Body Checked (Salt Lake Pumas #2)

by Camellia Tate

  “I can make some of your ‘boring chicken’. That’ll keep in the fridge.” I had thought that eating the same thing nearly every day might get boring. But it really didn’t. Not when I knew it was keeping Will fit and ready for work.

  Thinking about what else we could have, my eyes lit up. “Oh! I bet I could get some beer from Jack. He’d love knowing it was being used at a Pumas party.”

  Will chuckled at that but nodded anyway. “Well, best ask for your new favorite,” he teased, nodding at the empty glass I’d left on the table. All of the beers tasted nice, just very different from each other. I couldn’t deny that I had found the one my preferences leaned toward.

  “There’s still quite a bit of beer to try, though,” Will commented. There really was and the candles were hardly burned yet, so we should probably get on with that!

  Leaning across the table, I pressed a kiss against Will’s lips. I had already thanked him for putting so much effort into our romantic date, but I was sure he’d appreciate me showing my gratitude physically, too!

  This might not have been what I had expected a romantic date to be - but in a way, that just made it better. I liked that Will could surprise me.

  I was completely confident that I’d continue enjoying his efforts to be romantic for a long time to come!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Will

  If being back on the ice had felt amazing, it had nothing on how good it felt to actually play hockey again. The rush, the coldness, the adrenaline, it all mixed together as I gripped my stick, sliding across the ice. Hearing everyone cheer for me gave me such a high.

  It probably wasn’t my best game, but it certainly felt close to it. The final score showed it, too. We won five-one, everyone pouring off the ice with glee in their sails. The locker room was loud and everything I remembered.

  The press was, of course, very interested in asking me about how I felt my first game back had gone. After all the questions had finally died down, the media left.

  “We’re still on for going to yours?” Alfie asked.

  “Yeah, did I hear right that there’s going to be a barbeque?” Elias added hopefully, making me grin.

  “Yes, Lacey’s promised to find inventive ways to cook chicken, one of which is on a grill outside,” I nodded. Lacey was very dedicated to making this the best party. Or at least a pretty great party. We’d bought enough chicken to feed not one but two NHL teams.

  Having Lacey in my life had definitely improved it. I had worried needlessly. Yes, I still had to work towards why romance mattered so much, but it wasn’t that hard when I saw the smile on Lacey’s face. And, admittedly, being romanced was pretty great.

  In the past, I always expected that being in a relationship would feel more... like a chore. Like something I had to do. Or maybe that there was a list of things I needed to do to be a ‘good’ boyfriend. Lacey was the one who had shown me how a relationship could be whatever worked for us.

  And apparently, that was her organizing parties and doing romantic things for me. Sometimes, it was me doing romantic things for Lacey, too, but she was much better at it than me. And she didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t romantic.

  We worked.

  And I was excited for the guys to get to know Lacey better.

  The party she was organizing was open to spouses, girlfriends, and any dogs. I knew for a fact that Felix was thrilled to be allowed to bring his dogs.

  “You’ve all got my address, yeah?” I asked once everyone was ready. Some of the guys were heading straight over while others - like Felix - were going home first. I was met with a chorus of ‘yes’ and ‘see you there’ before everyone dispersed.

  Lacey and I had agreed, or well, I had insisted, that she went back before me. As much as I knew she wanted to see me after my first game back, waiting around was a bit pointless. Especially when there were plenty of things to get ready for the party.

  Teddy was first to greet me. I sent him and a few of the rookies who’d gotten there around the same time as me to the backyard. I went off to find Lacey, smiling when I spotted her in the kitchen mixing what looked like a suspiciously large amount of vodka into the punch.

  “Hey, you,” I greeted her, pulling Lacey against me and pressing a kiss against her neck from behind.

  I didn’t need to see her smile to know that it was there. She turned, her arms coming up to loop around my neck. “Oh my God, Will, you looked amazing today!” Lacey’s cheeks glowed pink. I watched her tongue dart out to lick her lips. In all the excitement, I’d almost forgotten that Lacey had never seen me play before.

