Risky Play (Philadelphia Bulldogs Book 7)

Chapter 1

MADDIE

JUNE

“Have you told your brother yet?” Dinah, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, asked as she fixed her veil and touched up her makeup.

She asked me to kick her mother out of the room three minutes ago because she was about to explode. Dinah, not her mother. This wedding was supposed to be super low-key, but with my brother being a hockey player and Dinah coming from a large Italian family, it had morphed into a huge affair.

I handed her the flask again, and she took a generous swig. I didn’t care if she was drunk at the altar; all my big brother asked of me was to make sure his bride didn’t have a meltdown. Even though it was totally his fault since he insisted this wedding be perfect.

“Mads?” Dinah asked again.

I sighed. “No.”

“You should have told us you were transferring to Franklin!” she exclaimed. “We would have let you come live with us instead of having to deal with the dorms.”

I shrugged. “I wanted the American Ivy League experience.”

I also didn’t want to be under the constant scrutiny of my overprotective older brother, but I didn’t tell Dinah that. I couldn’t bear to tell her the real reason I transferred to Franklin. When Noah found out about my move, he’d do everything in his power to make me move in with him.

Dinah’s bestie and her matron of honor, Fi, flipped her gorgeous red hair over her shoulder. “You’re going to Franklin?”

I nodded.

“My friend Katie’s a professor there. English.”

“Katherine Fitzgerald?” I asked.

Fi thought for a moment. “Yeah. She used to be at UPENN, but she likes Franklin better.”

“I think I have her for one of my communications classes,” I said and wracked my brain for confirmation.

“You’ll love her,” Fi reassured me and squeezed my arm.

“Are you nervous about transferring?” Dinah asked.

“A little, but at least my brother’s here, so it’s not a completely foreign country.”

They both laughed, and then Roxanne Desjardins came rushing back into the room and looked annoyed. “Okay, D, I get it now. Your mom asked me when Benny and I are getting married.”

“Did you tell her the fifth of never?” Dinah joked.

“Of course!” the tall, curvy woman answered with a laugh.

“Okay, D, are you ready?” Fi asked.

“I’m nervous,” she admitted and took the flask from me again. She took a large gulp that made Rox cheer her on. Rox could hold her liquor like no woman I’d ever seen. It made me want to be her when I grew up.

“D, it’s gonna be fine,” Fi told her gently.

“You love my brother, right?” I asked.

My brother never gave me the whole spiel, but I knew it was a bit of a challenge when he and his next-door neighbor finally got together. Dinah had been married before, but her husband died, so I think she had some hang-ups about it and the fact that she was eight years older than him. Even though nobody gave a shit about that. My mom was five years older than my dad, and it had never affected their relationship.

“I love him so much. I didn’t think I would ever get married again. And…” she trailed off and held a hand against her stomach. “I never thought he’d want me knowing I can’t have children.”

“Oh, D! He loves you, and that doesn’t matter to him,” Fi said.

Ooh, right. Noah had mentioned that to me. It broke my heart for Dinah because she would have been such a good mom. None of that ever mattered to my brother, though. He just wanted her to be happy.

“Noah loves you for you,” I reassured her. “So we’re all going to go out there and watch you say your vows and have your happily ever after.”

“Okay…” Dinah whispered, but she still looked unsure.

“Girl, come on, you two are so sickeningly cute!” Rox encouraged. “Let’s get you married.”

“You’re next,” Fi teased.

Rox made a face. “Hard pass!”

Fi led us out of the bridal suite, and we began the procession down the aisle. She walked with her hot, blonde, hockey-playing husband, while I walked with Noah’s best friend TJ. TJ’s fiancée wasn’t a bridesmaid because she had been pregnant for most of the wedding planning, and now she had her hands full, literally, with twin babies. I took my place behind Fi and watched as Rox and Benny walked down the aisle next.

My brother had his long hockey flow down but out of his face, and his beard was freshly trimmed. I was glad he had listened to me about the beard but not about pulling his hair back into a fashionable man-bun. He hated those.

I gave him a thumbs-up when he caught my eye.

Panic was etched across his face, and he looked like he was sweating in his tux. Oh, poor guy.

Noah wanted everything to be perfect for his wife, but Dinah would have much preferred getting married in a pair of jeans and a hockey jersey at the courthouse. She was doing all of this for him and her family. I guessed that was what love was like—sacrificing things for your partner even when you didn’t want them. I’d never known that. Never got far enough with anyone to feel that way about someone.

The music switched to the bridal procession, and I was pretty sure Dinah was gritting her teeth in annoyance behind her veil. Rox nudged me with an elbow so I wouldn’t laugh. My brother turned, and his face broke out into a big smile. He looked so happy, and I loved that for him.

