Page 2 of Kitty Season (Green Line Ice #2)

F or someone frequently described as being bigger than a brick shithouse , the thirty something hours of flight time from Melbourne to Boston was a nightmare. As was my mental state when those cabin doors finally swung open and the fuel-scented gateway air hit my lungs.

Already homesick and resigned to my failure, I staggered through customs and fell headfirst into a bro-ship. Within days of meeting, Noah Petterson became the home away from home I so desperately needed, taught me so much about the game I love, and introduced me to Quinn, the girl I love.

He single-handedly changed the trajectory of my life, and now, through the fogged up window of his fancy Back Bay digs, I watch as he asks Lotte to alter his.

Lotte is Noah’s dream girl, but unlike mine, she loves him back.

A fact that’s clear to see as he drops to one knee before her.

With love struck eyes and trembling hands, he slides the ring I helped choose over her dainty finger, then stands and sweeps her into his arms. He’s crying now too, and they’re both laughing and kissing, and the whole damn thing is so sweet I might throw up.

Some might say they’re crazy. They’re young, really young, and have been together less than twelve months.

Like me, Lotte is still in school studying something I can’t even pronounce, and Noah’s just begun his NHL career here in Boston.

So while it’s true that there’s a lot going against them, they have one important thing tipping the scales to their benefit.

Never in my twenty-one years on this earth, have I seen two people more into each other. Including the couple beside me.

Swept up in the romance of the moment, Quinn—beholder of my unrequited love—and her boyfriend—my nemesis—Troye are feverishly making out. We’re talking, kissing, petting, sighing, all that’s passionate, all with little regard to my presence.

I guess this is my life now. Watching the people I love fall in love, and get laid.

“Touch me, Troye,” Quinn begs, and I swear to God, I can feel her breath ghost over me like she’s unzipped my jeans and whispered it directly to my dick. I need to get out of here, and I need to do it now.

Since I’m a sicko that loves to punish myself, I make the ill-advised choice to sneak one last peek at Quinn before I run.

Of course, at that exact moment, Troye blinks his hazel eyes open.

Hooded and hungry, they dart from the face he’s eating to mine, shooting me a cheeky wink that has my boner situation escalating from uncomfortable to painful.

Sensing Troye’s divided attention, Quinn’s grinding stills, her head slowly follows his gaze, her hand brushing her mussed chocolate waves from her face.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, my cheeks flushed. “Leaving. Me. Now.”

Idiot.

This is so bloody embarrassing, I blush some more, wanting the cushion beneath me to grow a mouth, open up and swallow me whole.

But my embarrassment isn’t reflected in Quinn’s expression, and her words carry no shame.

“Don’t leave.” She silences my planned protest by dragging her index finger over my jawline.

Then has me literally drooling by repeating the same on Troye’s. “Stay. Kiss me, Brady. Kiss us.”

Us?

Wordlessly, Quinn rises from her smirking beau’s lap, and shuffles back till her feet touch the ground.

With little grunts that have no right to be so cute, she repositions her body, climbs our legs like tree trunks, and settles straddling my left thigh, and Troye’s right.

She’d have to feel how hard I am, how the friction her knee rubbing against me is driving me crazy.

“I feel how much you want me. And I know you want Troye. And I want you both, so …” There’s a pause, one filled with enough heat to pop corn, and while I am inclined to eat, popcorn is not what I’m hungry for.

“If you won’t do it for yourself, Brady, do it for me. The girl of your dreams.”

Right. That.

On a night I’d rather forget, I went to one of Troye’s stupid frat parties, broke my long held sobriety with a keg of beer and word vomited my pathetic feelings all over Quinn.

“ You’re the girl of my dreams. The most beautifulest chick I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a lot ‘cause I’ve lived in two different countries which means a lot of chicks.

I’d do anything for you, Quinny. Anything. ”

At the time, all Quinn wanted was for me to chew a mint and swear to never repeat those words. I’d hoped she’d forgotten them. Guess not.

