Page 1 of Hot Ice, Tennessee (Hard Spot Saloon #2)

1

MASON

First thing’s first: I didn’t know he was a hockey player.

The summer kickoff party started out perfectly innocently, or as innocent as I was capable of being, at least. I should have seen the red flags waving in the wind from a mile away, in the self-assured, confident way he sat there, sizing me up.

There was a lot I didn’t know about Jesse Sanocki yet.

Cocky ass motherfucker.

TNU’s hottest young hockey center was sitting right across from me. I didn’t know who he was yet, but he was about to witness me doing what I did best.

Making a terrible decision in front of a lot of people.

The bar was rowdy out here on the back patio. The sun had set, and the hot day had given way to the humid buzz of night. Never change, Tennessee summers.

I was up on the table, standing on my hands for a few seconds before a crowd started forming around me in a circle. Everything in my field of view was upside-down as I managed to hold myself in a handstand on the wooden outdoor table, pint glasses and pitchers of beer surrounding me, with two strangers holding each of my legs up for support.

“Is he really going to do it?” somebody said. Heads on the patio turned toward me, one by one.

“Another keg stand,” my friend Kane grumbled, making his rounds on the patio, picking up empty glasses.

“Well, I’m not doing it from a keg,” I said, trying to act like it was easy to talk upside-down. I watched Kane’s disapproving stare. “And I haven’t done one of these in months.”

“One keg stand a year would be too much,” Kane said. “You know what? Zero keg stands would be even better.”

Kane owned this bar. The Hard Spot was his baby. I wouldn’t dream of doing shit like this unless I knew that deep down, he got a kick out of it, too.

The bar was busier than usual. Music bumped with plenty of bass, and the early summer cicadas chittered in the night air surrounding the patio like they were cheering me on, too. Tonight was the summer kickoff party, otherwise known as the perfect time for me to chug a monster of a cocktail upside-down. You know how the Little Mermaid wanted to be where the people are? That was essentially me, other than a few small details like being a cock-thirsty cowboy instead of a mermaid with a pretty voice.

This was my happy place. Getting people to quit dwelling on whatever was shitty in their lives, let loose, and have a damn good night.

There was so much I was running from, too.

Let’s all forget together. I’ll raise my glass to that.

The brooding, dark-haired guy was still sitting across from me, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

Why did he look determined to be alone, even sitting in a crowd?

Watch me change your mind.

“Keep him safe,” Kane warned the guys holding my legs before he went back inside the bar. I steadied my palms on the smooth wooden table beneath me. One of the guys had kindly poured my headbanger cocktail—rum, energy drink, whiskey, beer, and cider—into a big bottle for easy access, because if I was going to chug upside down, I sure as fuck didn’t want to do it from a glass.

Someone touched the cold rim of the bottle to my lips. I kept my hands steady on the patio table, my palms pressed against the smooth wood planks.

“Ready to roll?” the guy asked.

“Born ready,” I replied, my arms already starting to burn. “Let’s go.”

The crowd clapped and cheered. The whole outdoor patio was watching now. The guy tipped the bottle upward and the cold drink started to flow. I’d done a few keg stands in my day, but this cocktail was a level up from that, burning at my throat the moment I started to drink.

I chugged. And chugged. The liquor mixture burned at my throat and the inside of my nose, but I wasn’t going to stop for anything, even though I quickly realized what a bad idea this was. A bottle is a lot to drink at once in any situation, but when it’s pouring fast out of some stranger’s hand and you’re upside-down, too?

That shit feels like a goddamn firehose unloading right onto your tongue.

I kept my hands steady as my arms started to burn from the handstand. One of the guys holding my left leg swayed a little, and for a second I was worried I’d lose balance.

Don’t stop.

We keep going.

Push it. Feel the burn.

Right as I thought my arms couldn’t take it anymore, the end of the drink hit my mouth. Cold remnants dribbled down my cheek and neck, and the guy took the bottle away from my lips and bellowed out to the people watching.

“That’s how it’s done,” he said, and people applauded and cheered. I was breathing heavily now, and as the two guys helped bring me back down onto the table, my world went dizzy for a moment.

I smiled through it as my ass came down onto the top of the table. I pumped my fist in the air. People in the crowd hollered more, coming over to me, gripping my shoulder, telling me I was a king.

Yeah. Definitely shouldn’t have done that .

The liquor immediately started to hit my blood.

After the dizziness had passed and the blood had rushed back down from my head, I clapped my hands together, standing up on top of the table upright this time. I looked out over everyone on the patio, feeling like I was on my own little stage.

