Page 9 of Offside Play (Love The Game #1)

Jude

T he roar of the crowd hit me like a fucking freight train as I followed the assistant Brayden had arranged to escort me into the Calgary Bobcats arena.

According to my brother, the arena had a capacity of around nineteen thousand.

It was a small number if I compared it to the grounds of the big teams in the Premier League that held up to seventy-five thousand spectators.

Even Fulham’s ground seated almost thirty thousand.

But although I was used to playing in front of much bigger crowds, I’d never been confronted by such a deafening wall of sound before. The atmosphere was electric.

“Bloody hell,” I said, my eyes widening as I took in the sea of black and orange surrounding me—the colours of the Calgary Bobcats.

The guy grinned. “It’s something, eh? Just wait until the game begins.” He came to a stop in front of a section of seating in a prime position, with an amazing view of the entire rink. “You’re up here with the other friends and families of the players. Best seats in the house.”

I thanked him before taking my seat, staring out across the glittering ice. In just a few minutes, I’d see Cody again for the first time since the car park, and I’d have to sit here and pretend he was just another member of the team.

His words still played on repeat in my mind. Stay away from me, Jude. Please. I mean it .

I just hoped I was strong enough to do as he’d asked.

The teams appeared from the tunnels, ready for the warm-up, and I scanned the players in black and orange jerseys, my breath catching in my throat as I spotted both number 39 and number 71.

Brayden looked confident and focused as he moved across the ice, and some of my tension eased.

We’d met up for coffee this morning, and he’d spoken about how much the Stanley Cup meant to him, a visible tremor in his hands as he clasped his cup.

Although I’d done my best to reassure him, I wasn’t sure if my words had even registered.

It was the most important moment of his career, and I’d been worried that the pressure was getting too intense.

Now, though, he showed none of those nerves, and I knew he’d be okay.

A woman seated to my left seemed to notice my stare, glancing down at the ice before tilting her head towards me, a warm smile spreading across her face. “You must be Brayden’s brother. I’m Greta, Dimitri Petrov’s wife. Dimitri mentioned you were visiting from the UK.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said politely, forcing myself to look away from the ice. “Yeah. This is my first playoff game.”

“You picked a good one, that’s for sure. Home games have the best atmosphere, and with it being the conference finals…” She gestured around us at the hyped-up crowd, and I nodded with a grin.

“Yeah. It’s gonna be fun.”

Returning my attention to the ice, I watched as the Bobcats and their opponents, Dallas, each took a series of practice shots.

My gaze slid to Cody, who was skating with that same controlled aggression I remembered from practice, all power and predatory grace.

I shifted in my seat, willing my dick to behave.

What was it about this man that got me so hot?

Greta followed my gaze as she leaned forwards in her seat. “Ohhh. Cody Clements. He had a rough few years, back in Boston. But Calgary’s been good for him.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Uh, how long has Dimitri been playing for Calgary?”

Thankfully, she dropped the subject of Cody, giving me a brief rundown of her husband’s career history, and I relaxed into my seat, watching the rest of the warm-up as she spoke.

The teams left the ice, returning to their locker rooms, and the pre-game show started, hyping up the crowd even further, until it was time for the game to begin.

My gaze arrowed straight to Cody when the teams returned, taking their places for the national anthem.

He was holding himself completely still as the music played, his brows pulled together and his jaw set in a hard line.

He looked older than twenty-four in that moment.

So serious, too, like he was carrying a heavy weight on his tense shoulders.

Everything in me wanted to go to him, to smooth away that furrow between his brows, to run my hands over his shoulders until his tension went away, to kiss him until his problems were forgotten.

It was a foreign feeling—one I’d never had about anyone before.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, forcing my eyes away. I couldn’t allow myself to think like that. It was no good for either of us.

I kept my gaze averted until the puck dropped, and the action began.

NHL hockey was faster than I’d realised, even after watching the games on TV.

The players flew across the ice, checking each other into the boards, fighting for possession of the puck and the chance to get their team ahead.

I found myself twisting in my seat, my gaze darting all over the rink, torn between watching the skilled, smooth skating of my brother on the right wing and Cody on the left, just as skilled, but with a rougher brutality to his moves.

