by A. E. Wasp
Jay-Cee’s arms tightened like a vice around Chris’s back, and he rolled them over until he lay over Chris, his full weight pressing Chris deep into the thick mattress. “Forever,” he whispered.
That sounded almost long enough.
PREVIEW OF CITY BOY: HOT OFF THE ICE #1
Chapter One
BRYCE
Inside the Pucker Up, the unofficial bar of the Seattle Thunder, Bryce Lowery, the six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-twenty pound team captain, hid in the bathroom from a tiny blonde woman in four-inch heels.
The bathroom wasn’t very big; two stalls, two sinks, and an out-of-order urinal, so Bryce occupied most of the room. The door slammed open, and Bryce jumped.
Robbie, the Thunder’s rookie defenseman, came in, the sounds of laughter and music from the bar wafting through the open door along with him. “Hey. So this is where you went. People were looking for you. Jess in particular.”
Bryce sighed before he could stop himself.
Robbie laughed. “She who you’re hiding from?”
“I’m not hiding,” Bryce said.
“If you say so,” Robbie replied, closing the door of the stall behind him.
Bryce tried to psych himself up to leave the bathroom. He stood awkwardly as Robbie came out and washed his hands.
“Want me to go out with you for moral support?” Robbie asked.
Bryce crossed his arms over his chest, testing the limits of the material of his black t-shirt. “Is she still out there?” he asked.
“Yeah, those women are relentless, man.” His voice was loud in the confined space, and his eyes were glassy and sleepy from too much alcohol drunk too quickly. “I told my boyfriend that he’s lucky I’m not into that.”
“Boyfriend?”
Robbie gave him a look. “Yeah? Drew, that guy who is always with me? Who did you think he was?”
“I haven’t been around much,” Bryce said defensively. He and Robbie hadn’t spent much time together, even though Bryce was team captain.
A serious knee injury during a game had benched him right at the start of the season, and it was the kid’s first year with the pros. Just looking at him, all young and shiny and barely twenty-one, made Bryce feel old. He could swear the rookies were getting younger every year.
At thirty-four, Bryce was thirteen years older than Robbie. Bryce had been a kid when he’d left his family behind him in Chicago and moved to Quebec to play Major Junior Hockey in Canada. Fourteen years old and already on his own. He’d felt like a grown up.
When Bryce had been learning to play hockey at a whole new level, Robbie had been learning to walk.
God, Bryce felt old. “Is he, Drew, here tonight?”
Robbie grimaced. “No. He went back home for a while. He’s trying to decide if he, quote, wants to be part of this life or not, unquote.”
“Well, I guess at least you know he’s not just sticking around for the money and cheating on you behind your back,” Bryce said. It happened all the time.
The door banged against the wall as a striking brunette woman in tailored trousers and a deep red sweater strode in. “You can’t hide in here forever, Lowery. There’s a cake with your name on it. Literally.” She smirked at her own joke.
“Nikki, this is the men’s room!”
She scoffed. “Like I’ve never seen a dick before.” She caught Robbie looking at her with a big smile. She tilted her chin at him. “Hey, Rookie.”
“You’re Nikki.” He sounded starstruck.
“The one and only.” She held out her hand for a shake.
Bryce hobbled over to his ex-wife who was still somehow, miraculously, his best friend. “Hey, Nikki.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Did you just get here?”
She hugged him tightly. “Yeah. When I didn’t see you in the crowd, I knew I’d find you hiding somewhere.”
“I’m not hiding,” he muttered not needing to see Nikki’s face to know she didn’t believe him.
“Right,” she said. “So what are you boys talking about?”
“Robbie was just saying his boyfriend is still deciding if he wants to move here or not.” He stressed the word boyfriend a tiny bit.
Nikki looked sympathetic. She dropped a hand on Robbie’s shoulder. “It’s a tough call, Rookie. Being a hockey player’s partner is hard. You guys are on the road a lot, and there is a lot of temptation. But at least you know he isn’t into you just for the money.”
