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neo

I don’t have many weaknesses, but Bender Price is one of them. Bender is a forward from the Vegas Chiefs, a rival college team, who has been overheard talking shit about me and my brother more than once. I wouldn’t give a shit if it was just about me. People talk about me all the time. It’s the fact that he always has my brother’s name in his mouth too.

He talks about Jake’s career, his character, and his death as if he knew him personally. He didn’t. I think part of his problem is that he’s jealous of my success and using Jake to get inside of my head. Getting inside a man’s head during a game is pretty simple, but being calculated about it and getting into it beforehand is diabolical.

“What about Bender?” My hand twitches.

“He’s here.”

“He actually had the balls to step inside this house?”

My house?

Shane somehow convinces Kennedy and Violet to head over to the taco table while I figure out what I’m going to say once I approach this interloper. I haven’t seen him in months since we rarely play their team during the regular season, but one thing the two of us aren’t is friendly. If he’s here, he must want an ass whipping. I might just oblige him.

“Who the fuck invited you?” I approach, not mincing words.

“Neo, old friend.”

“Who let you in, Bender?”

“You should put a lock on your little house here if you want to regulate who comes and goes.”

Shane and Bass make their way over to us, flanking both my left and right sides.

“You should leave, dude,” Shane tells Bender.

“This is a Suns only event,” Bass adds.

“Ah, the little ice mafia sidekicks. What are you two, the Robins to his Batman?”

“You jealous?” I smirk. “You need a friend or something?”

“Oh, I’ve got a friend all right,” he says while grabbing his dick. “And her name is Vikki Dixon.”

I laugh to myself.

Bender tosses Vikki’s name around as if it’s supposed to mean something to me when it holds no gravity at all. Vikki is someone who is probably the closest thing I’ve got to an ex-girlfriend. She caught me freshman year when everything about campus was exciting and new and I wanted a beautiful girl on my arm to amplify my importance as a new member of the team. Plus, there was the added bonus that she was Coach Dixon’s daughter. A daughter who had influence with her father which therefore put me on his radar. But relationships are not my forte and even though one with her was beneficial for me, I couldn’t stomach it, so I stopped calling. A long time ago.

“If you’re here to flaunt your new girlfriend or something, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. I couldn’t give one shit.”

Bender’s smile sours a second too late to hide his disappointment. “Is that right? Not even a hot little number like Vikki? She did mention your emotional intelligence was about as tiny as your very small... well, you know.”

“You take a great interest in my dick,” I shoot back, leaning against the living room archway with nonchalance I was far from feeling. Shane and Bass chuckle for effect. “I didn’t know you cared that much about how much I’m packing.”

The atmosphere in the room shifts, and I can feel the coarse undercurrent of tension skirting beneath the jovial surface of the gathering. When you talk about a man’s dick, things can get nasty.

I catch sight of Violet, watching us from the taco table. Her eyes are wide, an indication she’s more aware of the situation than she lets on. But she holds her silence, her eyes flitting between me and Bender with an unsettling intensity.

“The fuck you say?” Bender replies, not liking that his hetero masculinity is being challenged in front of company.

“Maybe you can talk about other people’s dicks all you want where you come from,” I dig in, pushing off the wall and stalking toward him. “But when you’re in my house...” The words hang in the air as an ultimatum, and Bender meets my gaze unflinchingly.

“Well, if it’s your house,” he says with a nasty grin, “then why don’t you make me leave?”

As Bender’s words echo in my mind, and my left hand clenches, the wheels began turning in my head. He’s here for a reason, and it isn’t to flaunt Vikki around. Bender is smarter than that; he knows how to play people, how to get inside their heads and needle them until they snap.

“Maybe I will.” I return his grin with one of my own. But unlike his, which holds a gleam of malice, mine is cold and calculated. Bender’s smirk twitches slightly at my response before he turns away dismissively, leaving a trail of unease in his wake.

“Enjoy your party, Neo,” he calls over his shoulder, striding towards the taco table where Violet stands like a beacon in the crowd. My lips press into a thin line as I watch him approach her, his cocksure gait stirring a wave of distaste within me. But I remain rooted to my spot, determined not to let Bender’s calculated moves dictate my actions.

As Shane and Bass rejoin me, their faces a mirror of my own frustrations, the room fills with an uneasy silence. The laughter and chatter from before feel like distant memories, swallowed by the thick tension that now hangs in the air.

“Let’s just fuck him up,” Shane says.

“Please!” Bass chimes in. “The freshmen are itching for a fight. Let’s give it to them.”

I shake my head slowly. “Not right now. Not here.”

“You’re just gonna let him get away with this disrespect?” Bass continues incredulously.

I draw in a deep breath, unable to tear my gaze away from Violet, who is looking back at me when Bender says something to her. It could be a coincidence, but he’s targeted the one person in this room that will get a reaction out of me.

