Page 10 of Furious (The Six Six Six Rule #2)

Jamie Hart goes on a breakaway skating faster than UCLA’s defense, managing to take the puck right in front of the opponents’ goalie. His slapshot flies right into the upper corner of the net, right past the goalie’s glove.

The entire arena, except the small section occupied by the UCLA fans, stands up. Heather and I hug each other, jumping up and down. The first period ends with the Star Cove Knights scoring two goals, nil for UCLA.

Heather and I escort Mrs. Pullin to the restroom during the break. When we return, I spot a familiar blond head next to the sheriff.

“Ares.” I smile. “You made it.”

“Yeah, I just clocked off.” He says, pointing to his uniform. “I thought I’d catch the last two periods before I go home to get some sleep. Three a.m. comes pretty fast.”

Sheriff Pullin nods, a sympathetic look on his face.

“Yeah, I remember those twelve hour patrol shifts. If I’m being honest, I don’t think my body could take them these days.

It’s good that you’re young. But if you didn’t want to miss the first game of the season, you could have said so, son.

I would have given you permission to clock off earlier. ”

I know what Ares is going to say before he speaks.

“Thank you, sir. But I’d rather just work my shifts. Everyone knows you and my father are close. I don’t want to give my colleagues any reason to think that buys me a more favorable treatment.”

The sheriff slaps him on the back. “Well said. I’m proud of you, Ares. But at least when we’re off duty, you could call me Kirk, like you’ve always done.”

“Yes sir. I mean, Kirk.” My stepbrother agrees.

He stands up to allow us to slide back into our seats, but moves down the row to allow Mrs. Pullin to sit next to her husband.

“Heather, you go ahead.” He then offers, letting me and Heather go in next. “Let me sit at the end of the row, so I can sneak out as soon as the game is over.”

That means that I’m sitting between Heather and Ares.

“What did I miss?” he asks me. “Did Chance or Lev get any ice time?”

I shake my head. “No, not yet. But we’re winning two-zero.”

“That’s cool. Depending on how the next period goes, Coach Harrison might decide to give his first and second line a rest and put Chance and Lev in.”

His prediction proves correct and midway through the third period, our coach calls back Hart, Harper and Miller with Lev, Chance and another player I recognize from last week’s secret race, Winston Warren.

“This is so exciting,” I beam. “How cool would it be if one of them scored?”

When Ares’s pinky finger brushes against mine during the game, at first I think it’s accidental. But it happens a few times and eventually he sits angling himself so that Heather can’t see our hands as he links our pinky fingers together.

My heart is racing in my chest the entire time. It’s a heady combination between seeing Chance and Lev skating against UCLA, and the way Ares is touching me in front of pretty much the entire town.

Ares isn’t the only one who gets to predict something about tonight’s game.

One of my wishes comes true when Lev steals the puck from one of the UCLA defensemen and gives Chance the perfect assist.

When my stepbrother finds the five hole between the goalie’s legs, we jump, shouting his name with the rest of the Cove Knights fans.

“Did you see that? That’s awesome.” Ares hugs me, and we jump up and down in celebration.

We aren’t the only ones hugging to celebrate our team’s fifth goal of the night, so nothing looks amiss. The butterflies in the pit of my stomach, however, are fluttering their wings as if Ares had kissed me in public.

The game ends in a five-nil shutout for the Cove Knights, and our spirits are high when we say goodbye to Ares and to Heather’s parents and go to wait for the guys to come out of the locker room.

LEV

There is so much energy in the locker room that it feels like a palpable entity.

For the most part, people are laughing and celebrating our first W of the year and we’re all pumped to the max.

Chance and I have more reason than others to celebrate. Freshmen don’t tend to get a ton of ice time, especially when a team has so many star players that already have NHL contracts waiting for them after graduation.

We know that we have to use every opportunity to get on Coach’s radar, and we did just that today.

Tucker, our goalie, climbs on the bench in front of his locker, buck naked. “Who’s the best team in our fucking conference this year?” he yells, gyrating his hips doing a helicopter dick. “Who fucked UCLA in the ass, raw dog, not once, not twice, but five fucking times?” he roars.

Our captain, Luke, yells back. “Cove Knights, Cove Knights!”

Before we know it, the entire locker room is chanting “Cove Knights.”

The atmosphere is intoxicating in the best way possible. I have to admit that this is where hockey beats racing any day of the week.

When you race, even if you’re part of a team, it’s still mostly every man for himself. In hockey, some teams become so tight-knit that it’s like having a second family.

“Who’s ready to fuck some Zetas now?” Tucker yells from his spot on the bench.

“Our freshmen showed us what they can do on the ice. Let’s show them how the Cove Knights party in the Gamma house.

Our motto is loud music, booze and pussy as far as the eye can see.

You aren’t a Cove Knight until you’ve scored a goal and you’ve fucked a Ze?—”

“If scoring a goal is what makes a Cove Knight,” Coach Harrison is standing right behind Tucker, his tone frostier than an ice bath. “That means you ain’t one, Prescott.”

Tucker cups his junk to cover it, his dark brows lowered into a frown, as he takes in what Coach just said. “But I’m the goalie. That doesn’t apply to me.”

That was the wrong thing to say, or maybe it doesn’t matter what Tucker says at this point.

