Staking Time (The Steel City #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

boston

I don’t have the patience for this shit.

I’m a patient guy. Had to be patient my whole life. Patiently waiting for my parents to show up at the farm again. Patiently waiting for them to pay the bills so I could shower. Patiently waiting for them to decide to be parents.

I’ve developed the longest temper on planet earth, but for this? No patience at all.

“Sorry, darling,” I grumble, nudging her off my lap for the tenth time. There are five perfectly sittable laps at this table. She can find another. “Not tonight.”

I love women. I appreciate women. I respect women. But when I kindly ask you to stop touching me, sitting on me, and putting your hand that close to my fucking dick, and you don’t, that’s when I have a problem. I’m on request four with her, and she still isn’t getting it.

“Hey, Goldie,” Carter Forkerro says, reaching down to take her hand. He pulls the girl in the gold dress off my lap and passes her across the booth in one smooth movement. “Have you met Reno?”

I catch his eye and dip my chin in thanks. He flashes me a token, Forker wink and drops that girl right into Reno Rossi’s eager arms. Rossi’s baby face lights up like it’s the fourth of July, hand immediately on her leg, hers around the back of his neck.

I let out a breath of relief. Reno will give her all the attention she wants. I would have just let her down anyway when I went home within the hour.

“Move over,” Forker orders, gesturing into the booth.

We’re at Icebox, the team’s favourite bar.

Usually, time with the guys is something I enjoy.

Something I do to let off a little steam.

Not tonight. Goldie, over there, made my mood turn sour quicker than I’d like to admit.

I hate the attention we get just because we’re professional athletes.

I don’t trust anyone who shows any interest in me anymore.

I shove over and Forker slides in next to me. He cradles his J?ger and redbull in his hand, shooting me a look of sympathy. “Harder for them to accost you when you’re not on the edge of the table.”

I cock a brow. “You up for being accosted tonight?”

The answer better be no.

He lets out a breathy laugh, shaking his head. Good. No. Not since he met Arden. “Nah, but I have a higher tolerance for pushy girls who think I’m pretty.”

I snort, bringing my whiskey to my mouth.

My tolerance for anything besides my career and my farm is next to nothing.

The boys are good, too, if I’m in the mood for their shit.

The reason I don’t date, the reason I rarely take anyone home anymore, is because I don’t want to.

It’s that simple. I don’t feel the need to bring someone home who I’m never going to settle down with, who I’m never going to marry.

Women want that shit. They look at me with hope in their eyes, like they’ll be the ones to change me, but they fail to realize it’s impossible.

I’ve only ever let one woman change who I am. Her name was Mom. I won’t let that shit happen again.

Since I pride myself on not being a total piece of shit, I never let it get very far.

Sure, some company would be nice every so often, and I’m not a monk—I’ll take a girl home once in a while.

But I’m not a dude who will play with their feelings.

It’s clear what it is, from start to finish, and I don’t see them again.

Ever. There is one exception to that rule, but that’s an entirely different situation.

Icebox is a hockey bar. It’s the Pittsburgh hockey bar. More often than not, girls like Goldie are here because they came looking for us. I can’t do that shit. It’s not organic. It’s not natural. Makes me feel like a pawn in someone else’s game, and that’s not something I’ll let myself be.

“Hey, Thirty-Three!” Oscar calls out from the middle of the booth. All heads snap up to Declan Lowes, waltzing in looking sharp and sober. He buries his hands in the pockets of his black pants, taking a quick glance at the girls situated on various laps. “Where’s Penny?”

“Penny is at home with the kids,” Declan says. He grabs a chair from one of the nearby tables and brings it to the edge of the booth, dropping himself onto it.

The kids. In Lowesy and Penny’s language, that means their dogs.

They’re on number three now. It’s a full house, but I still beat them by a mile on that front.

Knowing Sweeten, she is still planning to adopt more.

She should really take the farm off my hands and bring in all the little homeless guys she wants.

I’d miss it, but I would trust her with it.

“I’m here for one beer,” he announces, pattering his fingers against the table, “and one beer only.”

“Come on,” Forker whines. “One?”

“Where’s Arden?” Dec asks. He says it with a bit of an edge. Proving a point.

“Hospital,” Forker says in a similar tone, mocking him as he smiles wide. “Night shift. So, I want a boys’ night.”

I huff a laugh and shake my head. Forker will always find a hundred excuses for fun.

Boys’ night? Arden’s actually off shift for once and is coming out with us?

One of us got out of a speeding ticket? He shit thrice in one day?

Forker loves his fun, and he hates when the rest of us aren’t on board with his plans.

I admire it. I would love to be that carefree all the time.

Not in my nature, unfortunately.

“Can’t help you tonight, Fork.” Declan sighs, smacking his hand on Forker’s shoulder. He stands, heading to the bar for that one beer, which forces Fork to slowly turn his attention back to me. He flashes me an innocent smile that looks anything but on that fucking face.

“No.”

“Come on!”

“No,” I grumble, shaking my head. I’m already regretting coming out at all.

