Chapter 2
Brody
“‘Come to the party, it’ll be fun.’ Right. What a fucking joke,” my brother Cal muttered, surveying the braying mass of the Alpha Zeta Rho house.
“Aren’t you having fun?” I shot back. The scene before us was the opposite of my brother’s idea of fun. “There’s a girl over there in a whipped cream bikini, or maybe it’s shaving foam. Go lick her and find out.”
“Degenerate.” Cal reached out and snagged an unopened bottle of beer from the table. He used his teeth to pop the cap before heading in the opposite direction of the gyrating, makeshift dance floor.
I couldn’t blame him. It looked like fucking Hell in here, and it smelled even worse.
Still, trying to tempt my brother out his natural state of being a brooding bastard was my habit. I’d done it growing up in London, and then later, in a procession of private schools up and down the country, and repeated it in the US. Our adopted homeland.
I watched a football player turn a girl upside down and stick his face between her thighs, searching for a lost shot glass.
Fucking hell.
I’d only lived in Hade Harbor a few weeks and was starting to think the little Maine town, famous for its university hockey, was a pit stop to Hell.
I’d thought that a persistent puck bunny badgering me in the library to get me off had been crass, but it had only been an introduction to the hedonism that seemed as common as lukewarm beer in red plastic cups.
“Brody! You made it.” A heavy hand slapped my back hard. Too damn hard. Hard enough to have some teeth smashed in, in return.
I turned and nodded toward the guy standing near me.
Chase. We’d become friendly over the summer at a hockey-intensive camp. Well, as friendly as I got with people other than Cal.
“Friends are a means to an end, and they only matter for what they can do for you, Brody. Get it straight from the beginning and don’t get attached. They’re commodities, just like everything else.”
I didn’t need my father to be standing by my side to hear his words. He’d repeated his core lessons often enough. They’d become the pillars my identity had been built on. My foundation. The voice in my head was his, and I was made in his design.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I said to Chase, when it became clear he was waiting for a response.
Chase was a decent enough forward but not good enough to outshine Cayden West, HHU’s star player. I was also a forward and had different plans.
“Well, that’s good. You and Callahan need to show your faces and become known. Everyone should know that the Ice Gods have some competition.” Chase’s smile showed his amusement. The fucker looked like he was planning to bring popcorn to the first hockey training in a week’s time.
I shrugged. “Usually, competition is on the opposing team. We all want to win,” I pointed out. I wasn’t getting into a meaningful conversation with this guy.
Chase nodded. “True, but I’d bet that we all want to shine as well, right? To be the star?”
I shrugged again and took a swig of tepid beer. Disgusting.
“I don’t get my validation from adoring sycophants or local hicks.”
Chase chuckled and nodded. “I’ll remind you of that when West and the Ice Gods prevent you from touching the puck even once.”
“No one prevents me from anything, on or off the ice,” I told Chase.
“And that’s what I like about you, Sinclair. You might just be enough of an arrogant asshole to take on West, and all of them.”
I nearly choked on my beer at his words, and he whacked my back a few times.
“Speak of the devils,” he drawled and grabbed his own beer.
A low sort of buzz went through the room when the self-proclaimed Ice Gods entered. The guys watching stood straighter, and the girls tossed their hair.
Marcus Bailey, fucking thorn in my side, and the best goalie in the convention, caught my eye, and the bastard slow clapped.
“Wow, aren’t we special? Look who’s decided to grace the campus with their presence,” Marcus chuckled, pulling stares from all around.
“Blame it on me, I dragged him here,” Chase intervened. “I thought we should all bond as teammates before practice starts next week.”
Anderson, a huge motherfucker and natural-born defenseman, snorted. “The only kind of bonds this bastard is interested in is T-bonds.”
Despite his words, he turned and held out a hand to me. “Good to see you, Sinclair.”
“Is it?” I asked.
Anderson shrugged. “Not really, but since I want to win the championship this year, you’re not unwelcome.”
