Him (Him #1)(11)

He doesn’t even spare a glance at her perfect ass as she sashays away.

After she disappears, Wes opens his arms and grins at the group of hockey players standing around him. “Shit, we’re just a bunch of pussies, aren’t we? Root beer and ginger ale on a Friday night. Someone call the cops. We need a game of darts or something.”

“Table hockey!” someone calls out. “Saw it in the game room.”

“Cassel!” Wes thumps the guy standing next to him. “Who won our last game, anyway?”

“You did, you prick. Because you cheated during the shootout.”

“Who, me?”

Everyone laughs. But my mind snags on “shootout.”

Of course it does.





5





Wes





The college sprang for an executive suite at TD Garden, a fancy-ass private box with a gleaming floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the arena below. The celebratory bottles of Dom that had been delivered, however, were courtesy of my shithead father. The prick is riding the high of our win as if it had been him out on the ice this afternoon—I even heard him bragging to one of his buddies that he was the one who taught me that triple-deke move I used to score the winning goal in the third period.

Bullshit. The old man hadn’t taught me a damn thing. From the moment I was able to hold a hockey stick, he threw money at coaches and trainers and anyone else who could groom his only son into a superstar. The only credit I’m willing to give him is that he’s really f*cking good at signing his name on a check.

Canning’s team is on the ice now, facing the same pressure we did earlier. Coach has allowed us each one glass of champagne. We’re playing in the finals tomorrow night, and he wants us sharp. He doesn’t have to worry about me, though. I’m sipping on a root beer. Not just as a f*ck-you to my dad, but because my stomach is in knots as I watch the game, and alcohol will only make it worse.

I want Rainier to win.

I want to face Canning in the finals.

I want to pretend I still don’t have feelings for the guy.

I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with two out of three. Because I can’t pretend I’m not still into him. Seeing him again last night made that impossible.

Fuck, he’d looked good. Really good. All golden-boy California hotness, big and blond and sexy as f*ck. With those soulful brown eyes—surprising on a blond guy. It’s an understated sexiness, though. Jamie Canning never flaunted his looks in all the time I’d known him. Sometimes I think he’s not even aware of how goddamn attractive he is.

“Oooooh shit,” one of the seniors crows as a Rainier player delivers what might be the hit of the week.

It’s a clean check, but it makes the opposing player bounce off the boards like a rubber ball and sprawl face-first on the ice.

Rainier is in it to win it. They’re playing aggressively, all offense, all the time. I don’t think Yale has taken more than a dozen shots on goal, and it’s already well into the third. Canning stopped all but one, and the one he let in was a total fluke of a shot, smacking off the pipe to provide Yale with a rebound the center slapped right back in. I could practically hear the hiss of the puck as it whizzed past Canning’s glove, just a nanosecond too fast for him to swallow it up.

The score’s tied now. 1-1, with five minutes to go. I find myself holding my breath, willing Rainier’s forwards to make something happen.

“Your man Canning is rock steady,” Cassel tells me, taking a dainty sip of his champagne like he’s the f*cking Queen of England.

“Cool under pressure,” I agree, my gaze glued to the rink. Yale’s left wing just flicked a lazy wrist shot that Canning easily stops, his body language almost bored as he keeps possession of the puck before passing it to one of his wings.

The Rainier players tear past the blue line, going on the attack.

But my mind is still on the last goal attempt, the way Canning faced off with the Yale player. I can’t even count how many times I was in that exact position, flying toward my buddy, slapping bullets at him.

Except the last time we faced off, I was the one in the net. The last barrier standing between Jamie Canning and a blowjob.

I like to think I didn’t let him win on purpose. I’m a competitor, always have been. Didn’t matter how much I wanted Canning’s dick in my mouth. Didn’t matter that if I won, I knew I’d have to let him back out of the bet. I’d defended that net with everything I had. Maybe?

Because when that puck flew past me, I can’t deny a part of me had been thrilled.

“With that said, I wouldn’t bawl my eyes out if they lose,” Cassel says. He turns to grin at me. “I know he’s your BFF and all, but I’d feel better going up against Yale’s goalie than cool cucumber down there.”

Cassel’s right. Canning’s the bigger threat. Those weaknesses he’d had back in the day? Gone. He’s a f*cking rock star now. No wonder he got the starting job back.

Even so, I don’t want him to lose. I want to see him in the finals. I want to see him, period. And I’ve experienced crushing defeat before—if his team chokes, I know he won’t be up for hanging out, catching up, reconnecting…

Sucking each other off?

I banish the thought. I don’t f*cking learn, do I? The last time sucking entered the equation, I’d lost my best friend.