“I’m down,” Oscar announces.

Forker’s face lights up a bit, but his eyes slice back to mine. “You need to live a little.”

I roll my eyes, reaching into my pocket to unwrap a stick of pink bubblegum. I pop it into my mouth. Live a little. That would be nice. I have been more on edge than usual lately, but I’ve got my own shit going on. Shit I don’t want to bother the guys with. Embarrassing shit. Family shit.

Getting drunk and sleeping with women has never been the way I solve my problems. Work does that. I work harder at practice. I work harder on game nights. The farm has never looked better, even when I’m doing all the work on my own. That’s how I cope.

“Maybe next time.”

Forker lets out a dramatic sigh, leaning forward so he can speak to the more influenceable boys in the booth.

Reno is already swapping spit with Goldie.

Oscar is grinning from ear to ear. Waters, who has been the city’s most eligible bachelor since his cup-winning rookie season, looks just as interested in Forker’s plan as he does.

Good. The kid deserves it. Plus, half of them will be scurrying on home in the next few weeks for the off-season. They should have a boys’ night.

Lowesy falls back into his chair with his beer, his gaze meeting mine. The boys start talking about getting a round of shots and I mentally check out of this evening at the same time.

I blow a bubble, and Declan angles his head a bit.

“You good?” he mouths.

My bubble pops, and I shrug.

Yeah.

Nothing I haven’t been through before.

Lowesy watches me carefully, so I bring my whiskey and Coke to my mouth, forcing a flashy smile his way. That seems to unsettle him more than it comforts him and his brow furrows even deeper.

We’ve got a brotherhood thing between us.

Have for a while, to be honest, but it got even tighter after the last couple of seasons.

It’s him, it’s me, and it’s the idiot beside me that’s definitely going to end up fighting some poor asshole tonight.

We check on each other and help each other, but we’ve all got boundaries.

Mine are a bit tighter than most.

Forker’s parents are divorced, but they’re best friends.

His mom, dad, and their new partners are all buddies now.

He’s got his very own brand of Brady Bunch going on, without all the kids.

He has a little sister who looks at him like he hung the fucking moon.

His childhood was unicorns and rainbows.

Comes from money, never had to work for much in his life, apart from getting into the league, and even that was easy for him. Forker’s one talented mother fucker.

Me? Two brothers. Three, technically. One is dead. Died young, too, right in front of me. Was a bit confused standing over my youngest brother, not understanding why he wasn’t moving. I screamed at my mom, who was passed out on the couch, for giving him a blue popsicle when I didn’t get one.

There was no popsicle. His lips were just blue because he was dead.

That’s how my dad found out that my mom had a drug addiction. Because my little brother, Ryan, overdosed on what she’d left on the table. Before she went to prison for a good chunk of my life, she persuaded my dad to try her favourite candy to grapple with his grief.

It made her feel good and forget it all, so why wouldn’t it help him? It made her numb, and why wouldn’t he want that after burying his four-year-old?

She went to prison for a long time and left my dad in charge of taking over her drug addiction and taking care of their remaining children. He did. With ease. The first one, at least.

Carter has Ariana. He has a sister to take care of.

I have one dead brother and two that have become strangers to me.

Miller is a lawyer, living somewhere in Arizona, the last I heard.

He’s the oldest. Took off the day he turned eighteen without looking back.

Never checked in on the two little brothers he had left behind in that mess.

The ones who had to live in that house where the ghost of our brother still played.

Kane is a contractor. Does all sorts of shit.

He’s still in our hometown in Saskatchewan.

The only one of us that checks on Mom and Dad anymore—that looks for them when they go missing for months at a time.

We don’t check on each other, but he’ll send a text with one-sentence updates if he needs to.

He needed to. Which is why I’m crankier than fucking hell tonight.

Lowesy is an only child, but had a happy childhood filled with love.

His parents are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

He visits them whenever he can, and they’re always sending him care packages from up north in Canada.

Further north than my home. Nevermind the friend group he fell into.

He struck gold with them. Got engaged to his best friend in the end. Won a girl who would go to war for him.

Talking about Penny was hard for him when he was going through it. I respected that. It’s why I know he’ll respect the boundaries made of fucking steel that I’ve built around me.

He knows a little. I’m not going to let him know a lot.

He’s still watching me with interest. Takes a sip of his beer when Forker pulls out his phone to bark at a few more teammates to come out. That’s my cue, and by the look on Lowesy’s face, that’s his cue too.

“Boss.”

I meet his eyes, swinging back the rest of my drink.

“Need a ride home?” he asks. It was a wonderful thing when he bought a house on the outskirts of the city. Brought him closer to me, close enough to save me from wading through hell to get a ride back.

I should have just drove tonight, but Forker persuaded me out of it.

“Promise not to ask me any of the probing questions I see all over your face?” I ask.

He stares at me for a second, and I fucking loathe the worry I see in those stupid golden eyes. “If that’s what you want.”

“Then, yeah. I’d love one.”