Excerpt from Fake As Puck
When I reach the Bashers bench, one of the trainers, Lyle, opens the door for me. I sit on the far end as he examines my face.
“Can you breathe through your nose?” he asks.
I inhale through the plug of snot and blood. “Yeah.”
Lyle steps aside to grab something. My teammate Isaac, who’s sitting next to me, elbows me. “Hell of a birthday present. What a way to ring in twenty-five, huh?”
“I know, right? Panties, boobs, and a bloody nose.” I start to laugh, but the pain flares up and I stop.
Coach Porter’s glare cuts to me. I clear my throat and mutter a “sorry.”
Coach Porter is one of the best coaches in the league, and playing for him is a once-in-a-career opportunity. He’s got two Stanley Cups under his belt for the two teams he coached before he joined the Bashers. But playing under him is no joke. He works his players to the bone, but it makes us better—it makes the team better. In the two years I’ve played for Denver, I’ve never played this hard or this well. The Bashers have won more games with him as coach than anyone else.
He’s also a hardass. He doesn’t tolerate laziness or disrespectful behavior from anyone, not even his star players. One time he benched me for an entire game because he caught me fooling around in one of the storage closets with a puck bunny before practice.
“No idea why the ladies love you so much. You’re ugly as fuck,” Isaac jokes.
“Someone’s jealous.” I shove his shoulder and he chuckles.
“Not even close. Happily married,” Isaac says, smiling as he gazes at the ice.
It’s true. The guy’s been married for ten years and has twin girls. When he’s not kicking ass on the ice, he’s always with his wife and daughters.
“You should give married life a shot someday,” he says.
My head falls back as I laugh. Another flash of pain in my face. I groan.
“No way in hell, dude,” I say. If there’s one thing I’m certain I’ll never, ever do, it’s get married.
Isaac shakes his head, laughing. “By the way, the guys and I got you a birthday gift. It’ll show up soon,” he says in a lowered voice.
“Really?”
“Yup. Strippergram.”
Coach Porter hollers for him to get out on the ice. Grinning, Isaac hops the barrier and skates off. Well, damn. I’ve gotta hand it to my teammates. They really know how to give me what I want for my birthday.
Lyle starts to clean me up. When he touches the bridge of my nose, I grunt out in pain.
He frowns at me. “You need to see the team doctor. It might be broken.”
I start to tell him I’ll be fine, but he shakes his head. “No way you’re going back out there. Not until the doc clears you.”
I huff out a breath. “Fine.”
I head through the tunnel to the room where the medical staff is. I drop my gloves and stick by the door, take off my helmet, and sit on the padded table as I wait for one of the team docs to come in.
A moment later, the door opens. When I turn and look, my eyes go wide at the stunning woman who just walked in the room.
My gaze fixates on her long, strawberry blonde hair and big blue eyes. And then I spend a solid five seconds staring at her lush mouth.
My gaze falls to her boobs and how they’re bursting out of that blouse she’s wearing
“Whoa…”
“Are you done staring at my chest?” she snaps.
I pop out of my trance. Shame heats my face. “I-I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything as she walks up to me and grabs my face with her hand, tilting my head up.
“Hold still,” she says in that hard tone.
As she studies my face, I try not to gawk at her like I just did a minute ago. That was creepy as fuck.
I can’t help but look at her though. One, she’s gorgeous. And two, she looks really young. Like, this woman can’t be older than early twenties. She looks like she just graduated college. How the hell can she be a doctor? All the NHL team docs I’ve ever worked with are middle-aged or older.
Just then I remember what Isaac said to me earlier.
“The guys and I got you a birthday gift. It’ll show up later.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Strippergram.”
Oh damn…this must be her.
It all makes sense—why she’s so young and hot, and why I’ve never seen her before during any of the sessions with the other team medical staff.
I lean back and gently pull out of her hold. “Hey, you’re doing a really great job of pretending to be a doctor, but you can get on with the rest of your…performance.”
Her frown deepens. “Excuse me?”
I grin at her, raking my gaze along the length of her killer body. “You’re a stripper, right?”
That beautiful angelic face death-glares me. She takes a breath and gently grips her hands on either side of my head.
“I’m going to need you to hold still,” she says.
“Uh, okay…”
She moves her hands so that her thumbs are bracing either side of my nose.
I wince. “Oh, um, you don’t need to?—”
Just then she snaps my nose. Pain blasts through my face, and I howl in agony.
“Fuck!” I groan.
When she lets go, I cradle my face in my hands.
“You had a slight fracture in your nose,” she says in a calm, firm tone, like she didn’t just rock my shit a second ago. “I snapped it back into place. You should be fine now.”
My head spins as I claw my way through this pain fog.
I pinch the bridge of my nose with one hand while holding up my other. “Wait, so you’re actually a doctor? Like for real?”
Her perfectly arched eyebrows crash together, like she can’t believe what I just said. “Yeah, like for real,” she says, clearly mocking me. “I don’t know who the hell told you I was a stripper, but they’re mistaken. Dr. Gregorson is on leave, and I’m filling in for the rest of the season.”
I blink at her. “Shit…” I shake my head, pissed at myself for the way I just fucked things up with the new team doctor. “I’m sorry…”
“Dr. Porter.” She crosses her arms over her chest and glowers at me.
It takes a second before the name registers in my brain. Partly because my nose and face are still throbbing, and partly because I’m not that smart to begin with. Obviously.
“Dr. Porter?” I ask. “Wait, are you related to Coach Porter?”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “I’m his daughter.”
Dread slices through my gut. I was wrong a second ago when I thought I fucked up. I actually royally, monumentally fucked up. I just hit on and pissed off the daughter of my coach.
I’m fucking dead.