Page 55 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

Ace

T hings go from bad to worse, and it only takes forty-eight hours.

More articles are released, but Andy doesn’t stop with the Gazette, photos from my one drunken night are everywhere.

He creates a narrative as if the images are from multiple occurrences, as if I’m out there every night boozing it up.

And people are actually fucking falling for it.

Thankfully, not everyone. The guys know I don’t drink during the season and even Delta Gamma figure out pretty fast that it’s all bullshit.

But “witnesses” come forward, wanting money for views and clicks for fame, lending false credibility to the articles.

That’s when our donors start pulling out.

All that fucking hard work since the beginning of the year, crumbling brick by fucking brick.

Coach was right about the Alumni sticking around—they know frat brothers are prone to the sort of social crimes it looks like I’m committing—but they’re getting leery, asking questions.

Worried about my growing “alcohol addiction.”

By the time the third article drops, twisting my one-night fuck-up into some kind of frat-boy relapse saga, I stop refreshing the page. I stop reading the comments. I stop trying to defend myself at all.

And that’s what finally breaks Luke.

Luke storms across campus, and I barely manage to keep up with him before he glides through the doors of The Shadow Gazette office, ready for war.

The guy at the front desk starts to speak, but Luke doesn’t even slow down. “I need to speak to your editor. Now .”

Luke has the kind of voice that has you moving before you know why you’re doing it. The frightened little first-year scampers to the editor’s office, only to be preceded by another frightened little first-year. Who’s running this place?

Oh.

It’s her.

She has meek, long, fly-away hair. Freckles. Kinda cute in a nerdy sort of way. Her already big eyes get rounder, but not because of Luke; they’re staring at me.

“Uh, ah … A-Ace,” she stutters, blinking.

“You must be Katrina,” Luke says. How the fuck does he know that? But at least he’s softened. “I need to speak with you.”

“Right this way, Professor,” she says.

In the room with the door shut, she takes shelter behind her desk, and I sit—on my still sore ass—pillowing my hands behind my head, stretching my abs. She’s staring again.

“Oh for the love of … McKinnon,” Luke snaps, eyes glancing south.

Oh shit. My shirt crawled up my torso. I yank it down, but I spread my legs, getting comfortable. I fully expect Daddy to come to my rescue on this one. We need diplomacy, and I’m not feeling very diplomatic right now.

To be honest, Luke doesn’t seem very diplomatic either, but he’s got a better shot at it than I do.

“Katrina, what happened to those nice articles you were writing about my … student here?”

Student. I snort. I wanna know what he almost called me, though. Was it gonna be princess? Boyfriend? Love of my life?

Katrina looks around for an escape.

“Start talking,” he says.

“I didn’t want to publish them. I’m your biggest fan, Ace—you gotta believe me—but I couldn’t turn down Mr. Chamberlain. I’m sorry, so, so, sorry.” Tears stream down her face as she falls to her knees. It’s a whole thing. I’m stuck on that last bit.

“Mr. Chamberlain?” Luke says.

“Andrew Chamberlain,” she says through sobs.

“Freshman Andy is Andrew Chamberlain?”

“Yeah,” she cries.

Luke rubs his temple, closing his eyes, gathering strength. “McKinnon, will you please tell her everything’s alright?”

“But it’s not—” Luke glares. “Katrina, is it? I won’t lie, things are shit, but it’s not your fault. We’ve all been fooled by Freshman Andy.” I reach for a tissue from the box on the windowsill and stand up, extending my hand to her, helping her off the floor.

She blows her nose with the tissue. “Thanks, Ace. I knew you were a stand-up guy. Knew those images had to be photoshopped, and that Zamboni driver’s a liar—I never trusted him.”

“ Well —”

“McKinnon,” Luke snaps. I think he’s said my name more in the last hour than in the last month.

“Point is, we need your help. Can you stop publishing those articles if we take care of that fucking punk Andy?”

She nods. “I’ll do what I should have done in the first place and quit if he says anything. I was a huge fan of your mother, by the way.”

“You watched Mom play ? Ow .” A familiar hand pulls me away from the nice girl by my t-shirt collar.

“Sorry about that. I know his boyfriend, and he wouldn’t like him flirting with pretty girls,” Luke growls.

