Page 63 of Off-Ice Misconduct (Daddies of the League #8)

Ace

I was barely in the door—still smelling like antiseptic and hospital food—when I returned home last week and was accosted with tea galore.

“Cap, Cap! You fucking missed it while you were gone. Lars tracked down Mrs. Chamberlain. I, uh, urged him to. I knew she was on our side, and I was right. Mrs. Chamberlain found her grandson for us,” Bender said.

Interestingly, Bender didn’t reach out himself. Was Shep still jealous of her? Better question, why did I need to ask? He is. Especially when I’m pretty sure they’re not … stable.

“Where was that little worm?”

“Hiding out like the coward he is at one of his family’s beach houses. Guess what she did to him for what he did to you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Spanked his ass, right in front of everyone, southern gramma style. Wooden spoon and everything.”

Yep, she sure did—there are videos.

Shep put his arms around Bender’s neck from behind. Bender leaned into him instead of shrugging him off. “Yeah, she’s one badass bitch.”

Since I’d already told Luke the news about Vancouver, it was finally time to tell the guys.

They weren’t mad at me, they were stoked.

When Beta Sigma heard, they saw dollar signs, and I told them they could use it.

My contract news pushed our views into the stratosphere, and we exceeded our fundraising goals.

It was even reposted by both Alderchuck brothers—two of Vancouver’s top offensive players.

I’m gonna play hockey with the fucking Alderchuck brothers. Legends. Both of them.

It's a fucking bummer that Luke has to move off campus, but East came up with the idea to have Luke move in with them until the end of the school year. Luke didn’t need to worry about money once the will shit was taken care of, and he could have rented an apartment in town, but I wasn’t over almost losing Dad, and my spare time’s been divided between him and Luke.

East thought it would make it easier for me and give us the chance to get to know each other before I was off to the NHL.

I thought Luke would hate it, but he was all for it. “Will it be a tad odd living with your dad? Maybe. But you can’t help the timing, princess. He was in a horrible accident. I get your need to be close to him … before I take you away for most of the year.”

I raised a brow. “Isn’t the NHL taking me away?”

“I’m allowing the NHL to borrow you for games,” he said in a dark voice. “You’ll be under my jurisdiction, on my leash the whole time.”

Jesus fucking Christ—the delicious shiver that gave me.

So, yeah. He’s with East and Dad, temporarily, but he’s looking forward to getting on the road with me.

March

The number of people in this massive arena’s fucking insane.

North Point Military Academy is one of the largest schools included in the NCAA, and their arena holds fifteen thousand people.

Roar doesn’t begin to describe the sound coming from the crowd.

The building shakes. Thousands of screaming voices vibrate through my chest as I step onto the ice, taking that first glide, and being swallowed by the overhead lights.

Dad, East, and Luke are somewhere in the crowd, but I won’t be able to spot them. That was a whole debacle. They could have had seats near the bench, but besides a little caution—being anonymous in a crowd of thousands—Luke still can’t do watching me from up close.

It’s a tad endearing—not that I say things like that to his face, unless I want to start a little fun trouble.

He was willing to sit alone, but Dad wouldn’t have it and decided to try an outing with crutches for the first time.

He’d been crutching around the house, but blood loss tends to weaken you, so he’d use the wheelchair for longer outings.

If he brought it here, he’d need to sit in the accessible seating area, which is closer to the ice.

East wasn’t happy. A fight ensued. But somehow, Dad won that one.

Across the rink, North Point stretches and warms up, mocking us with their glares, chirping insults as they skate by.

This game is gonna be fucking brutal, and I’m kinda glad Luke’s way up in the nosebleed section.

Whoever wins this game, wins the Pacific Conference Quarter Finals and gets an automatic spot in the Frozen Four Faceoff.

Both teams are hungry for it, hungrier than I’ve ever seen two teams, and neither of us is leaving here without pieces of us missing.

Teeth, skin, our humanity—gone.

Spoiler alert, in hockey that means there are gonna be a lot of fights.

Ryan skates over, spraying me with ice like a bad boy greaser on skates. It doesn’t matter that off the ice, we’re practically family now, he’s here for one reason only—to be a dick.

“Hope your daddy’s watching, princess.”

Oooooh he fucking did not. But I knew that day in the office was gonna come back to haunt me. Hard to say if princess was a lucky guess or if Tate overheard us and spilled during pillow talk.

But Savage is barking up the wrong VanCourt bitch. I have some experience. I know what VanCourts are like.

“Where is it?” I ask.

“Where’s what?”

“His mark.”

VanCourts are territorial as fuck. Coach probably won’t even like us talking this close.

But the thing I tried to rile him with does the opposite. He smiles like he’s already won, pulling up the sleeve of his jersey where?—

Holy shit.

A cuff. Leather. Brown with a big fat “V” embossed into the center.

How come Luke never gave me one? Great, now I’m jealous, and thrown. So many questions fill my head.

“Can’t wear my ring on the ice.” Or anywhere until they announce it. He winks and shoves me, totally unaffected. Ryan waggles his brows as if he likes it. He can’t like it, can he? Now I wanna know, but it’s so not the time for coffee talk.

Well, that backfired. But we’re on the ice, I can rip his helmet off and mark his smug jaw.

Before I can go after him, Coach is yelling at me. “McKinnon!” He points to where the rest of the team’s doing warmups. “Shoot pucks in net.”

