Page 3 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Three

Smitty

She was gone.

Hell, I should have known that she wouldn’t stay, just because I’d asked…or okay, maybe ask was less than accurate. Because I’d commanded that she stay like she was a dog.

Right.

I should work on that.

But I got a little stupid when it came to one Kailey Henderson.

Probably because she had the prettiest pair of green eyes I’d ever had the privilege of seeing. Long legs and shining brown hair. Pale blue glasses that sat atop a freckle-dotted nose. A top lip fuller than the bottom. High cheekbones. Long lashes.

I’d spent a week studying her every chance I could steal a look.

And I was ready.

To convince her to give me a chance.

Yeah, I was big and clumsy and not the prettiest to look at. But I was great at making people laugh, and I was loyal and I was strong.

I could be a good partner.

I could .

I just needed to prove to Kailey that despite my big and unwieldy body, my tendency to be a bit of a loose cannon on the ice, that I could be good for her.

Of course, I didn’t really know her.

But I knew…nothing about her.

Shit.

That probably wasn’t the best thing for a man who wanted a woman to love me.

So, plan one was to find out all the things about Kailey I could. Likes. Dislikes. All the small things that would just make her smile. All the big things that were important to her.

Then I could prove to her that I would make her happy.

I could make someone happy.

I could .

Striding out of the showers with my towel slung around my neck, I ignored the groans as I strode to my stall.

“Fuck, I didn’t miss that,” Raph muttered, bending over and tying his shoe.

“My glorious body?” I asked, shaking my ass, and yeah, my dick.

Which earned me more groans.

Ha.

Fuckers.

The best part of being in a locker room was being able to annoy my teammates.

Okay, the best part of this locker room was being able to play with these guys.

I could be myself.

And they might bitch and give me shit, but ever since Luc had begun making changes a few seasons ago, the team had gelled in a way that meant I’d never had a better experience, never wanted to play somewhere else.

Plus, I got to shoot a rubber disc at a net—well, at a goalie within a net—be naked a lot and in a way that didn’t get me arrested, and I got to travel.

That was one of my favorite things to do.

Maybe I didn’t get a ton of time to play tourist, but I had a job that brought me to different cities, and I took advantage of that.

I found the small hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

I hiked or visited random-ass museums.

I walked around, saw shit, met people.

It was epic.

The groans about my nakedness faded, and I yanked on my underwear before plunking down on the bench, reaching for my shirt and shrugging it on, closing the buttons along the front.

Then it was socks, slacks, the uncomfortable shoes.

I fucking hated suits, though I did my best to make the most of them—for example, my suit today was an epic blue and green plaid that had elicited the same groans as me coming out of the shower had.

Maybe I shouldn’t like to torture my teammates…

But…meh.

It kept the locker room environment light, and up until the last couple seasons, the team had needed light.

But now we’d cut the toxic players from the roster, had won two Cups in a row, had good management, great support staff. We were good.

So now we needed the room light more than ever.

Because the pressure was on and we needed a way to release it, and I didn’t mind that it was me. My shoulders were big enough to carry it.

Let the guys laugh at me, groan at my antics, whine about my nakedness.

If that blew off some much-needed steam, then let that be part of my assistant captain duties.

“You coming to meet us for udon?” I asked Raph, who was shrugging into his suit jacket.

My teammate shook his head. “Nah, man. I need to get home to Monica.”

Monica being the woman Raph had started dating in the off-season. She was tall, thin, blond…and had turned up pregnant.

The first three I liked about her—and really, who wouldn’t?

Plus, I was a fan of women in general—tall, short, curvy, slender, tits, ass, hair long or short, I liked it all.

Unfortunately, it was the last, and the rest of her—a little snotty, a lot smirky, even more looking down her nose at me—that I didn’t like as much.

But my friend was happy and in fairness, I knew I was a lot.

Plus, Hazel had recently been pregnant, too.

I’d seen what a big change it was, and paired with the random queasiness, fatigue, and vomiting, I knew that probably made it less than fun.

Unfortunately, Monica was just…

She was a bit of a snob, okay? And she had been that way from the first time I’d met her.

So, no, I wasn’t a fan.

But, though the guys thought I had a big mouth—and yeah, I did—I was also good at keeping shit inside it.

Like an opinion about the chick my teammate was dating.

Especially one who was carrying said teammate’s baby.

“Yeah,” I’d said, “makes sense. It’s going to be hard on her when we travel, huh?”

The lines around Raph’s mouth deepened. “Yeah, she’s not happy about that.”

See?

Here was one of the times I was able to keep shit inside my mouth.

I didn’t say what I was thinking—which was: what the fuck did Monica expect, considering she was dating and had gotten knocked up by a professional hockey player?

“It can be hard on the families,” was all I said.

Well, all I said before exchanging goodbyes because Raph’s cell buzzed and I knew it was Monica because the man jumped and did it high, speeding through the rest of getting dressed, gathering his shit together, before hauling ass out of the locker room without a glance back.

Before, he’d sit and shoot the shit.

We’d talk about nothing and about plans for the next game, how to do better, things to try since we played on the same side of the ice.

Raph right wing.

I was right D.

Separate halves of the team, and yet it was imperative we work together.

So, we talked and planned and rehashed and thought ahead to who we were playing against, and since I liked to talk—about anything really—but also especially about hockey, I missed having that with Raph.

But he had a girl at home, a kid on the way.

Things were going to change.

So I had better get used to it.

Nothing stayed the same.

Before I could ruminate on that, wonder why that was bothering me so much, Theo, one of the younger guys on the team and currently getting his degree in Zoology, said something about the mating habits of camels that required me to not keep my mouth shut.

And then there were more groans and sock balls being thrown and shit being given and a group of us getting ready to go out to get udon.

And I stopped thinking about the disquiet that had been sitting heavily on my chest ever since?—

A sock ball beaned me right in the face, and I couldn’t even be mad.

I was relieved to not think about that source of disquiet.

Still, I snagged it and yeeted it back at my current D partner, Cas. He was a good friend, a pain in the ass, and there was no way in hell that I was going to let the indignity of a sock ball to the face stand.

No fucking way.

I grabbed it, rolled it tighter, and…let it rip.