Puck Me Twice Over (Jericho Chimeras #6)

CHAPTER ONE

KNOX

Blue eyes, blonde hair and the sort of smile that had been making me weak at the knees since junior high.

Felicity Murphy.

Everything that I could pretend to myself that I hadn’t thought about in the last decade, and sure as hell not when the Fairburn Basilisk’s defenders were double teaming me on the way to their goal posts.

That didn’t stop me from staring right into those blue eyes that couldn’t possibly belong to my first crush, my first kiss—my first fucking everything.

Not right as I took a shot at the goal moments before the buzzer blared.

A shot that landed into the net right before the basilisks’ defenders slammed me sideways hard enough to take me halfway across the ice and into the barrier.

I half expected the tempered glass between me and the crowd to shatter Hollywood style, but it didn’t.

I slid down the dasher boards while fucking canaries chirped and fluttered about the inside of my helmet.

“Christ, Vandevere. Get your ass up.” Shannon Incarson, the Jericho Chimeras’ center and one of my best friends, picked me off the ice as though we weren’t equal in weight.

The man could bench me any day, I swore.

He stood helmet-to-helmet with me, dusted me off while I squinted at him.

“Coach would be handing you your ass if you didn't score just then. You need a fucking nana nap, or what?”

“I’m fine.” I ignored Shannon and searched the stands behind the Basilisks’s goalie, but Felicity’s shade had disappeared.

Hell, let’s be real. She’d never been there in the first damn place.

No chance would that girl be anywhere near a Chimeras’ arena.

Fuck knows why I picked tonight to imagine her after attempting to purge the memory years ago of the girl I loved before anyone else in this world. Yeah, look how that turned out.

Shannon tugged at my helmet. Despite that I’d played on the team for the better part of three years, irritation at the simple gesture burst from me.

"What?" That single syllable turned out a whole lot sharper than I intended. His face swam in front of my face, though there was only one this time, thank God. I bit my tongue until a metallic flavor swarmed over my taste buds, resetting my limits. "Sorry, man."

Shannon stared hard at me. “Do you actually need a medic, or can I slap you later?”

Maybe a little playtime would be good. But no. Not the time or the place, Vandevere.

"Nah. I'm good.” I winced, sure that we all heard the inflection in my voice that made the three words sound like a question. "I'm good," I repeated with a little more oomph.

Another body slammed into mine. "You've got about five seconds to get moving before Coach replaces you." The Chimera’s captain, Hux, did me the favor of holding two fingers in front of my eyes. “How many?"

I managed to flip one finger up with my glove on, and that digit sure as fuck wasn’t my thumb.

“Cute.” Hux laughed, gliding backwards.

The ice cleared of bodies. Coach must've called a time out. I skated over to where the rest of the Chimeras huddled. Shannon still clutched my jersey like an underpaid babysitter keen to prove his worth.

Coach fixed me with a sort of glare that spoke of the intent Shannon and Hux warned me about earlier.

“We got less than a minute left on the clock. You two are up.” He nodded to Shannon and Hux.

“Keep the puck front and center. You’ve practiced the play, so use the distraction.

Don't fuck it up." He eyeballed me. “You’re off. "

I shook my head and held out my glove. Hell no. This was my play, too. We designed it together. Practiced it at four fucking o’clock for the last two weeks for this exact moment. "I’m staying right here."

A pair of heavy eyebrows raised at me. “I just heard, ‘yes, please take me off the ice, Coach’."

Any other day, that might have seemed cute. "I said no." Risking the wrath of the scariest damn man I knew, I glided backward as the Basilisks returned to the ice.

Our next training session would hurt. I’d wear his wrath for this last chance to close the game out. To finish the play. Coach could rip me a new one and rail me good when I was on the ice before him next. Tonight we had a home game to lock away. "I'm good."

“You scored before.” Coach considered. He opened his mouth to argue.

Shannon slid between us, shoving me deeper onto the ice. "Get moving, before he can find a fucking reason, Knox."

"He can do that later." After the game was done. Once we won.

Then the ice was beneath my skates, and the chatter stopped.

This was what hockey was about for me. Despite being slammed earlier, I was back in my element.

The puck flew between Shannon and me, while Hux skated between and around us.

This was a play we’d practiced several times, enough that Shannon and I didn’t fuck it up on demand.

