Page 30

Bowen

My first thought when I wake up is that I never asked her to leave. The room smells like her—sweet, citrusy, a little like lemon and sin—and it’s soaked into the sheets, into my skin, into the pillow that’s still dented from where her head laid on it.

Except she’s not there now, and I feel… disappointed?

Sitting up, I scrub a hand over my face. What the hell. I don’t do this. I don’t feel like this .

I’ve never asked a girl to stay over. Hell, I don’t even remember the last time I woke up beside one. The last person who got that close was my first girlfriend, and that crashed and burned after twenty-two days of me choosing hockey over everything else.

Since then, hookups have been easier. Cleaner. Less risk. No lingering complications or deep conversations in the morning light.

But Vi didn’t complicate anything last night. She just… shifted something.

I lean back on the pillows and exhale through my nose. My chest’s tight. Not painful. Just… tight.

What did Briggs say yesterday? I guess it got old. Lonely, too.

Am I lonely?

No.

Maybe.

Fuck, I don’t know.

I liked her. That’s it. I liked her. And maybe it’s messing with me more than it should because I haven’t seen the guys yet, haven’t skated in a few days, haven’t settled into this city that still feels like a fever dream.

But what bothers me most is I didn’t get her number. Didn’t ask for her last name. Didn’t leave myself any way to see her again. Just let her walk out like she didn’t wreck me for casual. What the hell was that?

Crawling out of bed, I make my way to the shower so that I can wash off the last of Vi’s vanilla perfume. There’s something fruity in there, too. Strawberry? Doesn’t matter. I send the aromatic residue swirling down the drain and get dressed with plenty of time to head over to the arena to meet my teammates.

I tell myself it was just a night. Nothing more. No big deal. But even as I grab my gear and check my reflection one last time, there’s this strange sense of… static. Like I left something behind that I wasn’t supposed to. Like I forgot to collect a piece of myself before she walked out. I shake it off, lock the hotel door behind me, and head out into the heat. I toss my bag in the back of my rental and slide behind the wheel, the leather seats already too warm. Time to get my head on straight. New city, new team, fresh start. Whatever that was last night, it stays there.

I meet Briggs in the lobby of the arena. He gives me the quick tour—training room, film room, weight room—and hands me off to Assistant Coach Shaw outside the locker room.

“Go easy on him,” Briggs says with a smirk. “The kid’s still adjusting to the heat.”

Coach claps me on the shoulder. “C’mon, Murphy. Time to meet your brothers.”

And just like that, I’m stepping into a room full of guys I know by highlight reel but not in person. It’s disorienting—like crashing a celebrity party where I’m both the new guy and the main event.

“Hey, fresh meat.” A tall, broadly-built guy with blond hair strides over and sticks out his hand. “I’m Viktor Abbott, Team Captain. Nice to meet you. You’re Bowen Murphy, right?”

“In the flesh.” I take his hand. Instead of shaking it, Viktor pulls me off-balance into a one-armed hug, complete with back slapping so enthusiastic that I’m pretty sure it shakes my lungs loose.

Coach clears his throat. “You break him, you bought him, Vik. Maybe don’t crush the new guy? Bowen Murphy, this is Viktor Abbott, Knight Hale, Chad Hawthorne, Tristan Dubois, Camden Beck, Lennox Sawyer…” I move down the line, shaking hands as I go. At least nobody else tries to smother me in a bear hug.

“All right!” Coach Shaw claps his hands once we’re suitably introduced. “I’ll see you guys on the ice. Bowen, I’ll meet you out there and introduce you to Coach Metcalfe.”

I nod once. “Right.”

Coach Shaw leaves. There’s a prolonged silence as I get set up in my locker. I don’t think the other guys know what to say to me, and when I don’t engage, they go back to whatever conversations they were having when I came in. It’s not that I plan to ignore them forever. I just need a chance to settle in and get a lay of the land.

And for some reason—stupidly—I keep thinking about Vi.

Not the sex, though yeah, that’s burned into my brain. It’s the way she didn’t linger. The way she kissed my cheek like we were something… and then walked out like we weren’t.

I didn’t ask for her number. I didn’t ask where she was going. And now I’m sitting here, surrounded by new teammates, new opportunity, new everything—and all I can think about is the one girl who looked at me like I was more than just the guy with the nickname and the pierced cock.

“Hey.”

I look up to find the guy at the locker next to mine watching me with quiet, dark eyes. He doesn’t smile, but there’s no edge there. No threat. Just… observation. Camden Beck, if I remember right. One of the Venom’s younger guys, and a fellow legacy. His dad played back in the day.

“Hey,” I say back. “What’s up? Beck, right?”

He nods. “Just saying hi. Since we’re neighbors.”

There’s a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile, and something about it makes me ease up a little.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” I say, this time with a smile of my own. “Looking forward to skating with you.”

Camden nods again and ducks his head, like that’s the end of his social quota for the day. I get it.

Viktor leans against the locker to my other side with a smirk that says he’s already figured out more about me than I want him to. “You good, Murphy? Penny for your thoughts?”

I blink. I was expecting small talk. Not… interest. And not just from the captain. The room’s a little quieter now. Ears perking up.