“Well, I suppose you really needed a competent forward.” I turned my gaze to West, whose eyes I’d felt drilling into the side of my head. “I heard that since someone got recruited, they’ve been phoning it in.”
“Yeah? Elaborate,” West demanded lowly. He stepped toward me.
A hand slapped into the middle of his chest. Marcus, getting in between us. “What the newbie means is that he can’t wait to show us how good he is, and why Coach thought we needed him and his brother, isn’t that right?”
I stared over his shoulder at West, unperturbed by his aggressive stance.
“Don’t get worked up, mate, we’re teammates, after all.” I gave him a grin that only made a muscle tick in his jaw.
“Martino,” I greeted the third one.
“Sinclair,” he responded. “Congratulations on your father’s new marriage.”
I honestly couldn’t tell if he was taking the piss or not.
“Thanks. Congratulations on your hot sister,” I snapped back. Admittedly, any mention of my father’s recent wedding or the woman he’d chosen to marry set my nerves on edge.
“Talk less,” Anderson immediately barked.
I chuckled. “Right, I’d forgotten… you two are a thing.”
Beckett glared at me. Man, he was easy to rile when it came to Asher’s sister.
I’d known Beckett far longer than the rest. My father and his had moved in the same circles for years.
He’d been a dickhead then, and he was a dickhead now; the only difference was now I had to find a way to play hockey on the same team as him.
“We’re more than a thing, and if I so much as catch you looking her way—”
“You’ll what?” I asked lazily. I was growing tired of this conversation, and Beckett’s threats didn’t worry me.
He narrowed his eyes at me, jaw working.
“I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t exactly the team spirit we’re going to need to win this year. Some of us still need to get recruited, after all,” Marcus said. Always the fucking peacemaker.
I smacked Beckett on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about your girl, Anderson.
I have zero interest in or time for distractions this year, or any year, honestly.
Some of us are gunning for CFO in their twenties.
” CFO was the stepping stone to CEO and finally being trusted with the company.
The position I’d been prepping for nearly my entire life. The point of my existence.
Becket rolled his eyes, but the tension slid from his shoulders. “Yeah, good for you. Some of us are planning on actually having a life worth living. You should try it.”
“No time,” I quipped and nodded toward the kitchen. “If you gents will excuse me, all this catching up has made me thirsty. Enjoy your night.” Sure, there were plenty of beers right here, but listening to Beckett Anderson’s life lesson’s was a kind of torture I wasn’t willing to endure.
I stepped away, catching Beckett’s mutter.
“Already treating us like we’re shareholders of his fucking company.”
“Yeah, can you sign a conversation ‘best regards’? Because I think he just did,” Marcus said.
I chuckled.
The house was painfully packed. I made my way to the kitchen where more drinks sat in buckets of half-melted ice.
“Oh my God, you’re Brody Sinclair, aren’t you?” someone asked from my side.
I reached for a bottle of beer.
“Hmm, most of the time,” I murmured, opening the beer and taking a swig.
A couple of girls stood at my shoulder. More ice bunnies?
Girls who loved the team, and its players, made themselves available at parties and generally acted like an unofficial fan club.
The girl in the library the week before had been a particularly persistent one.
She’d been so determined to hook up, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she had a bet riding on who would be the first to bag the new hockey players.
There really was nothing quite like feeling like a trophy fuck.
It was second only to suffering the attentions of a gold digger.
I knew more about that one than anything else.
Sadly, it seemed to be a problem that never went away, no matter how guarded you tried to be against it, seeing as my father had just married one.
“Can we drink with you?” the girls asked.
“I don’t know, can you? Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” I asked dryly.
The girl tittered like I’d made a joke.
“We saw your brother earlier, but he didn’t seem to want to chat with new people,” one of the girls said.
I nodded. “He doesn’t play well with others off the ice, and rarely on it either. Best stay out of his way.”
“So, you’re the more social brother?” One of the girls sidled up to me and touched my arm.
I pulled it away and stepped back. Unsolicited touch was such a fucking pet peeve.
People feeling entitled to your time, attention, or body pissed me right off.