The passes between us looked like a set up attempt at a goal, while in reality we were the real distraction, and Hux lapping us was the final approach.

The Basilisks never saw us coming.

Or rather, they did—but one and one never equaled what Hux could deliver.

The sacrifice happened at exactly the right time. Just as Shannon and I each took the hit from the Basilisks’s defenders who stole no small amount of joy in slamming us into the walls—again—Hux had built up plenty of speed.

The Chimeras’ team captain glided forward as he completed his fourth pass between us.

Then it was simply a matter of right place, right time.

Except that the poor Basilisks’s goalie, whose attention had been fixed on Shannon, didn’t clock that.

He’d been watching the wrong player all along, as planned, while he should have been watching the Captain.

The puck hit the back of the net just the siren blared.

Cheers erupted in the stands as I peered through colors that weren’t my own, still searching for the same smile I'd missed for the last five years since we broke up.

Where the hell is my head right now?

Answer: it should be here, with my team and the game we just won, but it wasn’t.

Shannon hauled my ass off the ice a second time and back to reality. I skated beside him and Hux to where Coach waited for us all, his customary scowl locked in place.

"Nice work."

I smirked. “Was that a compliment?"

"Do you want punishment laps? Because I can provide them."

I laughed, catching a teddy bear that somebody tossed over the barrier at me.

It was branded for the other team that a fan had wrapped in the Chimeras’ colors.

I tugged the dark aqua and black scarf tighter around the bear’s neck, then gave its nose a smooch and raised it above my head in celebration.

Cameras flashed, and hopefully that bear and me would feature on a media page in the next hour.

Whatever Coach thought up that hurt come next practice, that bear made it all worth everything.

“No thanks, Coach. I'll enjoy this one just fine.”

But I still searched the crowd for the ghost of a girl who would never come to watch me skate.

Not after the way we ended.

A hot shower and clean clothes didn’t do shit for my sense of heartbreak that refused to budge.

No win wiped that high school heartbreak level stain away.

I dragged my sorry, goal scoring ass packing my kit up, so I was the last one out of the locker room apart from Coach.

The man who missed nothing who watched me too closely, his hard eye fixed on my slow ass movements.

“You wanna talk about her?"

I clenched my teeth tight enough for my gums to sting. "Who said it was a her?"

"It's always a her."

"Maybe it's a him." Coach knew I’d had a crush on Hux for years.

A Chimeras’ level crush since before I was drafted. The team knew I swung both ways, but in this case, he was right. That pissed me off more than anything.

Coach stood back as I finally shouldered my bag. The Basilisk branded bear, who still wore its Chimera branded scarf, was tucked away safely inside. Hell, I caught him, so I figured I had claiming rights. “See you at training," I called, finally heading for the door.

Coach coughed as I passed. “Knox. What do I need to know about?"

Suddenly I ached for the cool night outside the musty, man sweat stale air that stained the stadium’s underbelly. “Nothing that will affect how I play next session."

But it did tonight. Nearly.

Coach’s silence as I walked away, leaving him standing alone, told me that my level of bullshit did nothing to appease him.

I didn't get the breath of cold air that I craved when I walked outside the empty stadium. I earned myself a fucking deluge. The sort a man built an ark to avoid. It rained fucking buckets.

And because I was still Mister Nice Hockey Player for tonight, this version of me who attempted not to be a conceited ass all the time, I’d parked a decent distance from the entrance. I figured the team claimed enough perks and my legs were plenty strong. A few extra steps never hurt me.

Tonight, that choice bit my ass in a spectacular fashion.

At least no one was around to witness my soggy downfall.

Maybe Coach could laugh at my retreat later.

If the man had a sense of humor. Someone should ask his wife.

She was the only one who knew what the stoic man got up to behind closed doors.

There were rumors, though no one I knew dared ask.

My car wasn't the only one left in the parking lot. Coach’s sedan was parked a few spots away from mine, its sleek form less than a mirage through the shimmering haze.

A few lanes down, I made out another shadowy form that might be a car or a pick up.

It was hard to tell as the clouds offered the slimmest reprieve, then reopened overhead.

Occasionally vehicles were left after fans drank themselves past the legal limit. At least they got away safely if a designated friend took them home then came back to collect sober the next afternoon.