“Round of drinks on me,” I said as loud as I could over the music. “For everyone out here. Let’s get summer started off right—can I get a hell yeah? ”

Everyone on the patio screamed it back, some of them pumping their fists in the air. “Hell yeah!”

Well.

Everyone except one person.

That same guy across from me, in a leather jacket. Bold choice for a summer night.

He was sitting at a table against the brick exterior of the bar, near the doors that led inside. There was no chance I’d ever seen him before. Tall, looked like an off-duty movie star, and definitely someone I would have noticed if he were a Hard Spot regular. He was staring out past the vines that hung down over the patio roof, toward the cluster of trees behind the bar.

He gave me an uninterested glance after my stunt, and I went a little hot, feeling like I’d been caught staring at something I shouldn’t have been.

I got down off the patio table and got lost in the crowd. I was pulled into hugs, given fist bumps and high-fives, and one big burly guy even kissed the top of my head, calling me the highlight of his night. But I kept glancing over at the guy in the jacket, his lack of a reaction sticking in my side like a thorn.

When I watched him slip inside, I headed in after. I searched the room for leather.

For a second I was pretty sure the guy must have left, but then I landed on him, tucked at one end of the bar and leaning on the weathered oak. He was under one of the hanging lights above the bar, his dark brown hair shining as he looked at the polished chrome beer taps.

The Hard Spot had a big, U-shaped bar inside, and as I walked over I was hit with the smell of beer and the chatter of a dozen different conversations. Kane had worked to transform the Hard Spot into the friendliest local bar in Bestens—the building used to be an old independent bookstore that had gone out of business, and it still had plenty of alcoves lined with floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves. Kane fashioned it into a saloon years ago, and now the inside was all dark wood, pool tables, and Tennessee charm.

I’d been here too much over the last year. Spending my nights in and out of this bar, wishing things were different and searching for something that I could never quite find.

I approached the new guy, and was surprised when he spoke to me first.

“Was wondering if you’d follow me in.”

He said it as I reached his side, but he didn’t bother turning to look at me.

Shit. Was I that obvious?

He was too clean—definitely not someone who just came in from one of the local farms.

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I told him. “You didn’t seem to enjoy my little stunt.”

“And you kept looking at me for approval every five seconds.”

I puffed out a laugh but I didn’t know if he was actually joking or not. “Didn’t think you noticed.”

He still didn’t look at me, instead glancing up at the racks of liquor behind the bar. “You were doing a handstand. Pretty hard to miss, cowboy. Looked like you were about to cry when I left to go inside.”

I frowned.

Did I?

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “You closing out your tab, or can I buy you a drink?”

His eyes finally landed on me, green and radiant.

My stomach dropped a little. He had the kind of striking eyes that looked like they belonged in a famous black-and-white photograph somewhere, not right here in a normal bar in front of me, waiting for me to react.

I couldn’t tell if he was staring into my soul or about to tell me to fuck off.

“No thanks,” he said in his deep baritone. His eyes lingered on me a moment longer. “I’m not drinking tonight. Driving.”

The back of my neck slowly heated under his gaze.

Damn .

He was young.

Way younger than anybody I usually went for, and way younger than me. Normally if a man didn’t have a salt-and- pepper vibe, he barely moved the needle for me. But this guy had a commanding confidence about him, even at his age.

He shrugged off his leather jacket, revealing intricate tattoos along one of his muscled arms. It was beautiful, colorful art, a collection of ink going all the way up and under the sleeve of his grey T-shirt.

“Plow!” another young guy in a jersey said as he walked past the bar and reached out to clap the tattooed guy on the back. “You’re the man. That hat trick was killer, back in December.”

Hat trick?

December?

Who the hell was this guy?

He gave the other guy a little salute and a polite nod. “Next season will be even better.”

“I’ll be there!” the other guy said as he walked off toward the door, waving goodbye.

Oh, God. He’s not just young.

He’s still in college.

That explained the muscle, too—he was a TNU hockey player. I’d heard a few people talking about college hockey outside earlier tonight, mentioning “the Plow,” but I hadn’t realized he was actually here. Tennessee North University was fairly close by, but usually the Hard Spot was full of people more like… me.

Ranchers. Farmers. People who rode horses or drove trucks.

“The Plow ,” I repeated, raising an eyebrow. “Where does that come from?”

He gave me a little shrug. “Just something they call me out on the ice.”