Dammit, I promised the higher-ups of VCU’s athletic department that we’d have no problems at this kickback, which has been planned for at least a month. The school doesn’t mind a little bad press as the bad boys of the college hockey world, but not too much of it. Yet now that I see the worry etched on Violet’s face, I’m afraid I’m going to have to break it.

What the fuck is he saying to her?

“I changed my mind,” I tell Shane and Bass. “But since he’s here alone, he’s mine.”

“Fine,” Shane agrees. “But if he as much even says excuse me to Kennedy, I’m jumping in.”

And before Bass can chime in, I’m across the room, with my hand around Bender’s throat, his face down on the table dripping in pico de gallo.

It’s a glorious feeling.

My brother taught me my famous choke hold move, so it’s only fitting that I use it on the guy that likes to bring Jake’s name up whenever it suits him. The move is designed to disable my opponent until he taps out in surrender. Of course, that’s in a fair fight. There’s nothing fair about this one.

It takes four VCU Suns to pull me off of Bender and kick him out of the house. Once he’s gone, my breathing calms and the weight of what I’ve just done starts to settle.

Shane is like a hottie whisperer and is always able to make women feel at ease, even in the most stressful situations. He brings Kennedy and Violet back over to where Bass and I are standing, but it’s obvious that Shane’s wrangling is not enough to comfort Violet.

She’s staring at me as if I’m a monster, which may be a fair assessment, not to mention that she’s going to think that I attacked Bender because I was jealous of him and Vikki when it was not that at all. Dude had that ass kicking coming to him for a long time, not to mention that I snapped when I saw him trying to chat up Violet. I don’t even want him looking at Violet, much less speaking to her.

Why? I don’t know.

She’s not mine, and it makes little sense why I’m so completely territorial over a girl I don’t even know yet or, sadly, at this point, will ever get to know. She’s probably terrified of me.

“He was an asshole, man,” Bass says out loud, probably for the benefit of whoever is listening around us. “He deserved that. Been a long time coming.”

Shane checks his phone, then leans in and whispers something in Kennedy’s ear, and her face frowns instantly.

“Violet, something’s come up, and I’m actually going to need to leave,” Kennedy suddenly tells her.

“Are you okay?” Violet’s face etched with concern.

“I just need to book a flight and get home. Do you want to stay here for a while or come back to the apartment with me?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Violet replies, dumping her coke in the trash. “Home with you.”

“But you just got here,” I blurt out carelessly.

“This isn’t exactly my type of party,” Violet responds tersely, clearly referring to the scene I’ve just made tonight.

My eyes lower to the ground. I don’t have an appropriate response to that comment, so I say nothing, and after they leave, I shouldn’t be pissed with Shane, but I am.

“What the fuck did you say to Prez to make them want to leave?” I ask him in my “team captain” voice. The one I use when I’m giving an order or expect an answer.

“It’s family shit,” he says, ignoring the boom in my voice.

“Why can’t you give that girl one night of peace?” I growl, pissed that his obsession with her often has a domino effect on the rest of us…okay, well, maybe just me.

“Since when do you care about what goes on between me and Kennedy?”

“I don’t.” I quickly check myself.

“It’s obvious you’re attracted to the bookworm.”

“She’s cool,” I try saying casually, knowing that my dick is laughing hysterically at my attempt at being cavalier.

Literally laughing.

“You didn’t want us to handle Price until he dared to say two words to her. You like her.”

Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass the way Shane and Bass can read me so easily.

“She’s cool,” I repeat, although I don’t say it as casually as I said it before.

“I’m pretty sure I heard that she has a man back home,” Shane reveals and a pang of disappointment hits my belly. “On top of the fact that she couldn’t give two flying fucks about you.”

My face tightens. “And your point is, Shane?”

“That bothers the hell out of you, doesn’t it?”

“Probably less than it does for you when Kennedy has a dude over on a Friday night.”

“Watch your mouth, asshole. Honestly, you should be thanking me for tonight,” Shane continues, and I cock my head to the side out of confusion, my loosely balled fist itching to hit him dead in his perfect ass jaw.

“Explain yourself quickly, pretty boy,” I warn.

While Shane, Bass and I are known as the Ice Mafia Triad for how well we work in tandem on the ice, we all have personal nicknames for each other and out of the three of us, Shane is definitely the prettiest. We always joke that when the three of us go pro, he’ll be the one with the most endorsements because of that face of his.

“What I just told Kennedy is making her get on a plane and fly back to the East Coast for Christmas.”

“So?”

“So, the new girl will be in Valencia City all Christmas break alone.”

Shane’s eyebrows wiggle, and when the revelation of what he’s just said hits me like a ton of bricks, he gives me a light tap on the back.

“Merry Christmas, Cap.”