The byproduct of a life spent with precious little control or freedom, unfortunately, and not something I’d be able to change anytime soon.
“Barely,” I murmured, and then, thankfully, was saved from having to interact with the ice bunnies further by an act of God.
They could come in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis, but mine was a stumbling shape falling into the table, knocking over most of the bottles and slamming into my chest.
“Watch where you’re going!” The ice bunnies panicked over their wet outfits.
The girl, because this disruptor of awkward conversations was undoubtedly a girl, stumbled back, and I tried to help her straighten.
As soon as she looked up at me with her dazed eyes, a flash of recognition hit me.
It was her. The girl from the library. The peeping fucking Tom.
The one with the perfect aim and the audacity to laugh when she clocked me in the head with a pack of tissues.
Even though a week had passed, she’d remained in my memory, like a stone in my shoe.
Maybe it was because she had watched me come so raptly, taking in every single detail.
Looking someone in the eye while finishing wasn’t something I allowed myself.
It was messy and potentially complicated.
It could lead to attachments. So staring this girl in the eyes while my cum pumped out had broken my rules.
I didn’t break my rules. Ever. It was her fault. Her and her magnetic eyes.
She blinked at me, her eyes an unusual shade of violet blue. Right now, they were unfocused, ringed in smudged black eyeliner.
“Excuse you,” she slurred and blundered away.
I watched her go. She was drunk-drunk. Really drunk, and clearly just as rude as she’d been in the library. Annoyance slithered through me. People who were sloppy drunk wasn’t something I liked to see. A vague, unformed irritation gathered in my veins.
She headed out the double doors at the end of the room and onto a crowded patio, and I lost sight of her.
“There you are.” I spied my twin, sitting in a dark corner and watching the party like he was at the zoo and catching a particularly boring talk.
“Can we go?” he asked immediately.
“Not yet. Have you spoken to anyone else? The Hellions team are here,” I added.
Cal nodded. “I saw you talking to them. It seemed like you were making friends enough for the both of us.” He flashed me a glance that revealed he knew exactly how well my conversation had gone with our future team members.
“Let’s go outside, get some fresh air,” I changed the subject and tugged him up by the hoodie.
He came reluctantly onto the patio. The pool was busy, people getting in and out, some fully dressed. Someone cooked burgers on a grill, and the music was less deafening outside.
Cal disappeared into the shadows that lined the pool. I finished my mediocre beer and set the bottle down.
So, this was it. The quintessential American college experience.
I guessed I could see the appeal, for others, that was.
Not for me. For me, the days of childhood rites of passage were long gone, and they had been since I was thirteen and my father had decided that between me and my twin, I was the one who would take over the reins of the company.
The day we’d stood at a fresh gravestone, and I said goodbye to childish things.
Since that moment, my life had been one of purpose, honed by rules and lessons and punishments that were making me into the man I was today.
My father’s replacement.
A commotion at the side of the pool caught my eye. People had climbed up onto the pool house. Always a great idea when copious amounts of alcohol were being consumed.
Then I saw her. The girl from the library.
She staggered up there and came to the edge. People were daring each other to jump in the pool. The drop wasn’t technically that dangerous, but when alcohol was involved, everything became dangerous.
She wavered on the edge. Others chickened out of jumping.
She’s going to jump.
The drunk girl peered over the drop, staring down at the blue water.
She seemed spellbound by it. I found myself unable to turn away.
It was a tension born of a childhood spent watching someone they loved drink too much, snort too much, pop too many pills, and self-destruct until there was nothing left. Gone by eighteen.
Something about the girl tugged on those old wounds. Ones that I’d long ago tried to forget.
She lifted her head. My eyes met hers across the distance between us, and in that moment, she could have been her.
I knew that look in her hazy eyes. I’d seen it too often, until one bad day, and then I’d never seen it again.
Then the girl in the too-big hoodie with the haunted eyes turned away from the lip of the pool house and the yawning blue between us, tipped her head back, and flung her arms out to the sides.
Was no one going to stop her?
She simply walked backward, and fell.