Page 18 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

FORD

Pressing the long stick against the ice, I braced myself as I used my hips to propel myself forward. I had never skated before I lost my leg, so learning to skate upright on my prosthetic was easier because I didn’t have to unlearn any skills from before the accident.

Still, I didn’t really understand how anyone wanted to do it this way. There was nothing like sitting my ass in a perfectly molded sled bucket and feeling the burn in my arms as I used the picks to hurl myself across the ice.

And there was nothing more exhilarating and terrifying than slamming my sled into someone else, sending them crashing into the boards.

Checking was a whole different thing with us, and I loved it.

I wasn’t typically an angry man, but it was the best relief when something was pissing me off or making me feel upside down.

And that was happening a lot lately .

“You’re being weird,” Jonah said as he skated alongside me, using his own stick as a guide. He was wearing his Legends sweater and a pair of basketball shorts, showing off ice burns and bruises all over his knees and shins.

“How the fuck am I being weird?” I demanded.

“You stopped answering my texts?—”

“I told your ass to stop texting me at two in the morning…”

“You’ve been quiet today?—”

“God forbid I want some peace,” I snapped, then realized he was right. I was being weird, and I had a good reason for it. Killian had turned my entire world upside down, and I didn’t know how to make it right again.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I glanced around the rink, but luckily, no one was hovering nearby to listen in.

Jonah had fully taken over coaching the kids, and while Tucker had decided to retain a couple of his private lesson kids, he was stepping back from all of his responsibilities while he finished up his training to take over the coaching job.

“I just have a lot of shit going on, okay? It’s…a lot.”

“Is it the whole Montreal thing?” Jonah asked as his stick tapped the wall, and he adjusted his stance. I followed behind at a slower pace, my hip already aching from using it to stay balanced.

“What—oh, no. That trip Micah wants me to go on?”

“Yeah, because if that’s the bug up your ass, you can relax. He told me to tell you that Ben wants him to go with Hugo. ”

My eyes widened as Jonah flipped around and began to skate backward. I held my breath seconds before he crashed into the wall, and he picked himself up and started again. “ My Hugo?”

“Bro, you’re not fucking your coach, are you? Please do not be that cliché.”

“Fuck you, and no. He’s not my type.” Hugo was hot as fuck, but the silver-fox thing didn’t do it for me.

Besides, Hugo was…different. Closed off in ways I would never understand, and I didn’t have the time or patience to dig into that well.

Or whatever the saying was. “No. It’s other stuff. Work stuff.”

Jonah’s nose wrinkled as he led us both over to the net and used his stick to find the bucket of pucks. They were the ones his team used—big and full of metal bolts so it could be heard across the ice. “Run drills with me.”

“Can I get my sled?” I begged him. “I’m going to fall on my face if I try to run drills on my feet.”

“Your ass just let me hit the wall,” Jonah said with a sniff, and then his shoulders sagged. “But yes. I actually need some practice in. Can you shoot some pucks at me?”

“Yeah, but you gotta put a mask on. I’m not going to be responsible for broken bones or concussions, and I don’t want to ruin that pretty face.”

He grinned widely, showing off an empty space where a molar had been. I didn’t bother asking. We all had plenty of falsies sitting in our jaws. “Meet me back in ten.”

The two of us headed for the exit, and I collapsed on the team bench, sitting back to roll my pant leg up so I could take my prosthetic off. I groaned at the relief, then set my long stick aside and reached for my sled, which I’d parked right at the entrance to the ice.

It felt like coming home, sitting myself in the seat that had been made for me. My foot nestled at the front, hooking my shoe under the metal to keep myself steady, and I grabbed my helmet and sticks before pushing out and doing a few laps.

Jonah was going to take a while to get into his whole kit, which allowed me to push myself in long, sweeping circles until my arms started to burn.

It wasn’t enough to take the edge off what I was feeling, especially because all I could think about was Killian and whether or not he’d gotten the job.

I hadn’t been brave enough to check my phone, which was absurd since I was the one who insisted he take my number and text me as soon as he knew something. But for some reason—as much as he would probably deserve a lifetime of rejections—I didn’t want to be the source of any more of his pain.

There was obviously more to the story between him and his ex, and I had a feeling a mountain of information that Tucker didn’t know. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for the truth avalanche I had a feeling was heading this way.

