Hooked: A Hockey Romance

by Abby Donne

  Turning in his seat Tyson looked at her with raised eyebrows. He said, “You are going to love the hell out of me after today.” Her heart dropped and she gawked at him for a second, long enough for him to realize what he said. He back peddled. “I mean, you’re going to have fun today.”

  Despite the total freak-out she was experiencing internally Layla wasn’t ready to go there with Tyson, so she had to do her best to play cool. She laughed awkwardly. “So confident.”

  He winked and hopped out of the car, rushing over to open her door. Hand in hand they started walking down the sidewalk. She was just about to ask where they were going when she spotted a gorgeous mid-century modern couch on display in the big window they were next to. Gawking, she stepped back and looked up at the name. Ladybug Consignment.

  “We have to go in there. Oh my God,” Layla said, tugging on his hand.

  He tugged back. “We will. Apparently there’s a cool jewelry shop and an antique store around here, too. But we’re going to have to eat first because I’m starving.”

  “Where are we?” She marveled as he directed them to a restaurant at the end of the street. It was literally called The Crestfield Diner, but it was so busy you’d think it was some hip new gastropub. “How do you even know about this town?”

  It didn’t seem like a place Tyson would frequent.

  “I asked around,” He said, not really answering her question.

  Luckily they were able to get a booth right away. Layla ordered the pumpkin pancakes, because duh, and Tyson ordered enough food for three people. They talked about Tabby’s most recent volleyball game, watching the quick video his mom sent, and Layla’s dad’s upcoming retirement. Her parents always talked about getting an RV and going across America. Between bites Tyson and Layla put together their own cross country bucket list, a running note on her phone, of all the places they’d want to see if they were the ones taking the trip.

  The Grand Canyon. Lake Tahoe. Moab. Vegas. Stopping at every weird roadside attraction was a must, of course.

  They didn’t talk about hockey, going pro, or where they’d end up after graduation.

  The no hockey talk continued through their day. It wasn’t mentioned once when they were browsing the furniture and threads at Ladybugs. Nor was it brought up at Artful Antiques, The Circle – a tiny little record shop, or Gypsy Creations - an even tinier handmade jewelry store.

  Not wanting their day to be over she lingered in every store. There were only so many times she could eyeball the same pair of turquoise earrings before it started to get creepy, though. She did her best not to sulk on the way back to the car. Wearing a shit eating grin that did more to annoy her than charm her, Tyson buckled Layla in and slid over to the driver’s seat.

  “Now are you ready for the real fun?”

  Thinking he was making a dick joke, she rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever.”

  He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “Are you getting hangry? I have a Cliff bar around here somewhere.”

  “I’m fine,” She muttered. They had a great morning. She wasn’t going to ruin it by being bitchy because she was sad they were heading back to Stanberry. She smiled and caught him for a real kiss. “I’ve had a great day today.”

  “Better than staying in our pajamas and eating junk food?” He countered, eyebrows raised.

  Joking, she held out a hand and shook it a little. “Meehhh.”

  “Keep it up, you little shit,” He laughed, pulling out onto Main Street. “I give it ten minutes and you’re going to be in ‘Oh Tyson you’re so amazing!’ mode.”

  Ten minutes? It took then almost an hour to get to Crestfield.

  “Nice try but I’m not giving you road head, no matter how hard you try.” It was a lie. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to try hard.

  “You underestimate my power of persuasion. I got your number, didn’t I?”

  “Because we’re working on a project together!”

  “Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that’s the only reason you gave it to me,” He clucked, grinning.

  They turned on a backroad. Did he seriously want road head? Because she had a feeling it never worked out in real life, but Layla had been willing to sneak off to a public bathroom to masturbate in a Tyson-induced state of maximum horniness. If anyone was going to get her to try giving head in a moving vehicle it would be him.

  Her fantasy was just starting to kick off in her head, making her rub her legs together, when they passed a big painted sign that read ‘CRESTFIELD PUMPKIN PATCH AHEAD’.

