On His Watch (Boys of Hawthorne House #3)

1. Chapter One

Stanley

The puck leaves my blade, and I already know.

I’m not a mathematician. I need to make that clear up front, because people hear the word prodigy and picture me in the locker room doing long division for the love of it, and the truth is, I suck at the real kind of math.

But the second the puck slides off my tape, the part of my brain that won’t show up for anything else in my entire life goes dead quiet, and the angle is just there.

Top right. The pocket. Speed and force and the one square inch where Percy isn’t, all of it lining up like the universe owes me money and finally decided to pay.

Boom, baby.

Ping.

Mesh.

In.

I coast all the way to the far blue line and turn around to look at it, because a shot like that deserves to be witnessed by the man who made it, and, honestly, by everyone else in the building too.

Percy gets there a full second late. I catch his face through the cage and it’s a beautiful thing.

Percy Deveroux does not enjoy being scored on.

Not in a game, not in scrimmage, not — I’d bet my left nut — in his actual dreams, where he’s probably wearing the pads and crying.

But that’s the cross you carry when your roommate’s a prodigy.

I came out of the womb with a measuring eye and a grudge against goaltenders.

My daddy’s sperm raced into my mama with a stick and a puck already taped up, and I was in there, winning already, in the dark doing edge work for nine months.

There was never a version of me that wasn’t this.

Benson taps two on Percy’s pads as he glides past. Captain thing.

Good for the room, keep it moving, say nothing.

Blue’s grinning into his cage down at the boards.

Even Coach Fuller’s stopped writing on his little clipboard, which from Fuller is basically a standing ovation.

And Percy’s livid because that was the third one I’ve put past him after I looked him dead in the eye and promised I’d take it easy on him today.

I skate back toward the bench with my arms already lifting, because I’m an airplane now, that’s just the situation, and I throw in a little spin for the people.

“I think I’m in love,” I announce to the rink.

Every head swings my way like I said somebody died.

“With myself,” I clarify, and laugh at my own joke, which is a habit I refuse to be ashamed of. “Obviously. Keep up. Get on my line.”

Nobody gets on my line. That’s the other thing about this year.

The Hawthorne House rules have gone to absolute shit in the last two months, and I’m the only one still pretending we’re a unit.

Five of us. That was the deal. Five of us, senior year, no distractions, ride it to the end together — and now Benson’s a goner, Blue’s done for, and I genuinely don’t want to know what’s happening for Rowan and Percy behind closed doors, except I do want to know, I want to know everything, I just don’t want it to be true.

We were supposed to be untouchable. Now I’m doing the airplane for an audience for a bunch of sick love puppies.

Anyway.

Rowan nods at me, so I tap the side of my head and tell him, “Math.”

He shakes his head in his disappointed-dad slow way.

Percy lifts his mask. “It went in,” he says, flat as the ice. “Pucks are supposed to do that.”

“It’s okay, Pers.” I pat the air toward him like I’m soothing a horse. “You’ll get one next time, buddy. I believe in you. We all do. Some of us more than others.”

He flips me off. I take it as applause.

Coach watches the whole thing, decides it isn’t worth his soul, and looks back down at his clipboard. Then he sighs. “Ermington.”

“Coach.”

“Bury that one on the rush against Washington in December, and I’ll frame it for the lobby.” He doesn’t look up. “Pull the airplane again in scrimmage, and you’ll skate lines for an hour.”

“The airplane’s a gift, Coach. It’s morale. The boys need it.” I do it again, keeping my eyes on his.

He stares at me. “The boys need you to backcheck. Lines.”

I shrug. “Worth it.”

I push off the boards and take a lap with my arms wide open, and I’m not even an airplane anymore, I’m a jet, I’m an F-something with the good engines, and I let the jet fuel rip — loud, on purpose, full body, a fart that echoes off the empty seats and clenches my own cheeks in betrayal.

Whatever Rowan put in last night’s dinner is leaving me like it’s got a connecting flight.

I take the long way around the rink, because there’s an entitled little princess in the stands taking notes for her daddy like the good girl she is, and I’m a giver, I like to give the people content.

Aspen Linwood is sitting in the third row, blue-line side, in the exact seat where the lighting is bad.

She’s wearing a coat that is too good for the rink, one pointy boot up on the seat in front of her, and has her phone in her hand.

If this girl had a cock, she and I would be each other’s biggest problem on the ice — that’s not me being nice, that’s a fact, her old man is the best bench boss in the National Hockey League, and my father’s oldest rival turned best friend, which means I’ve technically known Aspen Linwood my whole life.

And in that whole life, she has never once called me by my first name.

She says Ermington like the syllables are beneath her.

I skate my circle. She doesn’t look up.

Which is normal. Totally normal. I’m thriving.

I skate it again. Nothing again. Now it’s just rude. And to be honest, I’m choosing to be annoyed.

So I cut in tight to the boards directly under her, close enough that any reasonable person would catch the movement and look, but she still doesn’t look up, because she’s not a reasonable person, she’s whatever’s worse than that with good bone structure.

I knock on the glass.

Nothing.

“Linwood,” I say, loud enough to land.

Nothing. Tap, tap, tap. Whatever’s on that phone is getting the attention I’m out here losing fluids for.

“Linwood,” I drawl, dragging it out long enough to poke the bear.

“Do you need something?” she says — to the phone, not to me — “or is this just happening to me?”

I grin. I got a full sentence from the princess. That’s basically a hug. I’m already winning and the day’s barely started.

