Rushing the Goal (Assassins #8)(123)

“Have you told them?”

He paused. “No.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t want to say it and scare her. She’ll think I’m moving too fast.”

“Or is it because you’ve never told anyone but Ava and Leary you loved them?” she asked, holding his gaze, and he swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought of that, but that didn’t seem right. If he wasn’t ready to move on, then he wouldn’t feel the way he did for Lucy and Angie.

“No. Lucy was in a shit relationship. She’s divorced now. And she was so hesitant about being with me that I think the reason why I haven’t told them is because I don’t want her to freak out on me. I still love Leary and Ava, I will always love them, but I know I am moving on. I just have this guilt I can’t seem to shake, and I don’t know what to do.”

“I think it’s because you haven’t fully forgiven yourself for the accident,” Jordie said before Melissa could say anything. “I think you still think you don’t deserve this love, these girls.”

Benji nodded, meeting his friend’s gaze. “Absolutely.”

“Well, until you forgive yourself, Benji, you’ll never be able to shake the guilt,” Melissa said. “Just look how far you’ve come. You are the poster boy for recovery. I love your story, and it pleases me to no end that you have found love again. I want you to remember how much you deserve this. Deserve them. And I want you to forgive yourself.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, he looked away as he shrugged. “I’m trying.”

“That’s all you can do,” she said. But was it enough?

Was he not trying hard enough?





Moving the puck back and forth behind the goal, Benji waited as new forwards hit the ice. He noticed that the Kings took that chance for a fresh line too. Clearly this was the time to go. Banking the puck against the boards, hard, it went center ice where he thought Erik would grab it, but he didn’t.

Jude Sinclair did.

“Fuck!” he yelled, coming out and rushing toward him to block him since Jayden had been at the blue line, waiting for Benji to come out. Jude was on a mission, though, and when he went to shoot, Benji dropped down, using his body as the puck came crashing into his chest guard.

Still knocked the breath out of him, though.

Luckily, Jayden had made it back, getting the rebound off of him and taking the puck up as Benji slowly got up, wheezing for breath. Skating toward the bench, he climbed over as the whistle blew. When he heard singing, he turned to see Jude, singing with his gaze on him.

“What the hell?” Sitting down as Jayden sat, Benji looked over at him. “Is your brother singing to me?”

Jayden rolled his eyes, gasping for breath as he took a long pull of water. “He’s an idiot. Sings to people on the ice.”

Jude scoffed at that since he was in earshot, still singing. Benji continued to look puzzled. “What’s he singing? Who sings on the ice?”

“He does. It’s insane, but I think he’s singing the Beach Boys.”

“The Beach Boys?”

“Yeah, he told me he was gonna sing ‘Don’t Hurt My Little Sister’ to you to throw you off your game.”

Benji’s face twisted as he looked out at the ice, Jude skating off as he moved his head to the beat in his mind. “Lucy wasn’t kidding when she said he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, was she?”

Jayden chuckled. “Nope, not even kinda.”

Benji ignored Jude and the game continued, the Assassins down by two. It had been a tough game. They had their backup goalie in, Dylan Alexander, and he was doing fine, but it was easy to see he was rusty from not playing for a while. Leaning on the boards, Benji watched as the Assassins fought into the Kings’ zone, shooting pucks left and right. When one of the Kings’ players cross-checked Jordie into the boards, the bench lost it in protest. Thankfully, the ref saw it and threw his hand up.

Power play.

“Paxton, Sinclair, go,” Coach yelled, and they jumped over, heading to the face-off circle.

When Jude skated by him, grinning like a fool while singing, Benji shook his head. Would Lucy be mad if he pummeled her brother? He wasn’t sure if he cared, because the dude was getting on his nerves. When the puck dropped, though, Jude stopped singing and tried to win it. But Anderson was fast, kicking it back to Benji, who sent it to Jayden, who shot wide. Going around the boards, Benji rushed to get the puck before it went over the line, getting there just in time to send it to Anderson, who sent it to Titov, who shot, but the goalie batted it away. Right onto Jayden’s stick. Instead of shooting, though, he whizzed it to Benji, who was ready for the one-timer, and when the red light flashed, he threw his arms up.

There was Lucy’s goal.

“Fuck yeah!”

As his boys wrapped him up in a hug, he somehow met Jude’s gaze. He was just grinning, nodding his head as he headed to his bench. Benji wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t feel comfortable about it.

But he didn’t have time to worry about Jude because as soon as the next line went out, the Kings scored again—in the end, winning the game. Benji hated losing, hell, everyone did, but it really sucked since it was the Kings, Jude’s team, that had kicked their asses.