Both of them watch me, Quinn playing with the hem of my shirt, Troye flicking that damn septum piercing with his tongue. After staring at it for way too long, I realize they’re waiting on me to say something. “Oh, shit. I … I don’t know if?—”

“It’s okay, Skippy,” Troye says, smugly cutting me off with the nickname I hate, then saying something I hate even more. “A soul as pure as yours couldn’t keep up with us anyway.”

“Pure? Screw you, Becker.” The words have barely left my lips when he lunges, forcing himself between Quinn and I and crashing his mouth into mine.

His kiss is nasty and raw, teeth clashing, tongues probing.

It’s so wrong and I want to enjoy it but there’s hands in my hair, on my thigh, around my throat.

Whose are where I don’t know, and I can honestly say I don’t care.

I’ve denied myself for so long, and am far too weak to turn it away.

“My boys,” Quinn moans, slipping closer, her lips attaching to my neck and sucking.

Fingers I now feel are hers, the ones gripping my thigh, relax and shift upward till they cup my swollen dick through my jeans, and squeeze.

It feels so fucking good, I shamelessly push into it, a rough, dirty moan escaping me on each thrust.

“Brady,” she sighs, sending a fresh shot of lust rocketing through me. “Brady, Brady, Brady.”

“Skip, Dude!” That’s Troye, and that’s not a moan. That’s violence. My eyes shoot open and oh my mother fucking God. “What the fuck, bro? You’re practically dry humping the cushion.”

What the fuck indeed.

Beside me, Quinn has her own pillow, unlike the crotch cover-er I’ve just violated, hers is over her mouth, doing a shit job of covering her smile.

Troye is cushion-less, looks less amused, and more or less like he’s about to punch my head in.

“Jesus Skip. I know you’re hard up, but if watching Petterson and his little Mrs. getting fresh has you moaning and humping the upholstery, things are worse than I suspected. ”

“Stretching!” Is my plausible excuse. “I was stretching my groin for the game tonight.”

There is no game tonight. There’s also no hope of Quinn ever ditching Lover Boy for me.

Infinite silence descends. Like, it could not be more uncomfortable. Dropping out of college and schlepping home with my tail between my legs is likely my next move. If I don’t die of shame, or by Troye’s fists, before I get the hell out of this house.

Thankfully the scene playing out in the snow takes the focus off me.

“Oh my God they’re coming inside. Shut up!

I can see the rock from here!” Quinn is up and off the couch the second the front door of Noah’s new place swings open, her five-ten frame swamping Lotte’s five nothing.

“Oh my God, you’re getting married!” Noah’s face is still visible, and never have I seen him happier.

I should be up there congratulating them too, but I can’t seem to feel anything below my neck.

Making his lingering presence known is Lover Boy beside me. “Skippy, if you wanted to see me score off the ice as well as on, you should have just asked. I could have sent you some home movies, too.”

“Piss off, Becker. Quinn’s interest in you is shocking enough, why would I be. Also, I don’t think she would like you sharing any of your little movies.” Hopefully my overly dramatic air quotes conceal the residual mortification on my face.

“Who said Quinn would be involved?”

“The fuck!” I spin to face him and find his shit-eating smirk has reached Cheshire Cat proportions. This is the closest I’ve been to him off the ice and my blood is bubbling, skin prickled with contempt. I fucking hate this guy. Oh, he has a chin dimple. “You better not be cheating on her, Troye.”

“Calm down, Gladys.” Gladys, what the? “I’m not completely stupid.

One, Quinn is amazing. I would never fuck around on her.

And two, technically we’re not a couple.

” Greasy locks fall into his eyes, as he tilts his head to steal a glance over my shoulder.

Once he’s gauged the level of attention we’re receiving, he slides closer and places his huge hand on my thigh.

It’s warm—no, hot—searing into my skin, despite the layer of denim, and so high, I can’t help but wonder if you could still consider it thigh.