“Tell me your ass is still here,” came Jonah’s voice, breaking through my thoughts.

I came to a halt near the wall where he was stepping onto the ice, giving him a face full of snow. “My ass and the rest of me are still here.”

“Fucker,” Jonah said, swinging his stick and missing. He was puffy and round with his pads and made his wobbly way toward the net as I followed behind to scoop up the bucket full of pucks. His head turned, following the sound as he settled between the pipes and stretched his legs into a full split.

“Alright. For every goal I stop, you have to tell me one fact about why you’re all fucked-up. For every goal you make?—”

“I’m not playing this game,” I said quickly. The fucker was too good at his position, and he was a professional player, so I didn’t get even a quarter of the ice time he did.

“It’s either this, or I follow you into the locker room and sit my butthole directly on your face until you talk.”

“Why are you the worst person literally in the world?” I demanded, dumping the pucks onto the ice, then swiveling my sled sideways so I could line up a decent shot.

He grinned behind his mask. “You’d love me less if I was different.”

I hated that he wasn’t lying. “I will tell you one thing if you can get a shutout with three rounds.”

Jonah’s confident grin told me this was a losing bet.

And while I wouldn’t tell him who was in my apartment and why, I didn’t hate the idea that I might have someone to talk to about this.

It was sitting on my chest like a heavy weight, and though I planned to do my absolute best to get at least one goal, I wasn’t going to hate it if he won.

And he won. Of fucking course he won.

His smug smile as he followed me into the locker room was annoying as hell, but I couldn’t stay too mad at him.

The way he grinned with his hair stuck up all over the place from helmet sweat would have softened me.

He was like the baby brother I’d always wanted.

The imaginary brother who never existed, who probably would have hated me if my mom had crapped out a boy instead of a bunch of tow-headed little girls in her exact image.

With her exact attitude.

“Alright,” Jonah said as we stretched out on the benches near my locker.

The community league locker room wasn’t as nice as the stadium’s, but Jonah seemed just as at home here as he did at his own arena.

He carefully began to stow his gear in his bag as I grabbed my deodorant and tried to combat the sweat stench from practice. “Spill your guts.”

Bowing my head, I stared down at my foot, digging my toes into the rubber mat beneath the bench. “I met someone.”

Jonah straightened. “Shut your whore mouth.”

“Yeah. We hooked up about a month ago. I met him at a club. We ordered food and had a little thing.”

Jonah put his hand over his crotch. “He had a little thing?”

“ We had a little thing. He had a decent-sized, you know, thing ,” I confessed. “Felt it all the way through the next day.” Definitely not a lie. Killian had fucked me better than anyone ever had. “He snuck out on me while I was asleep.”

“Oh, ew.” He wrinkled his nose as he pulled his shirt over his head and then adjusted his prosthetics so they were pointed straight instead of looking in opposite directions. “That’s a dick move.”

“We had an agreement,” I admitted. “It was just supposed to be a one-night sort of deal.”

“And now you’re pining?”

“No,” I snapped, sounding like a sullen teenager.

I took a breath and shrugged. “I was doing fine, but then he had to go and show back up in town, and now it’s…

he’s…” Was I supposed to tell Jonah that it was actually Killian?

That he was homeless and staying in my guest room?

There was a huge chance he was going to tell my friends and say it was for my own good.

“Tell me he’s not being an ass to you.”

“No. More like…I’m being an ass to him. And I should tell him to get fucked for what he did, but I can’t seem to help how much I want this guy.

” The truth was bitter on my tongue. It was a betrayal against Tucker in the worst way.

I was avoiding him too, and he hadn’t noticed because he was so wrapped up in Amedeo, but eventually, he’d realize I was keeping my distance, and then I was fucked.

Jonah spun on the bench to face me. “You like this guy, eh?”

“I shouldn’t, but yes.”

“Is he a murderer?”

“Uh…no? ”

“Serial puppy kicker?”

I grimaced. “I don’t…think so.”

“Does he hate cats?”

I laughed. “No.”

Jonah ducked his head and leaned in toward me. “Do cats love him?”

Letting out a resigned sigh, I nodded. “She loves him. A lot.”

“Then I don’t see the problem,” he said, leaning back and folding his arms over his chest.