I watched as Noah bent down to his pint-sized partner and lifted the veil over her face. She reached up a hand to brush across his beard, and their love poured out between them. A spike of jealousy ran through me. My brother and Dinah were so freaking cute together. I wanted that one day, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever find that if my brother disapproved of every guy I was interested in. Not that he didn’t have his reasons. I wished he’d forget about what happened with my ex last year.

I daydreamed during the ceremony until the preacher announced them married, and the happy couple kissed. I made a face. I didn’t need to see Noah’s tongue in Dinah’s mouth.

“They’re so extra,” Rox chided beside me.

Fi barked out a laugh. “You have no room to talk.”

Rox shrugged with a mischievous look.

We spent an hour getting pictures done while everyone else was enjoying cocktail hour. I was grateful I was twenty-one and could legally drink here in the States.

“You okay?” Dinah whispered in my ear when we settled at the long table in the banquet hall.

I nodded.

“You sure?” she asked.

I nodded again and took a sip of my cranberry vodka. “I’m so happy you’re my sister-in-law now.”

She squeezed my hand. “Me too.”

I looked down at my plate, and when I looked back up, my eyes locked with the hottest man I had ever seen.

His dark hair was styled back with the ends curling around his ears. He was clean-cut and looked sharp in a blue pin-striped suit that stretched across his broad chest. He smiled at me, and when I saw a full row of pearly white teeth, I got excited, thinking that meant he wasn’t a hockey player.

Dinah nudged me. “He’s cute.”

Cute didn’t even cut it.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s Cally. I forgot we didn’t introduce you yet.”

I groaned.

Cally. That was one hundred percent a stupid hockey nickname.

Because of course he was a hockey player at my hockey-playing brother’s wedding. If he played with Noah, that meant he was off-limits. Or rather, I was off-limits. Hockey players didn’t break the code. If they did, there was hell to pay. I’d seen it so many times before growing up in hockey culture.

Dinah squeezed my arm. “Ask him to dance later.”

“What? No! Noah would flip out.”

At the sound of his name, my brother turned to us with a smirk. “What are you two scheming about over there? What would I flip out about?”

Dinah gave him a sweet smile, and it was like a light switch got flipped because my brother looked like he would do anything she said. Holy shit, Dinah was the alpha in their relationship. “Oh, babe, Maddie told me great news.”

He furrowed his brow. “What?”

I opened my mouth, not sure what she was playing at, but she beat me to it. “She’s moving to Philly.”

“What?” Noah snapped, and I immediately had my hackles up.

“I’m transferring to Franklin U,” I explained.

The crease in his brow deepened. “What?”

“C’mere you,” Dinah ordered, and she pulled his face to hers to meet him in a long kiss. I gagged because I’m pretty sure I saw some tongue again. Ew.

When I quit trying to throw up in my mouth, I realized what she was doing. She was distracting him for me. Dinah was the best! Rox figured out what was going on, too, because she grabbed my wrist and led me over to the bar to grab herself another drink.

“So your brother does that whole big brother protective bullshit thing?” the older woman asked.

I sighed. “Rox, he scares every dude away. Every single one!”

She tried not to laugh.

“How did TJ take it when he found out about you and Benny?” I asked.

Hockey players not breaking the code? Yeah, Rox’s partner Benny did that with her.

She grimaced and took a sip of her drink. “Terribly. He heard us having sex.”

I felt my eyes bulge out of my head. “What?”

She shrugged. “Whatever, it was good sex. I’m not ashamed of it. But then he punched Benny in the stomach and drank him under the table. The next day, TJ and my dad made him bag skate while Benny was hungover. He said it was worth it.”

“Aw!” I cooed.

She smiled. “He’s a big softie.”

“Who’s a big softie?” a deep voice rumbled behind us.

“You are,” she told him with a big smile as he leaned down to kiss her. Benny was the biggest guy on the team, but Rox was on the tall side, so he didn’t have to bend that far. Not like my brother and his pocket-sized wife.

Benny eyed the two of us as he wrapped his arm around Rox from behind and kissed her neck. I was so jealous. I wanted a guy to look at me the way Benny looked at Rox. Like he couldn’t wait to peel her out of her clothes later. Why couldn’t I have that?

“What are you two up to?” he asked.

“Getting Maddie out from under Noah’s watchful eye.”

He snorted. “Noah? The nicest person I’ve ever met?”

I groaned. “Not to any guy I’ve ever been interested in.”

Benny furrowed his brow. “I hate that shit.”

“I know, love,” Rox muttered to him and brought him down for another kiss.

I turned away from them, not wanting to intrude on their moment.

My eyes traveled over to the man I had spied earlier, and he had definitely been staring at me like he liked what he saw. I could work with that. I was ready to take my V card out of my back pocket, and it didn’t matter to me who it was with. Besides, a wedding one-night stand could be fun.