Chapter 1
TRICK
The smell hits me as soon as I push through the locker room door, and I suck in a deep welcome breath, acrid odor and all, like I’m coming home. Tossing my bag in the direction of my cubby, it hits my buddy Bog in the leg.
He looks up from the laces he’s working on and cracks a smile.
Bogdan Dabrowski doesn’t know how not to smile.
Mostly I don’t mind his relentless good mood, and some days, like today, I’m into it.
He’s good people, which is why he’s more than a teammate; he’s my best friend at UNH and the only guy who’s never given me a hard time about living at home.
“You boys ready for the big game?” Sully, a senior and team captain, walks by, still in his socks, and bumps my fist. “Six days and counting.”
One of the big defensemen pipes up, “I’m ready to knock out some teeth.” He’s a transfer student, and I think his name is Vaughn or Van or something. He doesn’t talk to me much, mostly grunts. “I want to get that Rossi kid. Payback for playing dirty with Trick last time.”
“No fighting,” Sully says. “Whatever you do, keep it on the down low.” He slips me a glance and a nod like he’s taking care of me.
“I appreciate the backup, guys,” I say, “but if anyone’s getting even with Rossi, it’s going to be me.”
Sully frowns. “No way. You’re our high scorer, and Rossi’s a hack trying to take you out of the game. We don’t need you making his job easy.”
Coach Zabra walks in, and my fists automatically clench. “Couldn’t agree with Sully more. But you’re not too big to bench even if the ref doesn’t throw you out for doing something stupid. Keep that in mind, Jennings.”
Coach Zabra is the only one involved with the team—and that includes all the coaches, trainers, my teammates, and even the stick boys—who doesn’t call me Trick. Too bad he’s the most important person when it comes to my hockey career.
In my freshman year, the previous coach, the one who recruited me, started calling me Trick when I got a hat trick early in the season, breaking some kind of freshman record, not just for UNH, but for the entire Hockey East conference.
I didn’t bother telling anyone that people at home have been calling me Trick since peewees.
As the vibrations of Zabra’s comment settle in, the room goes pin-drop silent because Coach isn’t usually so obvious about his dislike for me, and though guys have mentioned it to me from time to time, I’ve never acknowledged the animosity, shrugging it off. This time it’s hard to ignore.
He gives me an insulting smile that couldn’t be interpreted any way except smug. What the hell?
“Got it? You don’t touch Rossi.” He doesn’t touch me with his pointed finger. He knows better. Too bad. I tamp down on the surge of violent need to push back.
Gritting my teeth, I force myself to nod.
“Good.” He turns away and surveys the room. “On the ice in three minutes. Anyone late skates gassers.”
“Fuck,” Bog says under his breath.
I grunt, and as coach passes by me, he gives me another nasty stare, and all the hairs on my arms stand up. Something’s going on.
In a voice so low I barely hear it, he says, “I know about your family feud with Rossi, Jennings, and if you bring that personal shit onto the ice, your ass is gone, and I don’t care if you end up playing for a loser Division 3 team or fucking pond hockey.
” He smiles and slaps my back like he’s been giving me a pep talk, then moves on to his office.
The tension in the room disappears when the door closes behind him, and as I look around, it’s obvious my teammates are under the impression that coach cleared the air and made amends for his earlier harshness.
Fuck. With my jaw clenched and my mouth shut, I grab my gloves and head for the ice. Bog follows me. The season is half over. I’m a junior and have played regular shifts since I was a freshman, so I only have one more year of eligibility.
It doesn’t take a genius to do the math and figure that I would need to get drafted this year or transfer.
I have a feeling coach is right about my hockey career possibly ending up on a pond somewhere.
No one’s going to want to waste a scholarship spot on their team for me, not even for one season, because I have a feeling coach would make sure a troublemaker reputation follows me.
As for getting drafted into the NHL, I refuse to think about that long shot. Every player on every Division I college team and every junior hockey player in Canada wants the same thing. No fucking chance it’s going to happen to me. I need to finish college and get my degree.
And I need to keep my scholarship to graduate. If not, it’s fish for me, the never-ending nauseating smell of fish for the rest of my life.
As soon as my skates hit the ice, I re-focus.
All I can do is play my best hockey and fuck the coach.