Whatever. I’m totally punching the shit out of his secret husband as soon as I get the chance.

North point comes out cocky—shoulders loose and mouths running. Savage opens with a smirk and a shoulder check so hard it echoes across the boards. Show off.

The puck drops again, I win, passing back to Shep, who’s ready for me to send it sweetly to his stick. That’s good because I’m slammed into the boards by North Point’s defense, spine to glass.

“Stay down. You play better from the ice.”

“At least my team doesn’t play like it’s their first time in skates.”

And that’s the first fight of the game. I get two minutes for roughing—worth it. For the rest of the first period, I bait them, draw their defense like sharks to blood, then turn and feed my line the puck with sharp passes.

But it’s just my night or something, because the puck finds its way back to me like my stick’s a magnet for it, and I score two goals before the end of the first.

With the score shining a bit fat goose egg at North Point, they head off to the locker room between the first and the second, demoralized, heads hanging.

Coach is quiet. That’s weird. We’re kicking some major ass.

He should be happy. I know he’s married to the North Point captain, and his sour mood could be easily explained by “feeling bad” that his husband is losing hard.

But I also know it’s a marriage of convenience and that Coach is way too fucking competitive to care about shit like that.

Something else is up. I can’t worry about it, though. I’m in the zone. This is my game.

The second starts off with a vengeance. North Point answers back with two goals, one by their overly large captain, and the other from a right winger, Shane Murray. The score’s too close to coast, and they’re biting back hard.

Ryan’s stick slashes accidentally on purpose under my skates, sending me flying. Where are the refs in this game? Already in the off-season golfing? Because does he get a penalty? No. Such fucking bullshit. Fine. Guess that means taking my own piece of him.

I wait for the next faceoff, passing the puck back to Bender, and then I toss down my stick, shed my gloves, and go.

Helmets fall to the ice. Fist meets jaw.

There’s a wet sound and a choked hnnk as Savage’s head spins right and upward.

Blood sprays onto the ice. He bit into his lip.

That’s not gonna make Coach too happy with me, but fuck him, and fuck Ryan.

Ryan stumbles back, he recovers fast and throws a hit that glances off my cheek.

The man punches like a sledgehammer. Damn that hurt.

He swings again, I duck, and I hope Luke saw that from wherever he is—some of his boxer training put to good use.

Then I drive my shoulder into his chest, and we go down in a heap, heads almost cracking together.

His hand fists my jersey, yanking me forward.

We roll across the ice like angry cats until we finally get a damn whistle. Half the crowd is screaming, the other half booing. The refs get their hands on us, pulling us apart, dragging us to the box.

That’s this hockey game. We rack up the penalty minutes and don’t score any more goals. The score sits at three two us as we whittle down to the last two minutes of the game. North Point getting increasingly frustrated that they can’t get one by Lars.

Blood leaks into my right eye, and the taste of copper fills my mouthguard. We’re clinging to the lead, but barely—they’ve played hard enough they could tie it. Every second is nail-biting.

Savage is still on the ice, bruised and pissed off.

Good.

They pull the goalie. Empty net. More bodies in the zone.

I whack my stick on the ice, and we tighten the defense, passing it between us, trying to get it out of our zone. One wrong move, one interception, and we’re tied. I don’t want this game to go to overtime. It’s time to finish it.

Savage barrels toward me with murder in his eyes. I pass the puck and take the hit without flinching. He slams into me, my helmeted head crushed against the boards. Shit. Where did it go? Where the fuck did the puck go?

Shoving him off me, I turn and see something beautiful. Shep has the puck and open ice. He shoots it toward the empty net.

Goal.

The horn sounds, and the team’s jumping, helmets and sticks flying, the rest of our guys flying off the boards, ramming into the mob.

But not me.

Ryan loses it. My head meets ice—thank fuck for helmets, amiright?

—but something’s oddly familiar about the fall.

The edges of my vision blur for several seconds, but I still feel the relentless pounding against my cage.

I think he’s … yep, Ryan’s trying to get to my face through the cage of my helmet.

His hands are gonna suck later.

I make a sleepy attempt to get up, but it’s hard with two-hundred-and-some-odd pounds of Ryan, beating the shit out of me. There’s an ugly crack and a crunch. My ribs. That fucking cocksucker. Just wait until I get up. I’m gonna, and then I’m gonna make him regret breathing.

Everything finally comes roaring back—the lights, the crowd, the chill off the ice, which I’m still on. What’s that … what’s the red shit everywhere? I roll my head side to side. Wait a minute, my helmet’s gone. When did that happen?

Slowly, I sit up. Everyone’s around me—the medics and the team—and I look around, bewildered. Everything’s on pause … I guess while they figure out if I’m dead or not.

Nah. Not today. It’s gonna take a lot more than Ryan Savage to take out Ace McfuckingKinnon.

I lift my fist in the air, letting out a victory cry. The rowdy hockey crowd answers back with vengeance, wanting Ryan’s blood as much as I do.

But Ryan is, conveniently, nowhere to be found.

The team helps me to my feet, and a sharp pain in my side almost takes me down again. I stumble as I adjust to limited oxygen, unable to take a full breath.

We’ve won the conference final, but there’s still a chance for North Point to make it to the Frozen Four if they’re selected for an at-large bid by the committee. Something tells me they will be. And when we meet again, I’m taking one of Ryan’s pretty teeth.