“That’s what he said.” Robbie pointed at Bryce.
“Don’t be fooled by the pretty face; he’s actually smart about a lot of things.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Every day,” Nikki said. “Half the women in the bar and a some of the guys would marry a player right now for their share.”
“That’s cold, Nik,” Bryce said. “Not everybody is so mercenary.”
Nikki squeezed Bryce’s rock-solid bicep. “True, some of them are in it for other reasons.”
Bryce let it drop. Though he’d gotten over Nikki leaving him years ago, it was still hard for him to understand how he had let her down.
God knows he’d tried. He’d planned on being married forever. Nikki called him a hopeless romantic. She’d also told him she could never be what he was looking for, and they both deserved someone who could give them exactly what they needed.
Seven years later, Bryce still hadn’t found it. Hadn’t even come close.
“So Drew left?” Nikki asked.
“You knew Drew was his boyfriend?” Nikki’s lack of surprise surprised Bryce. Did everyone know but him? Did nobody care?
Nikki didn’t bother asking him, just gave him the little head shake she often directed at him. He felt like he constantly disappointed her in some way he couldn’t place. He hated that feeling.
“I thought we could make it work,” Robbie said. “It could be the start of something huge for us, you know?”
Bryce felt for the kid. Despite constantly being surrounded by teammates and fans, this could be a lonely life without knowing someone special was waiting at home for you.
“Oh, I know,” Nikki echoed, giving Robbie a sad smile. “Let me give you my number. Tell your guy he can call me if he wants some real talk about what he might be getting into.”
“Really?” He smiled at her, wide-eyed.
“Really. But don’t get your hopes up. If we talk, I’m going to give him the whole gory truth: good, bad, and horrific.”
The excitement in his eyes dimmed. In a way, it made Bryce feel better. It showed that the kid had at least some idea what he was asking of his boyfriend.
Robbie stared at himself in the mirror and fixed his hair. Bryce had envied that hair from the first second he’d seen it. A deep reddish-brown, he kept it long on top, and razor-short at the back and sides.
“You know,” Robbie said, looking at Bryce’s reflection, “I always thought you’d come out after you guys split up. I mean, I get why you didn’t. Different times and all that.”
What? “Who? Come out of what?” Bryce felt like he had missed some part of the conversation somewhere.
Nikki put her hand on Bryce’s shoulder and gave him that damn look again.
Robbie caught Bryce’s eye in the mirror and gave him a shy drunken smile. “I had the biggest crush on you.” He blushed and turned away. “It just would have been cool, having a role model and all, you know? But I get it. You gotta be careful in this gig. Maybe when you retire. Have you decided what you’re going to do yet?”
Bryce didn’t want to discuss retirement with a kid just starting his first season, nor did he want to think about tonight. He’d take his time off and decide later. For now, he was still on the team roster. He was still going forward with his new contract negotiations as if he had years more ice time in his future.
Thinking about it made him tired and made his body ache with the memory of twenty years of abuse.
Bryce did some quick math. “You would have been, what, fourteen when Nikki and I spli
t up?”
Robbie’s eyes drifted to the ceiling as he tried to remember. “Yeah. About. Had a poster of you and everything.”
“You knew you were gay at fourteen?” Bryce couldn’t remember even caring about anything but hockey at fourteen. Possibly the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles.
“I just kind of always knew. I didn’t admit it until I met Drew in college, though.”
“What do your parents think about it?” Bryce couldn’t imagine talking to his mother about his sex life under any circumstances.
Every few months, she asked obliquely if he’d met anybody. He sidestepped the question, figuring she didn’t want to know about his ever more infrequent one-night stands or first dates that went nowhere.
If there ever were someone important, he’d tell her, although it looked like that was never going to happen.
God, not only was he getting old, he was getting maudlin. Hiding in the bathroom from women wasn’t helping.