“Top shelf, glove side, no-look.” I rap the glass. “Off the rush. Put it in the report for your dad. Spell it right.”

“You’re still talking.” She’s stating a fact, cold as ice.

I lean on the boards, a man with nowhere to be. “You can spell it phonetically if it’s hard,” I tell her. “E-R-M.”

“Go away, Ermington.” There it is. The name. The tone. Her voice is a seagull that paid for elocution lessons and got robbed. Her eyes never leave the screen of her phone.

And I stand there one moment past anything survivable.

“Tell your daddy I said hi,” I say, then I shove off the boards, throw the arms out, do the airplane for the empty stands like she’s a sold-out crowd, and bank into the turn.

“Pleasure as always, Linwood!” I yell, loud enough to carry up to the seats.

I glide off the ice. Coach is forming a sentence at me while my stomach turns. I’m about to fart.

“With all due respect, Coach,” I tell him, already moving, “I think I have the shits.”

The guys lose it.

“Jesus Christ, Ermington.” He flings both hands at the ceiling like he’s surrendering to a god who isn’t listening, then stands to call the end of practice. And I am gone, sprinting for the nearest toilet.

By the time we’re back at the Hawthorne House, I’m hollowed out. Wrung. A husk. I could not make this up if I tried.

“Rowan.” I find him in the living room. “Brother. Tell me you checked the expiration dates on the dinner you made last night.”

He stops dead center of the room. “Listen up. I’ve got an announcement.”

I light up. “We’re all here. Hit me.”

“I’m done cooking for everyone.” He says it to the floor, then exhales like a man setting down a piano he’s carried for years. “Oh, man. That actually feels incredible to say out loud.”

The room groans. I pat my own stomach, which gurgles back in agreement.

“I think my colon thanks you.”

“Thanks, Stan.” He claps my shoulder on his way out, the traitor, the deserter, the man who just saved my life by ending his service.

Benson and Blue vanish upstairs together, the cheesy rule-breaking bastards, off to do whatever it is the rules used to forbid. Percy follows me into the kitchen, which is either loyalty or coincidence, and with Percy, it’s never loyalty.

“Just you and me, Pers.”

He glares.

“Step out to cut the shooter’s angle,” I tell him, opening the fridge. “Maximize your net coverage. You’re hugging your line like the post’s gonna leave you.”

“Fuck you, Stan. That’s elementary.”

I shrug into the cold light. “He talks.”

I straighten up and lean on the counter, and I don’t even mean to ask. It just falls out of me. “Hey. Real question. You ever think about it? Breaking the house rules?”

Percy walks out of the room. Just — leaves. Doesn’t dignify it.

“Okay,” I say to the empty kitchen. “Cool talk.” I take a glass down. “What a sensitive little baby.” Honestly, I prefer him not talking. Less anger to deal with.

Then Blue’s voice comes down from the top of the stairs like the wrath of God.

“Sterm! What the fuck is this?”

I chug my water, taking my time. I am at peace. I stroll out of the kitchen.

“That, sir,” I say, looking up at him, “appears to be a framed photograph of your girlfriend.”

He blinks down at me, holding the frame like he doesn’t know whether to throw it or keep it. “What is wrong with you? You hung up a picture of her above the toilet!”

I spread my hands, all generosity with a shit-eating grin on my face. “Figured if you were gonna do your business in there anyway, you’d want her watching over you. Spiritually. Supportively.”

He starts down the stairs three at a time, and I’m already running, already at the front door, because Blue could absolutely take me in a fair fight, but I’m Stanley Ermington, and a fair fight is the one thing I’ll never give a man. I’m fast. I’m a jet. I told you.

I bang out onto the porch and take the steps in one go, screaming like I’ve been stabbed, hit the road barefoot and cut right. He stops at the bottom of the porch, frame raised over his head like a battle-axe.

“Your mom dropped you on your head as a baby!” he roars after me.

“Try again, man!” I yell back, jogging backward. “My dad took one too many pucks to the dick — I was always gonna come out like this!”

He shakes his head, lowers the axe, and starts back inside.

“Don’t break the picture!” I call. “That’s quality gloss!”

Because it is. I zoomed the photo down to just Melly’s face and printed it high-shine, and I’m doing everything in my power not to fold in laughing as he reaches the door. Then a car turns onto Hawthorne Street.

Not just any car. A gorgeous, gleaming, six-figures-of-someone-else’s-money SUV. And there are exactly two people on this street with the means to roll up in something like that.

Me.

Of course.

And Linwood.

I plant myself in the dead center of the road and look right at her through the windshield, because the rules of the universe say she has to look up eventually.

I gave her the whole rink earlier and she gave me nothing.

The street is mine. The street is fair territory.

She’s looking down. At the phone, probably.

Jesus Christ, she’s not looking up.

“Uh,” I say to nobody. The SUV keeps coming. “Linwood.” I wave both arms over my head. Nothing. I’m jumping now, full vertical, barefoot, a grown man with NHL bloodlines doing jumping jacks in the road. “Linwood!”

I get out of the way exactly in time and smack my palm flat on the hood as it passes, because the psychopath was genuinely going to flatten me.

The SUV stops.

The door opens. She looks out at me, like she’s confirming a minor inconvenience.

“Oh.” A pause. “It’s just you.”

She pulls the door shut and keeps driving.

I stand in the road, gasping at the sky.

Where. Is. The human decency.

Where do these people learn this sort of behavior? I watch her glide three doors down from mine, slide into her garage, and drop the door before her taillights have even gone dark.

Oh, Aspen Linwood.

You have no idea what you just started.