  “Oh my God, are we going there?” She squeaked, turning in her seat to look at the disappearing sign.

  “I told you the real fun was about to start. Now say it,” He teased.

  “What?”

  “Oh Tyson you’re so amazing.”

  She snorted, but she complied. Leaning over, seat belt stretched against her chest, she kissed his arm. In her fakest Jessica Rabbit voice she drawled, “Oh Tyson, you’re so amazing.”

  “Not fair,” He pouted, looking over at her.

  Beaming, she said a bit more seriously, “Honestly. I’m having the best day. Are we going to carve pumpkins tonight? I don’t have anywhere to put them, but I haven’t carved a pumpkin since high school.”

  “If you want. We can keep them at the house. The guys won’t mess with them.”

  A minute or two later they were in line to park. It was one in the afternoon on a Thursday and they’d just opened for the day, so there wasn’t a whole lot of competition for a good parking spot. She kept her nose pressed to the glass, her excitement growing as the seconds ticked on. Not only was there a huge pumpkin patch, there was a corn maze, a petting farm, and a little barn shop.

  They decided on doing the corn maze first, mostly because it looked like all the families were heading for the pumpkin patch and the petting farm. Much like carving pumpkins, it had been years since Layla did a corn maze. She played clueless most of the maze, mostly because Tyson was pretending like he wasn’t getting lost every two minutes and it was fun to watch him get a little alpha. Just about as fun as sneaking kisses and hiding from other people in the stalks. She was a little flush when they hopped on the back of the tractor and headed for the pumpkin patch. At least she could blame it on her sweater being a little too warm under the midday sun and not from being felt up in a corn maze.

  She indulged Tyson when he asked her to pose in the patch. He’d been putting up with her selfies and all her Snapchat videos throughout the day. After taking one of her he insisted on taking a few together. She pulled out her phone so he could Airdrop them to her and it started ringing in her hands.

  Dan. She sent it to voicemail before Tyson could see who it was, but the call started back up again.

  “Are you serious?” His face twisted in anger and he held out his hand. “Let me answer it.”

  She waved him off. “I’m ignoring it.”

  It went to voicemail again and then started back up.

  “He won’t stop, so you might as well pick up,” Tyson muttered, disgusted.

  Layla was pissed. Pissed Dan was calling. Pissed he was ruining her perfect day. Pissed Tyson was annoyed. She swiped the phone icon and answered,

  “What?”

  “Jesus,” Dan grumbled, voice hard like he was angry that she didn’t pick up the first two times. “What’s up your ass today? Never mind, actually. Hey, Chris just called off for his shift. It’s only four hours. I need you to come in.”

  She looked at Tyson. His face was as hard as granite, his jaw ticking like he could hear every word coming from Dan’s mouth. He could guess. Over the past month she’d gotten how many phone calls that went just like that? Enough that Dan just assumed she’d drop everything and rush to his aid.

  Standing there surrounded by pumpkins next to the man she was in love with, Layla realized she couldn’t do it anymore.

  “No,” She said, and then again because she wasn’t sure she said it anywhere but inside her own head. She cleared her
throat. “No. I’m not coming in.”

  “Seriously? I have shit to do, Layla. I’ve already worked an extra ten hours this week.”

  “It’s not my problem,” She said, her lips kicking up into a smile. She was doing this. He started to protest but she was on a roll. She cut him off. “Actually, Dan, I don’t think I’m going to be coming in at all anymore. I quit.”

  “What?” He snapped.

  All of the fire and fury on Tyson’s face was gone. Eyes big, he laughed, “What? Seriously?”

  “Look, I’ll make sure you start getting more time off. You can’t quit,” Dan panicked.

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it anymore. I’ll bring my keys in tomorrow.”

  Before he could keep begging she ended the call and put her phone on airplane mode so the calls wouldn’t come through. She’d block his number after she turned in her keys. She dropped her phone in her bag.