I could brush him off. Make a joke. But for some reason, what comes out is: “So, I hooked up with a woman last night…”

Knight barks a laugh. “Wow. First night?”

“Second,” I admit, half-shrugging. “I hooked up with a different woman the first night.”

There’s a beat of silence before Tristan Dubois whistles low and slaps his locker door shut. “Jesus Christ, man. Two girls in under forty-eight hours? Did you come to Vegas to play hockey or run a fucking marathon?”

I laugh, and to my surprise, so do a couple of the other guys. It’s not warm and fuzzy, but it’s not cold anymore either.

It’s… something.

And for now, that’s enough.

Viktor’s eyebrows go up. He exchanges a glance with Knight. “Impressive. But you were thinking about the woman from yesterday, and…?”

I dump out my crap and start sorting my gear. “I don’t know. I just liked her more than I expected, I guess. Because once I’m not inside them anymore, I don’t usually like them at all.”

This time, Camden chimes in. “How did you meet her?”

Looks like I’m going to be playing twenty questions while getting changed. My favorite. At least this counts as team bonding, right? “Well, Briggs told me about The Puck Drop.”

“Damn.” Viktor laughs. “You just rolled into town and started trawling for chicks, huh?”

“No! The first one just kind of fell into my lap. Then I just wanted one night out in anonymity. And who wants to sit in a hotel room alone all night?” I yank off my shirt and replace it with my new Venom jersey.

Viktor laughs to himself. “Shit. You’re the new me. I’ll give you some pointers, Bowen. First one, don’t fall for the first chick to suck your dick.”

“That wasn’t on the table,” I tell him. The image of Vi on her knees, taking my cock in her mouth, flashes through my mind. Hot damn, that would be so fucking sexy. If there was a next time, I’d ask her to break her rules for me.

But there won’t be. It’s against the rules.

Who the fuck am I right now?

Viktor scoffs. “What kind of puck bunny doesn’t go down on you?”

I’ve slept with my fair share of puck bunnies—probably more than my share, frankly—but I bristle at the implication that Vi falls into that category. “She’s no puck bunny. We didn’t even mention hockey.”

Viktor hums. “Okay, point taken. If she’s not a puck bunny, what is she?”

I shrug, feeling a little helpless. So much for maintaining my aloof reputation. I’m already telling these guys more than they need to know. What’s wrong with me? Is there something in the air? Are we closer to sea level or something, and the oxygen levels in the air are messing with my brain?

The guys are waiting for an answer, so I say, “She’s smart and spicy and really, really petite. But absolutely gorgeous. Unlike any woman I’ve ever known. In the biblical sense.”

Camden’s fleeting smile makes a momentary return. “Interesting.”

Viktor, too, seems amused by my description. “Cool. Now if she cuts you down and puts you in your place a lot…”

I shake my head. “Man, she dodged me at every turn.”

“Well, my wife was home with me. Who is this mystery woman?”

“Hell if I know. I didn’t get her number. Didn’t even ask her last name. All I know is that she goes by Vi.”

Camden chokes. Hard. On what, I have no idea. One second he’s breathing, the next he’s doing an interpretive dance of asphyxiation. “Vi?” he wheezes.

I glance over at Viktor, eyebrows raised. Has Camden hooked up with her too? Not that it would matter. I don’t have a claim on her. I don’t.

But my spine is stiffening like it does matter. And that’s… not ideal.

Viktor’s expression shuts down so fast it’s like flipping a breaker. “Could be anyone,” he says smoothly. “Vi is a very generic name. And our Vi would never do anything like that. Ever.”

Camden is still coughing like he swallowed a live bee.

Tristan squints at me over his sports drink. “At the Puck Drop, you said?”

“Our Vi?” I echo, slow and stupid.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she is a puck bunny. Maybe she’s halfway through the roster and I’m just a blip on her stat sheet. A warm-up. A fucking preseason scrimmage. And that should be fine. It would be fine.

Except… it’s not.

The idea of Vi—my Vi, the one who clung to me like I was oxygen, the one who whispered my name like it meant something—doing a train with my new teammates makes something in my chest twist tight.

Not jealous. Just… territorial. Which is worse, probably.

I clear my throat. “Do you know her?”

It comes out too soft, too hopeful, and I immediately hate myself. Yesterday I was dodging texts from Destiny, annoyed she was acting like I owed her something. Today I’m practically begging strangers to help me find a woman who made me feel like I was the one being fucked, not the other way around.

God, I’m a mess.

Viktor lifts a brow but doesn’t answer. Neither does Camden.

The silence is deafening.

Finally, Viktor waves me off. “Nah. Vegas is a big place. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. She could have been a tourist just passing through. Chicks always fall for that ‘what happens in Vegas’ shit. She’s probably a housewife from Detroit. Now, finish getting ready and we’ll hit the ice. I want to see what kind of moves you’ve got, new guy.”

I relax at the mere mention of ice time. That’s exactly what I need to help clear my head and cleanse my palate of the lingering sweetness of my one and only night with the elusive Vi.

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Titles by Colleen Charles

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