I could tell he was acting humble. People who are good at something might brag about it—but people who are really good at something don’t usually need to.

Just walk away, Mason. He doesn’t need to hear your opinions on—

“I have exactly one opinion on hockey,” I said.

Back in high school, I’d been awarded Most Social for a reason. Right now, this hockey player was like a bright, pretty flower, and I was a butterfly who couldn’t resist. If I was being awkward, I didn’t care.

Nobody liked being alone in a bar, anyway.

He pushed a lock of his dark hair back, revealing smooth skin. “What’s your one hockey opinion?”

“That the puck looks delicious. ”

He looked at me like he was waiting for a punchline. “I have heard a lot of takes on hockey, but that is new.”

“You can’t tell me that those pucks don't look like little chocolate Hostess cakes.”

“That’s what you think of when you watch hockey, huh?”

“I don’t watch it. Don’t even know the rules. But when I’ve seen clips, to me, it’s a bunch of hot, angry men fighting over a Hostess cake. Think about it, next time you’re on the ice.”

He nodded. “Touché, cowboy.”

He was looking at the bar top again, his dark lashes pointed down. I was starting to get a sense that there was something weighing on him.

Maybe it was the first time he’d come to a bar alone in a while. Or, sure, maybe he was an anti-social, standoffish prick.

But… maybe he was just sad.

“It’s okay if you’re a designated driver, by the way,” I told him. “I could buy you an iced tea or a Coke or ten plates of nachos. The offer still stands.”

If he was bothered, it didn’t show. “You sure are offering a lot of people free drinks tonight,” he said. “When you don't have your ass up in the air, that is.”

“And you’re doing a lot of brooding tonight, when you’re not glaring at me outside like a scolding teacher.”

His guarded expression disappeared, like I’d finally said something that got him interested.

“Is that how you feel? Scolded?” he asked. “Just because you didn’t get all my attention like everybody else out there?”

I furrowed my brow. “Do you hate fun, or something?”

“I don't hate fun.” He looked me over, now, glancing down at the open buttons at the top of my shirt. “I can be a lot of fun, actually. Don’t have to chug cocktails upside-down for it, though.”

Fuck.

I’d been expecting… well, I’d expected him to be brooding and cold, not to get cocky and a little flirty.

“Then what do you do for fun?”

He smiled, and a dimple appeared on one side of his mouth. “I take a long wooden stick and smack it all over ice, trying to chase a hard little Hostess cupcake.”

“And getting all the attention from hordes of cheering TNU hockey fans in the audience, I assume,” I said. “You might not get upside-down, but you like the attention too.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Guess we’re both attention whores.”

“Hey, I’m not an attention whore, I’m just a… fun whore, I guess?”

“That just sounds wrong.”

“It really does. Shit.”

He held up a hand. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

Well. I need to have fun, because if I don’t, I feel like my world is collapsing around me. I fill my life with fun so that I can forget.

To give myself something that all the self-help books in the world can’t do.

And… yeah. Maybe my friends are right. Maybe it’s not healthy.

I sure as fuck wasn’t going to say any of that to this super hot, super young stranger, though. Hockey jokes made for good banter, but my own life didn’t.

I ran a hand along the cool, smooth bar top and pulled in a breath. I could smell the little metal bowl full of limes sitting behind the bar, and I could tell I was drunk because my body was hot all over and I was too close to saying every last thing that entered my mind.

The truth was that I was just fucking tired of feeling sad. People thought that I’d just been chasing action and running away from my feelings ever since my dad passed away, and they were right that it had been the hardest thing I’d ever gone through.

But they were wrong about me saying “yes” to too many things. Losing Dad had just shown me that I needed to live. Really live. If nothing was promised, and someone as active as my father could die at 58, then I was going to make the most of my life, right now. Whether that was here in Bestens, Tennessee, or anywhere else.

“This is a small town,” I told the stranger instead of giving him my sad story. “I’ve got to make my own fun where I can find it.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “Hockey keeps me from losing my mind.”

I’d pegged him for being an out-of-towner, maybe at TNU on an athletic scholarship. Now I wasn’t sure. He could be local, and he definitely had a slight Southern accent, though a little less than mine.

I glanced down at his arm again. A few of his tattoos looked fresh—especially a beautifully detailed red bird, right at the top of his forearm.

“Well, as two people who supposedly don’t hate fun, I say we do something,” I offered. “Want to play a game?”

He looked at the bar, grabbing a paper coaster and spinning it between his thumb and middle finger. The lock of his hair that he’d pushed back earlier came back down.