  “I thought I was getting into hockey with Roxi explaining the rules,” she carried on, waving a hand to where - presumably - Roxi was hanging around somewhere. “But that was nothing like seeing you play.”

  Her fingertips brushed over the back of my neck. “Is it always like that?” she asked. “I was on the edge of my seat the whole time! Even when you were four goals up.”

  I laughed. Lacey’s excitement would have been intoxicating even if I wasn’t already in an excellent mood. The rush that playing a game gave me was... amazing. And I was about to have a house full of equally excited men.

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s always like that. Unless we lose. And then it hurts.” The players took losses hard, but I knew that so did the fans. And sure, Lacey might not have known much about hockey when we’d first met, but she was quickly becoming a fan.

  Running my nose over her cheek, I grinned. “And to think a few months ago you knew nothing about hockey,” I teased.

  Her cheek colored, exactly as I’d known it would. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” she teased. “It’s hardly my fault if you say ‘collapsing defense’ and ‘defensive pressure’ instead of ‘blocking formations’.”

  I grinned, sure that these new terms were ones that Roxi had only taught Lacey during today’s match. My heart skipped a beat. I loved knowing that Lacey really was trying to learn. She’d done well so far.

  “I’m glad you didn’t lose today,” she added, looking up at me with sudden concern in her eyes. “I’m not sure I know what to do when it hurts and I can’t make it any better.”

  That made me smile. It was sweet how much Lacey cared. Obviously, I was glad we won, too. Losing my first game back would’ve sucked, but... I had played hockey long enough to learn that losses did happen and sometimes they hurt a lot. No one particularly wanted to get used to it, but it came as part of the job.

  “You make everything better,” I promised Lacey. “But we don’t need to think about losses now, because we won and I have a yard full of hungry hockey players,” I teased.

  “And a houseful,” El corrected as she walked into the kitchen, followed by Luke. “We brought some salad and stuff,” she commented, setting the trays down. It wasn’t just salad, it was other stuff, too. No doubt, plenty that Luke could eat despite his allergies.

  Now that Luke and El were officially dating, Luke’s diet had started to include a lot more stuff, which I knew he was pretty excited about.

  Lacey turned, shifting her focus to our guests. I loved how at home she seemed in my kitchen. It was a lot less boring now that it had Lacey in it. “Oh, that’s great,” she said, offering El a smile.

  “I’m Lacey.” She moved around the counter so she could hold out her hand. She’d already met Luke, and I’d given her a list of what he was allergic to so that at least some of the chicken would be safe for him to eat.

  “You’re the team nutritionist, right?” Lacey continued. “Does that mean you have to attend all the games as part of your job?”

  Both El and Luke laughed. El shook her head. “No, thankfully it does not. Don’t get me wrong, I like hockey but that’s just a lot to ask.” She shook her head. In El’s defense, she did come out to a lot of our away games, making sure that whatever the hotels served was suitable for our diets.

  “El just chooses to come to the ones I play,” I told Lacey with a g
rin. El nodded, like that was true. It wasn’t. She might come to more games now that she was dating Luke, but even that wasn’t all of them.

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed. “Because she knows that if you’re on the ice, there’ll be something slow enough for her to follow.” I laughed, reaching over to give Luke’s arm a shove. I might not be the fastest player on the team, but I was still plenty fast!

  Lacey glanced between us, as if she weren’t quite sure whether she should take offense on my behalf.

  “I’m just teasing,” Luke assured her, clearly recognizing the look in her eyes. “If you’re going to be around the Pumas a lot, you’ll have to get used to it.”

  At that, Lacey raised an eyebrow. “I played sports in college, you know,” she objected. “I know the difference between trash talk and teasing. You don’t have to worry about me!”

  “Yes, it’s just the blocking formations that confuse her,” I joked. Lacey gave me a shove in the ribs, only serving to make me laugh more.

