Pucked Off (Pucked #5)(87)

We win the first two games in the series. It’s a good high we’re riding, especially with the way last season ended. I talk to Poppy every day and avoid the bar scene after the games, having learned from Randy and Miller’s past mistakes.

Before we landed in LA, I blocked Tash’s number again. Not that it stops her from finding other ways to contact me. Today she used someone else’s phone to leave me a message.

Poppy has clients all day, so I don’t get in even a short phone conversation with her before I have to get on the ice. Tomorrow night I’ll be back in Chicago, and she and I have plans. I just have to get through this game and the rest of the night, and everything will be fine.

I’m not on the ball, though. I’m distracted. And having lost the last game they played on home ice, LA is chippy. I end up in the penalty box more than once.

After the game, Randy and Miller decide they want to hit the bar for a beer before calling it a night. I don’t go because I know Tash will show up like she does every time we have a game in LA, and this is the first one this season. The majority of the team still likes her because they have no idea what she’s really about.

It’s pretty late by the time I get to my room. I hope Rookie takes whatever bunny he’s picked up tonight back to her place, or gets his own damn hotel room. I’m tired of having to sleep on Miller and Randy’s couch.

I call Poppy, but I get her voicemail. I assume she’s sleeping since it’s even later in Chicago, and she told me she’s been making up for all the hours she’s missed since we started seeing each other.

I pack my bag so it’s ready for tomorrow morning and in case I have to vacate when Rookie comes back with his hands full of bunny. I can understand now, in a way I never did before, why Miller and Randy used to get pissed off about all the bunny shit when I’d have parties.

At twelve thirty, Rookie still hasn’t come up and I’m bagged. I haven’t heard anything from Tash, which should be a relief. But for some reason it isn’t. I send Poppy one last message about how I can’t wait to see her tomorrow, turn off the lights, and attempt to get some sleep.

I’m woken sometime later by the click of the door. I wish I was a heavier sleeper. Quiet whispers and a few giggles follow, along with some shushing from Rookie, who is clearly not alone. I can’t tell if he’s only got one, or if he’s brought along a pair.

“My roommate’s sleeping. We gotta be quiet,” Rookie whispers, but he’s slurry and louder than he probably intends.

Not that it matters. The sound of a cricket can wake me from a dead sleep.

More chatter follows. “Can’t we turn on a light?”

That voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

He laughs. “Then we’ll wake him up for sure.”

“So? Maybe he’ll want to play, too.”

The rustle of clothing follows, and a second female voice whisper-yells ow!

I should’ve known she’d find a way to fuck with me.

I feel the edge of my mattress dip.

“That’s not my bed,” Rookie says.

I smell Tash before I feel her. The scent of my shampoo and her lotion hits me like a puck to the face. I try to untangle myself from the sheets and get out of bed before she reaches me, but I’m not fast enough.

She straddles me and her palm comes to rest on my throat. The light beside my bed comes on, brightness blinding me. Long, dark hair tickles my chest, and the spiders are back, crawling under my skin. Goose bumps rise across my arms. Not the good kind. She pulls down the covers until they reach my waist, then stretches out on top of me. She’s topless. Braless.

“Get off me.” I reach out to grab her wrists, but she shifts around next to me.

“Whoa, Romance, calm down, bro!” Rookie says. “Hey don’t do that.”

Tash’s cheek presses up against mine. “Smile.” The flash blinds me again.

“Fucking Christ. What’s wrong with you?” I’m faster than she is this time. I grab her waist and flip her so she’s face down on the bed and I’m on top of her.

The other girl is staring at us, slack jawed.

Rookie tries to pull me off Tash, but I’m not seeing anything but red right now, so my first instinct is to punch him in the face. He goes reeling back, and the other girl screams.

“Give me the goddamn phone,” I yell at Tash, who’s laughing underneath me.

I stretch out over her, pushing her down into the mattress. In that moment I recognize how close I am to the edge. I wonder if this is what it was like for my mum, if she was always at this point with my dad, if he did the kinds of things to her Tash does to me.

The thought sends my head to dark places, where all the bad things I’ve done over the years taunt me.

I want to hurt Tash the way she’s hurt me. But she’s fucked up. Worse than I am, maybe. And as much as I hate her, I get that her head isn’t right, just like mine.

“You’ll have to fuck me for it,” she laughs.

“Just give me the phone.” I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and the other girl has her phone out. “Don’t.”

It’s too late, though. I know it by the way her eyes jump from me to Tash and back again.

“Sent,” she tells Tash.

Tash stops fighting and drops her phone on the comforter. I nab it and push off the bed as fast as I can, so I’m not touching her, and she’s not touching me.