“They were cool with it,” Robbie said, answering the question Bryce had almost forgotten he’d asked. “My mother loves Drew. I think she’s more upset than I am that we might break up. But they still, you know, worry about me being in sports and all. If I’m out will it hurt my career, etcetera.”
“I can understand that,” Bryce said, trying to imagine it. Bad enough his marriage and divorce had been splashed all over hockey and celebrity magazines. At least he hadn’t had people telling him he was going to hell on top of it.
Robbie turned to Nikki, expression serious. “Do you think I’ll be okay if I’m out? I mean, the team knows, and the coach. But the fans? Should I get a beard girlfriend? Keep the ladies off my back? Maybe one of the women from the NWHL. Think Drew would appreciate that?” He laughed humorlessly. “Would it be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Bryce admitted. “I mean, someone’s going to come out eventually, right? Given the way the world is going.”
Robbie shrugged. “You’d think. God knows I’m not the only one in the league. I’m not even the only one on the team. And Seattle seems like a safe place to be out.”
Grasping Robbie with both hands, Nikki turned him towards the door. “Okay, Rookie. Back to the party. And I think it’s time you switched to water.”
“I’m not gay,” Bryce blurted out.
Robbie exchanged glances with Nikki who kept her expression carefully neutral. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-” He blushed to the roots of his hair.
Nikki put her arm around Bryce’s waist. She was tall for a woman, almost five foot ten, but she looked small next to him. “Come on, big guy, let’s go meet your adoring fans. The Rookie and I will keep those tiny, scary women away from you.”
Bryce rolled his eyes at her. “I think I would know if I were gay.”
“You’d think.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s get out of here.”
Bryce checked his hair in the mirror and then adjusted the brace covering his leg from mid-thigh to below the knee. “Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “I have cake to eat.”
Chapter Two
DAKOTA
Late afternoon sunshine slanted through the orderly rows of apple trees and turned the plume of dust behind Dakota Ryan’s motorcycle into a golden cloud. Deer leaped over the fences meant to keep them out of the orchard as the bike roared down the dirt path between the trees.
Gravel and dust shot into the air as Dakota skidded the bike to a stop at the front porch of the big white farmhouse at the end of the road. Two medium-sized brindle dogs bounded down the stairs, barking and running circles around Dakota.
“Oh, sure. Now you’re here.” He kicked the bike stand down and dismounted. The dogs jumped up on him, and he scratched them both behind their ears. “Do you know how many deer I saw in the orchard? You guys suck. I’m giving you back to the shelter.”
“I don’t think they believe you,” his sister Lori said, coming out of the big house holding two garbage bags.
Dakota pushed back his sandy blond curls with both hands. Too short to pull back and too long to tame, it was going to be a mass of knots by the time this day was over. “They should. I’m serious. No freeloaders on the farm.”
Lori was barely five feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet. The bags didn’t look heavy, but they were long, and they dragged on the wooden porch.
“Gimme,” he said, taking them out of her hands. They were surprisingly light, and he frowned as he realized they were full of clothing. “Lori,” he said, fingers tightening around the green plastic.
“Don’t Lori me,” she said. “Someone had to do it, and you weren’t going to. The new owner is going to be here the day after tomorrow, and you said you’d sort through Tommy’s stuff in exchange for him letting you sell some more apples.”
She pointed at the bulging pannier bags on either side of his motorcycle. “I assume those are full of apples?”
Dakota narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “Fuck that guy, and fuck his deal.” He turned away from the house; the house that should have been his. It hurt too much to even look at it. He’d barely been able to go inside since the death of the man he’d thought of as his grandfather.
Maybe he should have let Tommy adopt him instead of fighting to get declared emancipated. If he had, there wouldn’t have been any question about who the house belonged to. It would have passed down to Dakota automatically.