  “What?” El frowned and I shook my head.

  “It’s just a joke between us,” I promised. “Anyway, I need to get this chicken out. I think we’ve marked some that’s Luke Nash-friendly,” I added glancing at Lacey who gave a nod.

  Luke’s face lit up. I could tell that El, too, was appreciative of us making sure Luke and his many allergies could eat something that they didn’t bring themselves. It must suck a lot to be Luke and need to avoid so many things, but presumably dating a nutritionist helped.

  “We’ll help,” El promised, picking up the bowl of chicken and handing it to Luke.

  “Oh, I see how it is,” he grumbled. “You mean I’ll help.” But he picked up another bowl in his other hand, following me and Lacey out into the yard. Vega and Teddy ran up to us immediately, sniffing and rubbing their heads against our legs.

  Luke paused, looking pretty put out that he didn’t have a spare hand for petting. “God, he’s huge now,” he commented. Teddy really was a lot bigger than when I’d adopted him. It wouldn’t be long before he was taller than Vega.

  “Teddy, sit,” Lacey commanded. For a second, it looked like Teddy wasn’t going to obey. But then he did, plumping himself down on his tail and sticking his tongue out to pant at us.

  “I see who wears the trousers,” Luke teased. “Does he listen to you as well as he listens to Lacey?”

  Teddy did actually listen to me, probably more so than he did to Lacey. She was slowly establishing her dominance over Teddy. But he still looked at me as the leader. Then again, Vega barely listened to me and only, seemingly, when it suited her.

  “Sometimes,” I answered. “We’re all very aware in this household how important it is to listen to Lacey,” I joked, giving Lacey a wink.

  The dogs quickly grew bored, especially once Felix arrived with his four dogs. It was interesting to see them all get on. So far, no fights had broken out. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, including the dogs.

  Once we’d cooked the chicken and gotten everyone fed, I pulled Lacey in for a kiss. “You’ve got some great party organizing skills,” I praised her. “And I’ve heard a lot of compliments for the beer. I bet you could get some promotional quotes.”

  Lacey beamed up at me, nodding her head so that her hair tumbled over one shoulder. “Oh, I’m on it,” she assured me. “I already made a few notes of things people have said. I’ll get in touch with them officially on Monday to see if they’d be okay with us using them.”

  Since our tour of the brewery, Lacey had been a lot more enthusiastic about the direction she wanted to take the project in. She no longer sat up late, holding two potential adverts next to each other and trying to decide which one was better. She had more confidence. I could see it shining off her, so I could only assume that her managers would be equally convinced.

  “So, if surprising you with fifty-year-old hockey matches is the romantic side of having a girlfriend, is organizing a party together the practical side?” she asked me. “Have I done as well at that as I did at being romantic?”

  The question made me grin. I hadn’t really thought of it like that, but yeah. This was definitely much more my style. I did appreciate the romantic things Lacey put together. She had a real talent for choosing activities I’d never even think of.

  But cooking chicken? That was my specialty.

  “You’ve done pretty well,” I told her truthfully. “I guess, maybe I’ll keep you. For a while.” My tone was teasing. And really, I was planning to stick around for as long as Lacey would have me. I hoped it would be for a long time yet.

  We might no longer run into each other accidentally, but running into Lacey intentionally was even better.

  Epilogue

  Lacey

  To celebrate one year of successful living together, Will and I decided to expand the Taylor-Green family to five! No, I wasn’t pregnant, but we were going to adopt a third dog to be a sibling to Vega and Teddy.

  This time, I had researched a lot. I’d practically started reciting dog facts in my sleep. We needed a dog who could play well with an active husky and an enormous Newfoundland. That was a pretty specialist niche.

  But we had a lot of space, and a lot of love to give. We’d already met Drake at the shelter. Today, the person in charge of his adoption was coming over to formally hand him over. And, of course, we were looking forward to finding out whether he and Vega and Teddy would get along.

