Power Play (BU Hockey Season 2, #3)

Chapter 1 Blue

Blue

My life is like a princess movie.

Specifically, that one where all the fairies come down when the baby princess is born and they bestow her with gifts. That’s basically real-time footage of my birth. I mean, how else would you explain how damn lucky I am?

I’m a privileged guy, and I damn well know it.

My family is financially well-off, so money has never been a worry for me.

My grades have always been better than the effort I put into achieving them, and I know not everybody has it that easy.

I make friends naturally, and I’ve never been turned down for a date. Not once.

Plus, I’ve been blessed with enough talent to play the sport I love.

Granted, my hockey career will be over in a year and a half when I graduate, but that just means I need to pack a lifetime of fun into the next eighteen months.

I can do that. It’s just another one of the special gifts those fairies must have given me.

Honestly, they spoiled me, and I’m grateful.

But then one of them fucking cursed me.

It’s the only plausible explanation for why my charmed existence has one fatal flaw: I can’t hold my liquor.

Or my beer. If I’ve had more than three alcoholic beverages of any sort, there’s a one hundred percent chance I’ll be laid out on the bathroom floor regretting my actions and puking my guts up by morning.

And the real bitch of it is that I’ll also wake up with a hangover.

That’s just plain cruel. If my stomach has violently rejected all the booze I foolishly poured into it, how can said booze make me feel like my skull is being cracked open by tiny gremlins wielding hammers and chisels?

It’s completely unfair, and, honestly, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson the first few times I wrapped my arms around the toilet and prayed to the porcelain gods.

I’m sorry to say you’d be wrong.

It’s not like I get smashed every night, or even every weekend. In fact, since I transferred to Bainbridge at the beginning of last semester, I’ve only gotten shit-faced about three times. Yes it’s pitiful, but it’s also an improvement from my first two years of college.

I’m making progress. And I’ve learned from experience that if I can just close my eyes and will myself back to sleep for another hour or so, my headache will start to ease up and there’ll only be a couple of weapon-wielding gremlins left in my head.

But there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now, not with all the noise.

It’s so freaking loud in here that it sounds like I fell asleep on the tarmac at the airport and now that the sun is shining, all the planes are taking off.

I turn my head to the side and peel one eye open, just to make sure I’m not laid out on asphalt right now.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve woken up outside after a night of drinking, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen again.

When I look around the room, I notice two things.

The first is that it’s not spinning. That’s a definite win.

But then I realize I’m not in my bedroom.

Apparently, three flights of stairs were just too much for my drunk ass to climb last night, so I flopped down on one of the couches in the living room and drifted off to sleep.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Our couches are comfy as hell.

I’ve slept in way worse places. The pillowy softness that’s cushioning my ass right now is not the problem.

Liza DeWalt is. And so is the vacuum she’s using.

It's too damn early for that shit. And I guarantee if it was Mickey out here on the couch, she wouldn’t be firing up her power-cleaning tools.

She wouldn’t rouse Ollie or Dean or any of the other guys.

Nope. If they were passed out here the way I am, she'd be nice and quiet. Hell, she’d probably offer to pull down the blinds or get them an extra blanket.

But not me.

She’s hated me since the day she moved into the hockey house, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

It’s not like I go out of my way to piss her off.

I really don’t. It just comes naturally to me.

Ever since that very first day and the unfortunate glitter incident—which I have apologized for repeatedly—Liza has been pissed at me.

The big ass box of glitter wasn’t supposed to fall on her.

My intended target was Ollie Jablonski, or any of the other guys on the hockey team.

Unfortunately, Liza walked right into the trap I set for my new teammates, and she’s never forgiven me.

She had every right to be pissed. My prank backfired and instead of apologizing immediately, I laughed my ass off. That was the wrong thing to do.

Liza doesn’t suffer fools, and I’m the class clown.

The roar of the vacuum reaches an alarming level as I watch her pivot from the hallway into the living room. She spots me right away, but doesn’t bother to turn off the demon machine or even slow down on her mission to clean the carpet.

“Is that really necessary?” I ask, sitting up and scratching at my chest.

I’m rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, so I can’t see her eyeroll, but I can feel it.

Finally, Liza turns the machine off, but the sigh she gives me is nearly as loud.

“Is what necessary? Running the vacuum? Yes. I’m not sure if you’re aware,” she says, her words pointed, “but we have a household chore chart. I’m on floors this week.

In case you’re wondering, you are on bathroom duty. ”

Of course I am, and I’d bet a hundred bucks that Liza made the list.

“Okay, I get that you have to vacuum, but do you have to do it now?” I ask, yawning as I stretch. “It’s too damn early to make that much noise.”

Liza levels me with a look that would make a weaker man piss his pants. She’s a ballbuster, but she doesn’t scare me. I probably shouldn’t brag about that. It’s not that I’m brave, it’s that I lack any real sense of self preservation.

Take this moment as an example. Liza’s base level of annoyance with mean hovers around a nine out of ten on the best of days.

If I were a smarter man, I’d head up to my own room, pull on my headphones, and try my best to catch a few more hours.

Or, I could make a cup of coffee and make the best of the fact that I’m now awake at ass o’clock.

I’ve got lunch plans with my dad today, but there’s no telling what I could accomplish in the next few hours before I have to get ready and go.