“Boyfriend?” Katrina’s heart breaks in real time. “I didn’t know. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s kinda private. The only reason the professor here knows is because he caught us making out.” I give her a wink; she might pass out. “Look, I wish we had more time, but can you tell us everything you know about that weasel?”

I can’t stop smirking. Luke’s about to blow a gasket.

I’ve sprawled out on his couch because practice took it out of me earlier.

I haven’t been sleeping, which means almost zero recovery.

And then I had class. And then Luke dragged me down to The Shadow Gazette office, where Katrina told us a long story about Freshman Andy.

At least we learned he actually is a freshman, and he’s Andrew Chamberlain Junior, named after his great-grandfather.

Should I push Luke when he’s at his wits’ end? No. But I need the distraction. Otherwise, my brain regales me with every doomsday scenario imaginable.

“The moral of the story is that everyone’s obsessed with me.”

“That’s a dangerous moral.” He holds his hand out, and I take it. I hope this means he’s taking me to bed. And for the first time since knowing him, I hope it’s for actual sleep. “I should be the only one obsessed with you.”

“You’re the only one I’m obsessed with, if it helps.” Don’t know what he’s going to do when I have a real mass of fans, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Luke leads me to his bedroom and tugs my shirt off, then his.

Sweet, nervous little Katrina told us a wild story. Freshman Andy talked about me with her—a lot.

“We had a bit of a fan club,” she’d admitted.

“His grandmother was a fan of yours, too. Adored your mom. He grew up hearing stories about her playing. Andy called you ‘hockey royalty’. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now?

Some of the stuff he knew about you bordered on stalker—makes my skin crawl. ”

“How many is that now, McKinnon?” Luke says, opening the covers. “Celeste, lusty first years, Katrina, rich grandmothers…”

I climb into the bed, and he’s right behind me, wrapping his large body around me as if he’s trying to shield me from all the Ace-obsessed people that might pop up to grab me.

“Ugh, and Andy. Soooo creepy.”

“You’re safe now, McKinnon, you’ve got me. The root of your problems was you, and I intend to save you from yourself.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He nibbles on my neck. “You don’t mean to do it. You’re somehow oblivious and self-aware at the same time, and you unintentionally lead people on. You blink your pretty eyes, and they fall under your spell. I might not survive you, McKinnon.”

I thread my fingers through his, yawning. Couldn’t sleep to save my life last night. But with Luke? I’ll be out cold soon.

“You’re right, I don’t get it. I mean, I know I’m pleasant to look at.”

“There’s the self-awareness.”

“But I’m up front with everyone. I never promised Andy anything.”

“This is where the obliviousness comes in. You’re a celebrity. To a guy like Andy, that was an invitation from the king. Imagine how disappointed he was when he thought you had a girlfriend. Still doesn’t justify his actions, but I can understand the psychology of the whole thing.”

“Yeah, I get it. I have to be more careful. Didn’t pick up on Katrina on my own either. I figured it out through your cues—I’m fluent in Daddy. That’s something, right?”

“That’s something,” he says. Luke presses a kiss to the back of my head. “Let’s hope she doesn’t join the ranks of people who want revenge because you won’t sleep with them. I’d hate to have to add her to my list—I liked her.”

“Liked?”

“She wrote nice articles about you. Didn’t you read them? She quoted you in interviews.”

“Online interviews. I was sent forms, I filled them out, and hit send. Welcome to the future, Daddy.”

“You’re lucky I just wanna do this right now.” He pulls me against him tightly. “Go to sleep, princess. I’ll watch over you.”

Luke won’t let me out of his sight, and it’s so fucking sweet.

It’s like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for me to break down.

I have in small ways, mostly with anger.

At myself, at Andy, at this whole fucking year for being so fucked.

For the rest of the week, I have to put up with stares and a few comments from douchebags about my “alcohol addiction”.

But then it leaked that Larson McAnderson has a Benduovr Fans account he uses to pay for his tuition, and everyone moved on to that.

Thanks, bud.

But Coach hasn’t been able to locate Freshman Andy, and neither have we. He’s gone AWOL. So we’ve carried on, with our eyes peeled, trying not to buckle under the weight of the fallout.

We have a home game against Spokane this weekend, and practice is … well, it’s going. Coach announced that we’ve officially lost seventy percent of our funding. The mood is heavy.

Not just heavy. Suffocating.

No one speaks. No chirping, no swearing, just the brutal silence of impact.