through drops off.”
That’s true. I rewatched one of their games last night and caught it too.
“Mendez, their top D-man, bites early on fake slappers. Wait half a second longer, and you can walk him right into the crease.”
He didn’t just play with them—he memorized them. Every reaction, weak spot, and habit. He filed them away and now he’s using it to scalp them.
“Their third line bleeds penalties when you chirp their captain,” he adds.
“McCabe’s still got the rage problem?” I ask .
“Worse,” Zed says.
“That’s your job now. Make him see red.” I look at Matt and Tanner.