I could catch up on homework, go for a run, watch a few episodes of my favorite show, or even clean a bathroom.

I could. I probably should.

But I won’t.

I’ve got a hell of a sadistic streak, because it’s way more fun to sit here and bicker with Liza.

She switches the vacuum back on and weaves her way around the room, making perfect lines as she goes. I track her movements so I can shove my discarded clothes out of her way, and also because, well…she’s hot.

I know, I know. I’m probably going to hell for ogling a woman who loathes my existence, but I’m only twenty-one years old. I’ve got plenty of time to repent.

“Oh. My. God. Are these yours?” she asks, and there’s no mistaking the horror and disdain in her voice. I look down to see where she’s pointing with her toe. Yep. Those are, in fact, my boxers.

I scoop them up quickly and toss them on the pile that already contains the sweats, hoodie, and socks I was wearing last night. “My bad,” I say, genuinely meaning my apology. I don’t know why she’s choosing to vacuum at this hour, but she shouldn’t have to sweep around my skivvies.

Liza’s eyes roam up and down my body. Granted, not much is visible because I’m lying under a pile of blankets, but I feel every ounce of her attention. “Are you naked?” she asks, blushing so furiously that her cheeks nearly match the burgundy BU Wolves sweatshirt she’s wearing.

“I get hot when I sleep,” I tell her, because it’s the truth, but my explanation does nothing to mollify her. If anything, she looks more horrified.

“You’re on the couch!” she shrieks.

“Yeah, I passed out last night and—”

“And you just decided to strip down and sleep on communal property? In case it has escaped your attention, we all use these couches, and now that I know your…bits and pieces have been all over the fabric, I—”

“Woah,” I say, putting my hands up to stop her tirade because first of all, she’s too damn loud. But also, I take issue with her word choice. “Bits and pieces? My bits are jumbo-sized and my piece is plenty—”

“Stop! Just stop talking,” she pleads, damn near making my eardrums bleed.

“Then you need to stop yelling,” I tell her. “What? It’s not enough that you woke me at this ungodly hour, but now you’re going to make everybody in the whole house get up?”

Liza stands in front of me, blinking rapidly. “Ungodly hour? What are you talking about? No one else is sleeping right now. Not even Mickey. It’s noon.”

I freeze as my brain processes her words. “Are you fucking with me? It’s not noon. It can’t be noon.”

“And yet, it is,” she responds, holding her phone up in front of my face.

The digital display spells out my doom.

“Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fucking-fuck,” I mutter, reaching for my sweats.

“Don’t you dare move that sheet,” she warns, her voice both lethal and high-pitched.

I look up at her. “I have to get dressed. Shiiiiit. I’m gonna be late,” I say, grabbing my shirt and tugging it over my head.

If there’s one thing my father hates more than the fact that I’m choosing to play hockey during my college career instead of pledging his old fraternity, it’s tardiness.

And even if I haul ass out of this house in the next five minutes and hit every green light from here to North Creek Country Club, I know I’m still going to walk into the restaurant and find him already seated at a table and keeping track of the time.

Liza’s still staring at my lap like she can see the outline of my morning wood through the layers of blankets.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there’s curiosity in her gaze, but I do know better.

Liza thinks I’m a spoiled rich kid who doesn’t know the meaning of hard work.

She thinks that all I care about is a good time, and that I’m a waste of space.

She thinks my looks and my privilege have gotten me this far in life, so there’s nothing below the surface.

She thinks I’m all talk and no substance.

She’s not completely wrong, but she’s not totally right, either.

But now is not the time for me to set her straight.

The clock is ticking, I’m still naked, and my beautiful nemesis shows no signs of leaving the room.

I’m trying to figure out if I can shimmy my way into my boxers without pulling the covers off my lap, but luckily I don’t have to enact that plan because Liza lights out of the room like she can read my mind.

Damn, I hope she can’t.

Liza’s never been shy about her feelings for me, and by that I mean she’ll happily tell anyone that I’m her least favorite player on the team.

Hell, probably her least favorite person on campus, or even the east coast. She doesn’t like me, and I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her prickly, know-it-all attitude.

But that doesn’t mean I’m immune to her beauty.

It doesn’t mean I don’t wonder what would have happened if I’d never set that stupid glitter prank up to mess with my teammates.

I don’t have time to worry about that right now, though, because I’ve got to get my ass in gear and meet my dad for lunch.

It’ll be a solid hour or more of him droning on about graduate school and the future he has planned for me.

The man’s so obsessed with my career path that he won’t even notice the glazed look in my eyes when he starts yapping about prep courses for the GMAT or how I need to get serious about networking and making the right connections so I can follow in his footsteps and take the finance world by storm when I join his investment firm.

It’s the same story every time we get together, and I’m so fucking tired of it, I could scream.

But I won’t. I’ll play along because I know it’s a battle I’ll never win.

On the bright side, the North Creek Country Club serves brunch until two p.m., and that means there’s just enough time for me to eat my weight in French toast. My dad will order his usual egg white western omelet and look at me with bewilderment when I order a second platter before he’s halfway through his eggs.

It’s a small, delicious act of rebellion, but it’s all I’ve got, so I’m going to enjoy it.