“I was suggesting I share some solo sessions. I want you to hear me whisper your name as I coat my stomach.”

My body trembles with want. “Oh,” I say. “Oh. Umm.”

What a comeback.

After shooting me a wink I feel in my bones, his very real hand gives a squeeze before he uses it to push off and up from the sofa.

I just sit there, ridiculously hard and staring into space like a stunned mullet, while he casually saunters towards the happy couple congratulating them like he didn’t just blow up my world.

Five.

Five.

That’s how many times I’ve dropped my dacks and checked if there is in fact, a hand shaped scar on my damn leg, so real is the lingering touch of Troye.

It’s also been five days since Lotte and Noah’s engagement and roughly 5000 times that I have wanted to melt into the core of the earth and never come back.

Embarrassment is still in the mix but the driving force in this nightmare is shame. I am a disgusting person. Possibly sick. Fantasizing, or whatever that was about Quinn is one thing, but Troye? Quinn and Troye? That’s a whole new level of weird, even for me.

Noah being the perceptive ‘I can fix you’ kind of guy that he is, senses all is not well and no matter where he is, has called to check in on me every other day. I want to tell him. To pop the lid on the shaken soda can and just go off in an explosion of fizz.

“While watching you propose, I sexy daydreamed that Troye and Quinn wanted a threesome with me, when I came to—wrong choice of words—I had a boner and Troye knew I had a boner and he called me Gladys then offered to send me a wank video of him and his boner. Only that, the wanking and the threesome, didn’t weird me out and now I can’t stop thinking about it which is weirding me out … Also I hate him.”

I’m sure there’s a way to condense that but I can confidently say, that is how it would leave my lips. Lotte, who sits beside me chewing on her pencil, is highly suspicious too, but like me she’s awkward as all hell and would rather slice off her own tongue than ask about feelings.

Shifting in my seat, I attempt to tune back into my sports psych professor and her lecture on professional boundaries.

Any form of boundary setting is something I really need to brush up on but focusing is hard when there’s an ever more frequent cramping, twisting, puking sensation knotting me up inside.

Without a thought, I slip my hand beneath the too-small wooden desk and delve into my pockets to stroke the fluorescent hair of my good luck troll, Poppy.

She was a gift from my youngest sister the day I got my fifth straight shutout and was picked from oblivion to come to the States.

Needless to say it’s my good luck charm/habitual anxiety reliever.

I grimace as the corner of my nail catches on a partially stubborn knot in Poppy’s locks.

“You don’t agree, Mr. Basse? MR. BASSE?”

Shit that’s me. “Um, yes?”

“Yes you agree, or no you don’t?”

“Umm. Ahh…” I mumble, while attempting to slide Poppy back into my pocket. She slips, though, and proceeds to roll down the stairs, making a deafening clunk no two inch toy has the right to make until coming to rest at the polished pumps of Professor Plum. Say that fast five times in a row.

Plum is gorgeous, tall and forbidden which naturally makes her ten times more appealing to the student population.

There’s also a slight Aussie twang to her, naurrrr.

“What’s this?” All eyes appreciative of the female ass, including mine, follow the rise of her lemon chiffon skirt as she bends to retrieve my “good luck charm.”

“It’s a troll.” A smattering of chuckles break out around me, and Lotte taps my thigh in silent support.

“Yes, I see that, but why did it roll down my stairs in the middle of class? Is this a prank? Are you implying I am a troll?”

“NO!” Rising to my feet, I follow Poppy’s path, clambering down the lecture theater stairs till I’m blue-eyes to blue-eyes with Plum. “No, not at all, you’re very beautiful … and you’re not naked … wait, I mean your skirt is on and it’s … umm, pretty and … short.”

And this is why I will die a virgin.

Professor Plum’s condemnation of me is barely audible over my classmates’ now riotous laughter bouncing off the walls. The only part I catch is. “My office after class, Mr. Basse.” As Poppy is slapped into the palm of my hand. “You and the troll.”