Coach Harrison glares at every single one of his players in the locker room. “One thing that I can guarantee applies to every man in this room is that we skate tomorrow morning at seven a.m. sharp.”

A collective groan meets the announcement and, I swear to God, I see the hint of a smile on Coach Harrison’s face. But it’s there for a split second; if you blinked, you’d miss it and think it was a figment of your imagination.

Coach ignores the dampener he’s put on the team’s mood and issues a warning. “With that in mind, make sure you enjoy the loud music, booze, and pussy promised by your teammate in moderation. You don’t want to know what happens if you show up to practice late, or are too hungover to function.”

There’s a chorus of defeated “Yes, Coach.”

But Coach Harrison isn’t done. “Of course, let me remind you that not every man in this room is of legal drinking age, most of you actually aren’t.

I’m confident I don’t have to tell you that if I get woken up at four a.m. to come and bail you out of jail, there’s gonna be consequences. Understood?”

More “Yes, Coach,” is uttered in the locker room, and the sobering effect is such that even Tucker jumps off the bench and grabs a towel and his shower gel.

“One more thing, ladies.” Coach says, meeting everyone’s gazes around the room.

“I came here to tell you, good job tonight. Of course, it’s early days and we don’t want to jinx anything, but that was one hell of a team out there.

From our seniors to our freshmen, you’ve made my job of choosing which lines to send out easier and harder at the same time.

I guess it’s a nice problem to have. Now go to your party, but I’ll see you all tomorrow morning bright and early. ”

When the locker room doors closes behind Coach, I check my phone before grabbing my shower stuff.

“Zara is outside waiting for us.” I tell Chance, who’s right behind me. “Heather is with her.”

He rolls his eyes. “There goes my victory kiss.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to get a victory kiss at the party.

” I slap him on the back, headed for the first empty shower cubicle.

“You can find somewhere quiet to hang out with Zee. And Heather isn’t the only person you should worry about.

If we have to sell to your parents that Zara is with me, we have to be careful not to blow our cover. ”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. It still sucks, though.”

I’m about to tell him that he’ll live, but as I’m about to step into the cubicle, someone slaps me on the ass.

“Good game tonight, fresh meat. But don’t let that assist and that goal go to your head.” Dave laughs. “By the end of the night, you’ll get a reminder of where your place is. Let’s see what you can do against my brother on a real fucking race bike.”

I know our frat president is just trying to rile me up. Trash talking must be a Fox family tradition, because his brother Calvin used to do that constantly when we raced in the Super Bikes League.

The best response to people like them is not to show them that they’re getting to you with their heckling.

“Yeah. About that,” I grab the tiled wall of the shower cubicle entrance so I don’t have to look at the arrogant smile that I can bet is on his face.

“Chance and I brought our own bikes, if you don’t mind.

Not that we don’t trust Calvin, but we don’t want to be charged for the use of his bikes when we bankrupt you, like you tried to do last week. ”

To my surprise, Dave doesn’t argue with that. “Sounds good. Like this, you can’t say that the race was rigged when you eat Cal’s dust. Besides, that opens a few extra spots. I’ve had several requests to race, but we can’t have too many bikes for obvious reasons. Two more racers mean more bets.”

“A few extra spots?” I turn around to look at him. “What the fuck are you talking about? I thought this was just the same people who raced last week, plus your brother. You said it was a rematch.”

Like I thought, Dave’s smile is the epitome of arrogance.

“That was the initial idea, yes. But we’re taking a risk by organizing this race and bringing motorcycles to Star Cove. We have to make it worth our while.”

Chance’s head pokes out from the cubicle next to mine.

“What the fuck have you done?” he growls.

“I agreed to race tonight because it was supposed to be a secret between frat brothers. I knew Cal was bad news. But I thought all he wanted was to race me and Lev again. No one talked about more racers.”

“Aww, what’s going on, Hunter? Are you scared you’re going to lose?”

Chance steps out of his cubicle, his hands are balled into fists. “Dave, what the fuck is going on?”

The smile vanishes as he answers the question.

“What’s going on is that you and your family ruined my brother’s career.

He was headed for greatness and now he can barely scrape by.

So he found a few people interested in racing who want to bet some money.

He’s going to keep this going until he has enough to start his own racing team. ”

Shit.

“What are you talking about? How is he going to do that in one race?”

The smirk that returns on my teammate’s face should be all the answer we need. “We’re going to race for as long as it takes.”

Chance takes one menace step toward our frat president. “We agreed to one race. You know, racing in Star Cove is twice as dangerous as anywhere else. They could arrest us even before we turn the engines on. Having a bike in town is?—”

“Illegal, I know.” Dave bites out. “That’s what makes people more excited to race and to bet.

There are lots of places where you can race illegally all over the state.

But here in Star Cove, the stakes are higher, and that means more money.

And you two are going to race for as long as we tell you to. ”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Ha. The fuck we are. Call this whole thing off, or we’re going to call the cops.”

My threat doesn’t have the intended effect.

“You’re going to race tonight and every other night we tell you to.

Unless you want the mayor to get a video of his son and his oldest friend racing motorcycles in his precious little town.

Don’t forget that we have last week’s initiation on fucking video.

So get ready and don’t even think about running your mouths.

You don’t want to piss off the people who provided the bikes, I promise you that. ”