Kiss and Don't Tell
Meghan Quinn
Prologue
PACEY
Man, I’m a fucking idiot.
Bet you haven’t heard that from a man before . . .
Yeah, every man on the face of this earth has uttered those sacred words at least a dozen times.
I’ve been a fucking idiot so many times, I’ve lost count.
But this . . .
This is by far the biggest screwup I’ve ever made.
Oh, you’re intrigued? You want to know what qualifies this particular situation as my biggest screwup?
Easy.
One word . . . love.
Okay, okay, I know I’m not the only guy who’s fucked up when it comes to love. Frankly, I believe it’s human nature to fuck up with matters of the heart. But it’s my first time. That’s what makes this so special.
Yup, first-timer.
A virgin . . . well, not a sexual virgin, a love virgin. I’ve had plenty of sex. Not that we need to get into that, but I’m not a virgin.
See, this is the problem. This right here. The rambling, the not using my brain. I would like to blame my almost season-ending injury, but that would be a scapegoat. I’m just a dumbass.
Getting sick of me beating around the bush? If you were in my bed you wouldn’t.
I know, I’m annoyed with me too.
Okay, so I fucked up. How? Well, I’ll keep it short and simple . . .
Rainstorm.
Random girl shows up at cabin.
Random girl stays with us . . . don’t worry, we will get into that.
Random girl turns out to be my half-brother’s ex-girlfriend.
She doesn’t know.
But I know.
Do you think I tell her?
Nah, why would I do that? That’s the intelligent thing to do and as we established, I am a dumbass.
Does she find out? Yup.
Does she get mad? Ohhh yeah.
Does she leave me . . . sad, alone, and love deprived?
One hundred percent.
Do I deserve it?
More than you know.
But more importantly, do you think I should have a chance at winning her heart back?
NO?
What?
Before you decide, just listen to the story. I’m pretty sure you will have a change of heart.
Chapter One
PACEY
“Dude, you’re killing the vibe,” Hornsby says from the pool. “Don’t make me be the dad and make me turn off the Wi-Fi.”
Ignoring him, I watch the highlight clip on my phone one more time. Body fake to the left, deke right, crossover, shoots to upper left pocket . . . and he fucking scores.
It was simple.
Any teenager could pull off that move. Hell, I wouldn’t even call it a move, I would call it basic hockey skills.
And yet, I didn’t stop it.
“Watch it all you want. It’s not going to change anything,” Taters, our right wing, says.
“But how, how did we miss this block?” I toss my phone on my large pool lounger and lean back, pushing my hand through my hair. “It was fucking rudimentary, and I let it go right between my legs.”
“That one shot didn’t cost us the playoffs,” Taters answers. “Everyone had a part in that massive failure of a game.”
Yeah, but that one shot was the winning goal, which means the blame still falls on me.
“Nothing you can do about it now, though,” says Eli Hornsby, the prettiest fucking defenseman in the game. He places his hands behind his head and lounges back, accepting the loss and allowing himself to relax. Not sure how he can. I’m still reeling from our loss and drop out of the playoffs. “And what’s rule number one when we get to the cabin?” he continues.
“No fucking hockey,” Posey says before he runs, jumps, and cannonballs into the pool.
Every summer, after the season, me and my boys head up to Banff, Canada, to Silas Taters’s cabin—well, mansion, but he calls it a cabin—and we de-stress. We forget about the season, soak up the sun and picturesque mountains, and just . . . fuck around.
The cabin is the perfect place to do that, with views of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the small-town feel of Banff, being away from Vancouver city life, and far from any sort of training facility—besides the million-dollar gym in the “basement” of the “cabin.”
But this year, I’m not quite in the mood to relax. Not when we were so close. So fucking close for our third championship win. I wanted that win. I’m not sure how much time I have left in front of the net, and after we were so close to making it to the finals, for a chance to hold the Stanley Cup over my head again and skate around the ice, knowing that my team, the Vancouver Agitators, are number one—fuck, it burns my soul.
I thought we had it this year. We were the sure win.
A stacked team.
The favorite.
And we fucking blew it.
How can they be so accepting with how the season ended?
“You’re scowling,” Taters says, splashing water in my direction.
Silas Taters, the fast-as-fuck right wing, currently has a chip on his shoulder for other reasons we won’t get into, and he’s known for using snarky quips to provoke the people around him, and doing it well. He signed the same year as I did, and I know he wanted this win just as much as I did. So, he’s either in denial, or he has a hell of a way of compartmentalizing.