“Listen, if you’re trying to fuck, it’s not going to happen.”

Well, then.

I looked down, backing off in an instant.

He’d been blunt, but there was no venom in his voice. Just honesty.

“Wasn’t assuming your sexuality,” I said. “It’s all good.”

When I looked back up at him, something twinkled in his eyes. “I am gay. Just not in the market. At all.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Well, you’re in luck, then.”

“How so?”

I took a seat at a bar stool and leaned back. “I swore off sex this summer.”

Would have broken that rule for you, though.

He lifted an eyebrow, leaning to one side. It was so clear that he was an athlete now—even the way he leaned on a bar made his biceps pop, as if even his muscles themselves knew how good they looked.

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

“Why not?”

He seemed amused. He looked me up and down. “Because you clearly do want to fuck.”

“I never said that.”

“Your eyes have been saying it all night.”

I waved him off, but he’d clocked it from a mile away. Apparently he could read me like a book.

“Well, it’s true. I’m having a sex-free summer,” I continued.

“What’s with the celibacy?”

Because a self-help book on “self-love” suggested it, and I need all the advice I can get on that.

“I was having too much of it. Figured I should be a good boy for one season.”

“Do good boys chug cocktails while doing handstands?” he asked. “ Hell yeah, ” he said, echoing what I’d told the crowd to chant on the patio.

“Sometimes.”

He watched me. “I still think you would have let me fuck you.”

I held his gaze for a moment. Ugh. Are you a mind-reader?

“You’re not wrong.”

He hummed, his eyes dancing from my lips and then back up again. “Good boy.”

My cock throbbed. “That is unfair.”

“Why?” he said, a feigned innocence in his eyes.

“Telling me you’re off the market, then calling me that?” I protested.

“You like the praise?”

“Not from hockey players who just say it to torture me.”

“Seems like you enjoy being tortured, though,” he said, casually looking down at the bar.

Christ, he was infuriating.

And hot.

But still infuriating.

A low rumble of thunder suddenly filled the air. Heads all around the bar turned toward the propped-open doors that led out to the back patio.

I swallowed. “Off the market, my ass,” I said quietly. “You want to fuck someone, too, don’t you?”

He bit his lower lip for a moment. I felt like I was being sized up all over again, like he’d finally decided I might be worthy of his praise or his attention. His pupils flared, just a little, when he met my eyes again.

“Only if you beg.”

I suppressed a groan. My cock ached now, and the back of my neck was getting hot.

So apparently this guy was a good talker, a good listener, and he wouldn’t hesitate to talk a big fucking game until I was hard as a rock under my pants.

Damn, maybe I don’t hate him.

I felt a little tug inside me, and I failed miserably to reel it back in.

This was the real reason I’d sworn off sex—crushes landed on me like flies landed on my horses.

I was always searching for love in all the wrong places. Falling for people too quickly. I felt like I had a neon sign over my head: “ vulnerable, lonely cowboy, open to being utterly fucking ruined. ”

That little tug? That was the last thing I needed to feel for a college hockey player who had just expressly told me he wasn’t interested unless I begged .

“First of all, fuck you,” I said, trying to compose myself. “Secondly, nice to meet you. I’m Mason.”

I held out a hand.

“Jesse,” he said, shaking mine.

Another, louder thunder crack came through the bar a moment later. Already, I could smell the beginnings of summer rain in the night air, blowing in with the breeze from the open patio doors.

“Fuck. So much for walking home,” I said.

“That ain’t happening.”

“You made it,” Kane said as he finally walked over behind the bar, making his way to our area and carrying a tray of drinks.

I thought he was talking to me, but I watched as he set down the tray and leaned over the bar, giving Jesse a side-hug and a pat on the back.

What the fuck?

Kane sure as hell didn’t make a habit of hanging out with college jocks. He owned this place, he was older than me, and we ran in the same local circles. How was he on hugging terms with a guy who people called the Plow?

“Wait. You guys know each other?” I asked.

“Evening, Mason,” Kane said, giving me a nod. “Yeah, I know this punk. He’s my baby brother. Otherwise known as the younger Sanocki. Jesse, meet Mason.”

Realization hit me slowly.

I’d known Kane for years. I knew he had a college-aged brother—but I’d never met him, because Kane had always said he wasn’t on good terms with his brother. He’d explained that he used to be protective of him, almost like a father figure, but that in recent years things had gotten bad, and everything had changed.

My stomach did a nervous somersault as pieces started to fit together in my mind.