We’re getting ready for the final stretch to the playoffs, and our game Saturday against B.C.
is important. Fuck Rossi too. I’ll let someone else get him back for the dirty hit last time we matched up.
Though my whole family will be at the UNH v.
BC game—except Connor, who has his own game, playing with the AHL team in Buffalo—to root for me against our bitter rival.
That rival being Rossi, not BC. So yeah, they’ll give me extra shit if I don’t take a shot at him. What else is new? It’s nearly impossible to stay neutral in the Jennings v. Rossi rivalry. I’m being comically generous to call it a rivalry.
As I swing around behind the net, I shave the ice, coming to a stop. My heart stutters as I try not to imagine the last time I saw Fifi—
Bog catches up to me, bumping me lightly into the boards. “I don’t know why he has a chip on his shoulder.”
I look at Bog and for a second, try to work out if he’s talking about Rossi or coach. “Who? Rossi?”
He nods. “Almost as big as yours. He has you in his crosshairs like he’s Rambo. What’s that all about?”
It’s not the first time Bog has asked me about Rossi. He’s been out to get me since he broke into his team’s lineup last season. He’s not exactly their star player.
I shrug.
“You’re both from Rye, so you must know him. Bad blood?”
Surprise almost reaches my expression at his guess, and I wonder what he knows.
What’s going on suddenly that coach called me out on the Rossi feud and now Bog is hinting at it?
I push away from the boards without answering him, but he follows, and we skate a circle around the rink as everyone joins us.
Glancing at the clock, I see we’re all on time, so there won’t be any gassers.
The assistant coach, Winnick, blows his whistle. Looks like he’s running the practice. Thank fuck. We skate to the bench and listen to him while the stick boys squirt water in our mouths.
“Drills. Three on three. Start with the fourth line against the third.” He blows his whistle, and the six guys onto the ice line up at center ice. The rest of us jump over the boards to sit on the bench.
“I hear Rossi is rich,” Bog says, grinning. “That has to annoy you.”
I look at my friend and laugh, recognizing he’s not going to stop until he gets me to talk about Vincent Rossi, otherwise known as my nemesis.
“His family has money. A shit ton of it. He’s had the world handed to him.
Plus, if I’m truthful, he’s a decent hockey player.
Not as good as I am, and not likely to make it past college, but hell, when he’s done with hockey, he has his family’s empire waiting for him.
So I don’t know why he needs to fuck with me.
” Big fat lie, but I can’t tell him more.
Bog shrugs. “Must have a tiny dick.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t know.” But my joking mood dies because making it or not making it in the pros is no laughing matter. I take another swig of water.
“Don’t let him mess with you. You can’t fight him. Let me do it. You don’t need any blemishes on your record.”
I snort. “Don’t I know. If I don’t make it in hockey, I can look forward to being manager at our family’s small fishery or at our market, or out on the boat. Whatever. Not a win since I can barely tolerate the smell of fish without puking.”
“Dude, that’s rough. Your family would make you work in the fishery when the smell makes you sick?”
“They don’t know. And I’ll never admit it even under the pain of torture and a slow death.”
“You’re such a wannabe martyr.” He chortles and slaps my back.
“But you’re not going to end up a fish martyr because you’re a sure bet to make it to the NHL.
The surest bet on our team.” His words make me smile, but they don’t penetrate enough to instill confidence.
That will take some beast-mode work. And I’m up for it.
Coach Winnick blows the whistle and we hop over the boards onto the ice to take our turn at the three-on-three drill and a half dozen other drills before we end with a last cool down skate around the perimeter.
Skating around the rink at UNH is almost like being home, minus the chaos that is my family.
Nothing against my family. They're everything to me. They're why I tough it out in the summers, working at our fish market and filling in at the fishery when absolutely necessary. They deserve my best because they are the best.
Though it’s an odd fact that the only person who’s ever caught on that I detest the smell of fish isn't anyone from my family—it's Fifi—aka Sofia Rossi.
I shake my head to dislodge her from my mind, where she seems to cling like a barnacle no matter how much I try to shake her.
I haven’t seen her except in passing for over two years, but absence and the impossibility of us ever getting together don’t seem to penetrate the connection between her and my imagination.