“Fucking hell,” I gasped when Cody sent a Dallas player sprawling across the ice with one powerful blow.

After our kiss in the car, I’d looked him up online, needing to know more about the man who had so easily managed to get under my skin.

Between my internet stalking and the things he’d mentioned in the car, I knew that aggression had been one of the issues he’d had in Boston.

Knowing it was one thing, but seeing it in action was another.

I should not be finding it so hot. Violence had never turned me on before Cody came along.

Thankfully for my sanity, he regained control, and the rest of the first period flew by in a blur of near misses and last-minute saves. Neither team managed to score, but they both kept going hard right up until the buzzer sounded.

The second period had only just begun when one of the Dallas players tried to take possession of the puck, slamming Cody into the boards.

They both went down, and as soon as they scrambled to their feet, they were pulling off their gloves and going at each other, punching and grappling until the referees managed to separate them.

Cody skated to the penalty box with blood on his knuckles and his jersey all skewed.

As he passed our section, his gaze slid across the crowd, and I could’ve sworn our eyes connected for a second before he looked away.

My heart was pounding out of my chest both from the adrenaline and the brief acknowledgement he’d given me, whether it was intentional or not.

After the drama of the fight, the game settled into more of a back-and-forth rhythm, with both teams taking chance after chance, neither of them managing to score.

There were just four minutes left on the clock when Cody gained possession of the puck, which he shot straight across the ice to Brayden.

My brother’s stick connected with the puck, sending it flying straight into the corner of the net.

The crowd went fucking wild, jumping to their feet, shouting and cheering as the players celebrated on the ice, hugging and back slapping with wide grins on their faces.

“Goal by number 71, Brayden Nielson!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Assisted by number 39, Cody Clements!”

A lump came into my throat as I applauded them both. I was so fucking proud of them in that moment.

Calgary held on to their lead for the rest of the second period, and before I knew it, the intermission was over, and the third and final period was about to begin. “This is it,” Greta said as the teams skated back onto the ice. “Twenty minutes to see if our boys can get this first win in the bag.”

Twenty minutes . It sounded like such a short amount of time, but those minutes seemed to go by at a torturous crawl. Dallas seemed desperate, throwing everything they had at Calgary’s goal, taking shot after shot that somehow never landed.

We were down to the final five minutes when it happened. Players collided in front of Calgary’s net, taking each other down in a domino effect. One of the Dallas players went down hard, his stick shooting out and smashing right into Cody’s face.

“Fuck,” I breathed, half rising from my seat before I caught myself, watching in horror as he staggered backwards, blood pouring from his nose.

“Oh, shit,” Greta gasped at the same time.

The referee’s whistle sounded. Cody skated to the bench a little unsteadily, and I watched as one of the trainers examined his face before handing him a towel, which he pressed to his bleeding nose.

A couple of minutes later, his nose had been taped up, and he was back on the ice.

I shook my head as he immediately got straight back into it, smashing the puck across the rink to Petrov. “Fucking hell. He didn’t waste any time, did he?”

“He’s a tough guy,” Greta murmured. “Nothing’s keeping him out of this game.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, my concern warring with pride, but he seemed to be playing just as well as he had been before the hit, despite the occasional flash of pain I caught on his face from my vantage point.

Even so, the final part of the third period seemed to last forever.

Calgary held on to the lead, despite the constant attacks from Dallas.

When the final buzzer sounded, the crowd went wild again, the sound reverberating off the walls and floor of the arena.

They’d done it. They’d won the first game.

I watched the players celebrating on the ice, Brayden fist-pumping the air as he skated down the rink to the sound of deafening cheers. But it was Cody who held my attention—bloodstained jersey, his chest heaving from the exertion, but with his eyes shining and a triumphant smile on his face.

That smile. So fucking gorgeous. Even if I never got to see it again, I’d never forget it.

“One win in the bag,” Greta said, grinning as she rose to her feet. “Come on, I’ll show you where we go to meet the team.”

As I followed Greta and the other families and friends of the players, I reminded myself of what was at stake.

Though I wanted nothing more than to see Cody, to tell him how fucking proud I was and how amazing he’d played, to check if he was okay after the hit he’d taken…

I couldn’t. I had to pretend that he meant nothing to me.

Somehow.