  “You look so fucking sexy right now,” Tyson muttered. He was still smiling a little, but the heat in his eyes was for an entirely different reason.

  “What?” She laughed. She tightened her hold on her pumpkin. Getting turned on in a pumpkin patch surrounded by kids was probably against the law. She needed a distraction. Big time. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I did that!”

  She needed to call Emma. She was going to lose her shit. Plus, Layla needed to beg for an interview at The Good Seed. Underneath all her relief she was still jobless, well… jobless to a paying job.

  “I can. That place has pushed you around too long. Fuck ‘em.” He wiggled his eyebrows and added, “Plus, it was really hot.”

  “You’re really hot,” She fired back. It was supposed to be playful but it just came out… needy, almost like an invitation.

  Like that, the fire consumed Tyson’s entire face. Maybe it was some of the leftover adrenaline from quitting her job, but Layla was thinking of bypassing road head and going straight for ‘finding a backroad and getting naked in the backseat’ territory.

  “Let’s pay for these and get out of here,” He suggested, his eyes never leaving hers.

  That sounded like the best plan of the day.

  chapter seventeen

  “It’s a good thing you’re not an art major,” Layla hummed, her eyes darting over to his pumpkin.

  Tyson laughed, “That’s harsh, babe.”

  “They’re starting to look like dicks.”

  “They do not!” He scoffed, holding his pumpkin back.

  Who knew carving a pumpkin was so difficult? They were going to just do faces, but Layla decided she wanted to do some cute owl and he couldn’t let hers look better than his so Tyson stepped up his nonexistent game. A face turned into a carving that said ‘SU Tornadoes’ with two hockey sticks and a puck. Except the sticks kind of did look like dicks.

  Shit.

  “It’s okay. You can’t be perfect at everything.”

  “Says who?”

  “The universe. Me.” Layla spun her pumpkin around. It looked like an owl… if the owl went through a wood chipper. Giggling, she said, “It’s not like mine is any better.”

  Because he was a supportive boyfriend, Tyson smirked and said, “Yeah, that sucks.”

  She sat it on the newspaper and stretched her legs out. She tilted her head back and laughed. “I don’t think we can put these outside. We’ll be laughed out of town.”

  Layla looked so beautiful then his heart almost stopped. Hair up in the sloppiest kind of way, wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Her face was a little red from being in the sun earlier in the day without sunblock. She was totally relaxed and happy, existing utterly in the moment, and he knew without a doubt that he was in love with her.

  It was an idea he’d been toying with for days. It didn’t scare him as much as he thought it would be. Aside from the initial holy shit I love her shock he admitted to himself he saw it coming all along. What wasn’t there to love about Layla? She was infuriatingly stubborn at times. A little too quick to jump to conclusions when she got emotional. But she was the most supportive, caring, person in his life. There was no use feeling like a sap about the knowledge. He was in love with her, and he didn’t know what to do.

  In a few months, Tyson was leaving. He didn’t know where he was going, but he wasn’t going to let himself fail. This time next year he’d be in the NHL. In a few months, Layla was leaving. She told Tyson she really care where she ended, as long as it was better than Ohio, but Austin had a lot of opportunities in her field. Austin was a little far from Anaheim. It was a little far from all his top pick teams.

  What kind of guy would he be if he asked her to give up her dreams and follow him wherever he ended up? Follow him through possible trades? Layla was too smart to waste her degree bouncing around the states. Tyson was selfish, but he wasn’t so selfish he didn’t want to see her be successful. There would be a time and a place to admit how he really felt, but it wasn’t now.

  “You really want to throw them out?” He asked, putting his next to hers. It was a sad picture; two dicks under their school name and a malformed animal that kind of looked like an owl if you squinted. “They’re kind of endearing.”

  “A little,” She said, tilting her head to the side.

  “We’re putting them out,” He decided after a second, nodding his head. “Fuck it.”