The only dreams I ever have, that I can remember in the morning, feature her and me… . Fuck. Don't think about that now.
I skate to the bench for water, and on my way, I notice a few girls at the boards watching.
When I skate back, fully intending to flirt and get my mind off the forbidden fruit whose taste I can’t seem to get out of my mouth—even though strictly speaking, I’ve never truly tasted her.
Not the way I want to. The way I was meant to—in another universe.
Removing my helmet to take a swig from the bottle, I turn to the ladies with a smile.
I almost slip and fall on my head because there she is, the one girl I’ve sworn up and down I'd quit flirting with—and who I will be skinned alive over if I’m ever caught doing what I want to do with her—stands there, smiling back, perfect pearly white teeth, luxurious dark hair framing her face, waving a fluffy pink mitten at me. Fifi fucking Rossi.
Nearly smashing into the boards where they stand forces the other two girls, Ricci and Nina, to step back in alarm, but not Fifi. She laughs. My face no doubt looks fierce, and I can feel my eyes blaze. I wonder if she can see the war between fiery passion and fear for my life.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I whisper-shout.
She rolls her eyes. “It’s a public place. And I’m now officially a UNH student.”
“What? Since when? Never mind. Why?” I want to say Of all the colleges in all the world why did you show up here? But does the answer matter? She’s just dished me one hella problem and doesn’t even know half what a temptation she is.
But when the bright red strobe light warning me of imminent danger starts fading, I really look her over, and the spark of mischief in her eyes is unmistakable. She’d warned me of her rebellious streak once long ago.
Still, I don’t think she realizes how serious the consequences would be of anything happening between us.
More for her because her father is one tough son of a bitch, and saying he doesn't like me is like saying the Hatfields were annoyed with the McCoys.
His animosity is mostly because I'm a Jennings boy, but not all. He’s notoriously protective of his daughters.
And there's no way he'd want his daughter getting tangled with the likes of me. But what can he do to me?
Fifi, on the other hand, being his daughter, could end up in a world of trouble.
Even the Mayor of Rye is scared of her S.O.B. dad, though Rossi seems to rule the town with a velvet glove, taking an interest in everything and everyone with almost the same kind of pride he has in his family. Naturally, the mayor is beholden to him as his major—read only—campaign donor.
“Your father let you come here?” Knowing I’m here? I let those unspoken words hang silently between us as I flick a glance at her two friends. They’re listening like a pair of jackals ready to pounce. How did she ever become friends with them?
“Why not?” she challenges me, knowing I won’t say it out loud.
“I thought you were going to Endicott?”
“I decided to transfer. I’d rather take advantage of UNH’s entrepreneurship program than flit around at a pretty oceanside college with a subpar academic program.”
“I can see how you talked him into it. I’m surprised it took you two and a half years to convince him, but not surprised you want to be an entrepreneur.”
“Right?” Her face glows with a real smile, like she’s happy. Like maybe I made her happy because I get her.
She was always smart in school, involved in everything, and the prettiest, sexiest untouchable serious girl in our senior class.
I don’t bother hiding my smirk as I look her over.
She’ll be a fish out of water among the serious entrepreneurs from what I’ve seen.
Bog dated someone from the program, and I’ve seen them at work.
There are a smattering of girls, and none of them were concerned with designer clothes or perfectly coiffed hair and nails.
And they would never wear those shoes to an ice rink.
Fifi’s pink suede boots with chunky heels somehow look more sexy than cute.
Maybe it’s because they’re directly attached to her long, shapely legs, which are perfectly outlined in her skin-tight jeans.
Her jeans are the only item of clothing she’s wearing that might be considered even semi-normal on this campus.
Her fluffy pink and white faux-fur jacket is definitely not standard-issue or to be found in a store anywhere near campus or any of the online shops that Google would feed to students here.
“You know you’re going to stand out like a fireworks display at a Sunday picnic.”
I only have a chance to glimpse her stormy expression before coach blows his whistle, calling practice. Shit. If she hangs around…
What? I’ll be forced to confront her like an adult and behave? I can handle this. There’s no need to cave into my urge to flirt with her. No need to—shit. Who am I kidding? This is Fifi, star of my X-rated dreams we’re talking about.
I skate away before she has a chance to unwittingly tempt me with another word.