  “They’ll be fine, won’t they?” I asked, running my hands through Vega’s fur. “I mean, they love each other. And they have fun whenever Felix brings his dogs around. So it’s not like they’re going to be mean to Drake.”

  Even though I knew it was silly, a knot of anxiety formed in my chest. I so wanted this to go well. I wanted us to be able to give Drake a loving home. But that all depended on him getting along with the dogs we already had.

  Reaching for my hand, Will gave it a squeeze. “You’re worrying too much,” he told me, sounding so sure! It was hard to imagine that Will wasn’t right. “We’ve raised these two perfectly and you have read the whole of the internet about how to introduce a new dog into a household,” he pointed out.

  I opened my mouth to object that there was actually still loads of information that I hadn’t read but Will kissed me. Even now, almost two years after our first kiss, it made my stomach explode with butterflies. My anxiety slid away, replaced by the feeling I now associated with being kissed by Will.

  When he pulled back, it was to leave me breathless. “We’re ready,” he told me. “We’ve talked about it, we’ve researched it, we’re already good dog parents. It will be fine.”

  In my heart, I knew that he was right. “But if we weren’t a little bit worried then we wouldn’t be as good dog parents as we are,” I pointed out. We had learned a lot from Teddy and Vega. We’d probably learn just as much from Drake. And we had to go into this willing to learn whatever we needed to know.

  Which we both were. And I was thrilled by the thought of Teddy and Vega having a younger sibling to play with.

  “Are you excited for a dog that will meet us as a couple?” I asked. Even though Will shared her with me, Vega had been my dog first. And Teddy had been his. Drake would be truly ours in a way that neither of them had started out.

  “I’m excited for everyone who gets to meet us as a couple,” Will informed me. “I’m much better now that I’m a couple. Sometimes,” and there his voice dropped to a conspiratory tone. “Sometimes, I’m even romantic,” he informed me. “But don’t tell anyone, they might ask me for tips and I have none.”

  That wasn’t quite true. Will had done a lot to improve his romantic streak, but we still did plenty of non-romantic things. The mix of what we liked seemed to work very well for us.

  “You can’t say you don’t have tips when you’ve just told me that you’re better now that you’re with me!” I pointed out, only somewhat teasing. “That’s a totally romantic thing to say. But I guess you didn’t recognize it was romantic. Maybe we
still have work to do.”

  It warmed me all the way to the tips of my toes to think that Will considered himself a better man now that we were together. I liked thinking that I’d changed his life for the better, just like he’d changed mine.

  “Well, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t tell them that I understand hockey now,” I carried on. “I don’t have any tips for how to get your boyfriend closer to holding the Stanley Cup.” The Pumas weren’t quite there yet, but this had been the most successful season in ages. One day, I was sure, I would get to see Will fulfill his dreams of hoisting the championship trophy.

  Will gave a dramatic sigh. “I knew I should’ve found a girlfriend who knew hockey,” he informed me. “Instead, I got one who’s supportive and romantic.” He shook his head. I couldn’t help but grin. I was very certain that Will would pick me any day over someone who would’ve known hockey.

  Besides, by now, I was pretty good at knowing what the rules were and painting my face with Roxi for the games. We didn’t go to all of them, because there were a lot of games, but we went to a fair few.

  The beer project I’d worked on turned out to be so successful that they had become one of the official sponsors for the Pumas. I’d even earned a promotion out of it! A lot of things had changed in my life for the better with Will coming into it.

  I knew that the future would hold even better things. I loved living with Will, and I was excited to practice expanding our family by adding Drake to it. In a few more years, maybe we’d be ready to start thinking about human children as well as fur babies. I already knew that Will would be a fantastic dad, if that was something we decided that we wanted.

  Glancing at my watch, my stomach swooped with anticipation. It was nearly time for Drake to arrive. I looked around the room - but everything was ready, and there was nothing more to do in preparation.