  Layla rose to her knees and started to clean up their mess. “Yeah, I think I’d feel too bad throwing them out.” She looked over her shoulder. “Do you want to watch a movie or are you tired?”

  It was barely past nine, and he was tired. Getting up at five and squeezing in practice plus a whole day out with Layla was about as exhausting as it sounded, but it was totally worth it. He felt a little lame admitting he would one hundred percent be down to crawl into her bed and go right to sleep, so he shrugged and fibbed,

  “A little, but we should probably be responsible and work on our Hemingway project a little.”

  “Why?” She groaned while she dumped the pumpkin guts in the trash can. “Can we do literally anything but homework?”

  “Anything, huh?” He waggled his eyebrows.

  As much as his dick jumped at the mere thought of fucking Layla, he was tapped. Despite her adamant insistence that she would not be giving him road head on the drive home, they ended up pulled over on a backroad so she could ride him in the backseat. Once they got back to her place their ‘joint shower to save water’ turned into a really stellar blow job. They, at least, made it through dinner and pumpkin carving without mauling each other. Tyson had a healthy sexual appetite, but Layla was something else. Just the mention of her name had his cock turning to steel.

  “If it means I don’t have to work on that project, yeah.” The little smirk on her face was dangerous. Even more so when she leaned over the little island she called a table. “We can try anal.”

  Tyson groaned, going from just hard to painfully hard. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “Who said I’m joking?”

  Springing to his feet, not even bothering to adjust himself, he chased her down in her four hundred square foot apartment until he wrapped her up in his arms. He kissed her neck and muttered, “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

  Layla laughed and it sounded like sex. When she spoke it came out with a moan; even though it was a noise of misery his dick twitched. “I really don’t want to write this paper.”

  He spun her around and smacked her ass playfully, directing her to the couch. “You didn’t do anything for the actual presentation. You’re hot and all, but I’m not writing your paper too.”

  “I did too help with the presentation,” She scoffed, pulling her laptop out. “I uploaded a bunch of stuff to the Google Doc.”

  “That I put into the Power Point,” He countered. He plopped down next to her and grabbed his bag. Nudging her, he added, “I know you’re only using me for my brain, but you could at least try to seem interested in me.”

  Layla rolled her eyes and fought a smile. “Y
ou’re so full of yourself.”

  “You can be full of me,” He suggested, brows wagging.

  “You just told me I have to do this paper. Don’t tease me with those abs.”

  “Oh, these abs?”

  When he lifted his shirt she smacked his stomach hard enough to make him wince. “Yes those abs. Stop trying to distract me.” Her eyes narrowed on her screen and her mouth pulled tight but before he could ask what was wrong she muttered, “Emma finally texted me back.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Layla picked up her phone as it started vibrating and a picture of Emma filled the screen. Not bothering to move for privacy, not that there was any in her efficiency apartment, she said “Give me a minute” and answered.

  After the pumpkin patch Layla tried calling Emma only to get sent to voicemail. She tried again, sent a few texts, and asked him to text Heath. Being the good boyfriend he was, he texted him. When Tyson didn’t get a text back by the time they got back to Stanberry Layla insisted they go by Emma’s apartment, but at the last second Heath sent a ‘Just left her place. She’s sleeping’ message that soothed Layla’s nerves.

  Tyson hadn’t seen Emma since the night in his backyard when she was loud and smiling, so he couldn’t picture her as this introverted person that was in need of a guardian. Then again, he really didn’t know her. When he drank too much he liked to rap Drake and take his shirt off. And apparently, pick fights with tattooed dudes in bars. He couldn’t really judge her based on her party persona. He couldn’t judge her at all based on anything.

  Pretending to work while he listened to the one sided conversation, Tyson picked up bits and pieces. By the end of the brief call he was more curious than ever. He felt like a douche, honestly, because Layla’s friend’s private life wasn’t his business in the slightest. Layla was his business, though, and she was stressed. If there was anything he could do to help, he wanted to know. Even if it made him look nosey.