But Dakota had had enough of being at the mercy of the system. He wasn’t going back into foster care, and he wasn’t going to be dependent on anyone who could let him down ever again.
Although technically the big house wasn’t Dakota’s, he’d spent more time there than he did at his own house. Dakota lived in a smaller house tucked in among the few acres his parents had lived on as tenant farmers for almost twenty years.
They had traded orchard work, eggs, and fresh vegetables to Tommy in exchange for him letting them live rent-free.
When he was sixteen, his adoptive parents had been killed in a car accident. Tommy took Dakota into his home and cared for him. Then, when Dakota had fought to move back into his old house, Tommy had insisted on keeping the same arrangement he’d had with Dakota’s parents.
But Tommy insisted Dakota and his parents were his only family, and he wouldn’t hear of any other options.
And how had Dakota replayed him? By making a mistake that had cost Tommy thousands of dollars.
He’d trusted Kyle, despite everyone’s warnings about the older man. Tommy had told Dakota there was something shifty about Kyle, that he didn’t really trust the man.
But, no. Dakota had been so sure he knew better. He’d talked Tommy into letting Kyle stay.
Kyle had repaid Dakota’s needy, childish faith and Tommy’s trust by stealing from them.
The old man had never even suspected, attributing the drop in income to the unpredictable nature of agriculture instead of malice.
When he’d found out, Dakota had kicked Kyle out, threatening to call the cops if he ever set foot on the property. Too embarrassed to admit his failure to Tommy, Dakota vowed he would replace every cent Kyle had taken.
Now Tommy was dead, too.
That made three families taken from Dakota. The state had taken him away from his biological parents when he was four. After bouncing around foster care for two years, he’d finally been adopted at the age of six. Ten years later, a drunk driver took that family away from him, and a weak blood vessel had robbed him of one of the last two people on earth who loved him.
And now the real cherry on top of the shit-sundae of his life was a lost will robbing him of his home. He cursed again.
“Dakota.” Lori hugged him from behind, pressing her face into his back. “It sucks, I know.” Lori freed her long black hair from the dusty bun. It slithered down her back almost to her waist. “I loved him, too. And this place will always be my real home.”
“I could have done this myself, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re a strong, independent
woman who don’t need no man,” she joked. “Too bad. You’re stuck with me.”
Lori wasn’t Dakota’s biological sister, but they’d been fostered together on the farm for a couple of years. His parents would have adopted her as well if her deadbeat mother hadn’t convinced some judge that she’d finally gotten her act together. Spoiler alert: she hadn’t.
“I know. Fuck it. I’m not going to think about it.” He turned in her embrace, lifting her off the ground as he hugged her. “Let’s get rid of this stuff.”
Trying and failing not to think of when he had done the same thing with his parents’ belongings, he followed Lori to her pickup and tossed the bags in the back with the rest of the stuff for the thrift store. They’d left anything of value for the new owner, some distant great-nephew.
“So, did you find anything? Any new stash of papers we missed?” he asked, knowing she would have told him if she had.
She shook her head.
It had been a longshot. They’d combed through every inch of the house looking for the new will Tommy had sworn he’d drawn up leaving the house and the orchard to Dakota. Nada.
Dakota wanted badly to believe Tommy had done as he’d said, but something deep in his soul mocked his hope. Once again, Dakota had been let down.
At least he wouldn’t be homeless right away.
Talking through their lawyers, the new owner had agreed to let Dakota stay on the land, at least for the time being. If the bastard tried to kick him off some day, Dakota didn’t know what he’d do. Burn the house down. Salt the earth. Cry and beg, more likely.
“Whatever,” he said out loud. “Can you put the dogs in my house before you go?”
“No problem. You going to be okay?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Aren’t I always?”
Hands on her hips, she tilted her head and stared up at him. “It’s okay to be scared.”
Hell no. He wasn’t going down that road. “I’m not scared. I can take care of myself. I’ll be okay.”