Jesse Sanocki.

Kane Sanocki.

They did have a similar hair color and eye color. Jesse’s features were a bit more delicate, though, and of course he was younger, and…

If Kane knew I’d been hitting on Jesse I was pretty sure he’d take a liquor bottle straight to my skull.

“What are you having to drink, Hot Mess?” Kane asked me, still business as usual. Apparently he hadn’t picked up on any flirting, because he wasn’t actively trying to break my teeth yet.

I pulled in a breath. “Got any lab-grade pure ethanol? 200-proof?”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’ll have something strong. Anything.”

I looked past the open doors and the covered patio outside. The rain had started to come down hard. Everyone that had still been outside was spilling back into the bar, crowding up the interior. It was the first of what would probably be many summer thunderstorms.

A nervous energy was filling my bones, and I wished I could reverse the course of the last twenty minutes.

I cared about Kane almost as deeply as if he were family to me, too. On some of my darkest nights right after my dad died, Kane had saved my life just by being there for me. He was older than me, which meant he must have been a whole lot older than Jesse.

No wonder he had a hand in raising him.

“Max came up with another new cocktail this week,” Kane was saying breezily now. “I’ll try to recreate it. It’s got three liquors in it that should never go together, but somehow, it works.”

My chest clenched. As Kane prepared my cocktail, he and Jesse chatted about school and the weather, like everything was normal.

Finally, Kane slid my drink over the bar with a nod.

Liquor. Good.

A burst of unfamiliar flavor hit my tongue as I took a swig of the greenish drink.

“Wow,” I said. “ Holy —can I bathe in this? That is so fucking good.”

“Max managed to make whiskey and rum work with brandy, basil syrup, coconut, passion fruit, and lavender ,” Kane said. “His taste buds are on another level.”

I took another long swig. “It should be terrible, and it’s great.”

A group of women flagged Kane down from the end of the bar, an expectant look in their eyes.

“Duty calls,” Kane said. “Jesse, don’t give Mason a hard time, okay?”

Kane was gone a moment later, heading toward the opposite end of the bar.

“Okay, please listen to your brother,” I told Jesse the moment Kane was out of earshot. “I don’t know what he meant by ‘giving me a hard time,’ but I don’t want to find out.”

“Oh, chill out.”

“And thanks for mentioning you’re his damn sibling. Are you trying to get me killed?”

He gave me a look as he sipped his water.

Shit. He liked this. He wasn’t backing down—actually, he was looking at me like he couldn’t wait to keep messing with me.

Against my better judgment, my cock perked up again under his gaze.

All right, this is war.

It should have been illegal for my friends to have hot younger brothers. Completely illegal. Knowing how off-limits Jesse was only serving to make his catnip effect stronger now. I was pretty sure he didn’t really want me, or anyone. But my traitorous cock apparently liked doing bad things, too.

“You still want to play a game with me?” he finally asked.

“No.”

He turned his head a little. “Is that the truth?”

No, it’s not the truth, but I’m trying to avoid becoming any more attracted to you than I already am.

I need to just go home.

I sucked in a slow breath. “I’m always down for a game. But I should get the fuck out of here.”

“What game would you want to play?” he asked. “You know. If you were going to play one, instead of heading home.”

Was this how he intimidated opponents out on the ice? Giving them some mix between bedroom eyes and a look that said you don’t stand a chance?

I swirled my drink in my glass, watching the green liquid move over the ice.

“The type of game I usually like playing isn’t going to fly tonight,” I explained. “Not with you.”

“Try me.”

“I don’t know. Dumb stuff. Maybe taking off our shirts and seeing how long it is before people notice. Maybe truth or dare. Or trying to get as many phone numbers as we can, and seeing who gets more.”

His expression went stony as he looked back down at the bar. “I’m definitely not in the mood to get anyone’s number.”

There was that same dark cloud, passing back over his expression. What was bothering him?

“Pretty sure you’d win the phone numbers game easily, anyway,” I said. “We… could pretend we’re Scottish, put on accents, and go around the room talking to people. Or maybe French. Are all hockey players good at French accents?”

I was babbling. Every time I looked at his eyes now, it sort of felt like putting my nerves right into an electrical socket.

“I’m glad that I don’t know anybody in this bar other than Kane,” Jesse admitted, finally meeting my eyes again. “I needed to get out of my usual places.”

“Avoiding someone?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. I decided not to push that line of questioning. He stood up, picking up his leather jacket in one hand and his drink in the other.

“Come outside. I’ll show you something.”