Page 7 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

THREE

BODEN

“Good morning, sunshine.”

I tried for a smile, but I was pretty sure it was just a grimace full of teeth and irritation.

Jacob, the Wolves’ owner, didn’t seem fazed.

Not that he was ever fazed by my shitty attitude.

I knew I was the biggest thorn in his ass, but fortunately for him, he was a paraplegic without much feeling in either butt cheek.

So he took it like a champ, which only served to piss me off more.

My irritation was high that morning because I knew he was about to drop some bomb on us about the new coach.

I hated change, but I could usually roll with it when I had enough time to adjust. Hearing that Brad, our current coach, was leaving hadn’t been much of a surprise. He’d been making noise about moving to Spain for a while now, and I’d been preparing myself for the shift in leadership .

And that was fine, really. Jacob was a wheelchair user, so he understood what we needed as a team.

But Jacob was also a rich asshole disconnected from reality.

Add that to the fact that the Wolves were basically beer league hockey—the only team that would touch me with a ten-foot pole after torching my reputation in Beijing—and people forgot to care that we mattered.

So I didn’t have high hopes when I wheeled my tired ass into the meeting room to wait for this announcement. I felt completely on my own.

Being team captain, I was obligated to attend this meeting, and I would have dragged Tucker and Ford in with me, but Ford was sleeping off a whiskey hangover, and Tucker was still recovering from Vegas. So I had to deal with it alone, and I wasn’t going to be in a good mood about it.

I didn’t begrudge my friends their issues, but it would have been nice to have some kind of backup.

Still, their issues were a whole basket of bullshit I did not feel like dealing with.

I loved both of my friends beyond all reason, but they made shitty choices, almost like it was their job.

Ford was quick to call them out, but he wasn’t quick to change his behavior patterns.

And when push came to shove, Ford was more than willing to let us bury ourselves in order to keep the peace.

I’d begged him to convince Tucker not to go to that damn bachelor party. His shit-for-brains twin had put him through enough, and frankly, if I ever had the privilege of meeting Killian face-to-face, I’d make sure there were more reasons for them not to look identical when I was through with him.

It was a quiet, unspoken fantasy of mine.

Tucker had been through more than I ever wanted to think about, and the fact that his own twin had run off with his fiancée was…God, it wasn’t worth thinking about most days. But that was just one more thing that drove me up the wall.

I hated not being in control.

It was why I was now working my tiny little ass off and pulling every string I could that did not involve my father to get one of the PPHL scouts to come to our games. I wanted out. I wanted to wear a C on my chest on a team that mattered to the world of professional sports.

For most of the guys on the Wolves, this was a coping strategy. It was a way to meet other disabled dudes and deal with the way their lives had changed. That was not me. I was born this way. This had been my reality from my first struggling breath.

I wasn’t here to make friends. I was here to make a name for myself.

Nothing I did—no trophy I won or cup I hoisted—would ever make my father proud the way I wanted him to be, but maybe that pride would be enough for me.

“Look what the rabid dog dragged in,” came a voice from the doorway. I glanced over to see Jacob’s brother walking in. Journey was an absolute and complete prick .

And he was also one of the few people in my social circle that I’d fucked more than once.

He was supposed to be a silent partner for the Wolves, so seeing him there that morning was annoying as hell.

He and Jacob had gone in together to purchase our team, along with three others, and last I’d heard, Journey was bidding to buy out the Legends.

They were the para-professional blind hockey team in Turenne. The one our best friend Jonah played for. But the last thing I needed was for Journey to get involved in the world of professional sports. The man needed to find better ways to spend his money.

And that feeling doubled when he smirked at me. God, I wanted to slap that look off his face.

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your day?” I asked.

He sat next to me and rested his elbows on the table, folding his hands under his chin. “Miss me? If you’re bored after this, we could go mess up a couple of equipment closets.”

“I would rather shove a hot poker up my asshole.”

“You didn’t do well with the ice cube. I don’t think hot pokers are the way to go,” he said.

Jacob choked, and I reached over, smacking Journey on the arm. He winced, and I grinned. “I will rearrange your face. I can give you a couple of nice gaps in those veneers with a single punch.”

“Boys,” Jacob said tiredly. “Please don’t embarrass me in front of my friends. ”

“What friends?” Journey and I both asked at the same time.

He smiled. I didn’t.

The door opened, saving us from any more bullshit. Journey was immediately on his feet, blocking my view of the two men who had just walked in, and since I knew no one was going to introduce me until the meeting began, I dug my phone out of my pocket and began to type out a text to Tucker.

Me: Meeting sucks. Journey is here. I can’t wait until I never have to see his face again. How are you feeling?

Tucker: I’m watching kitten videos. There’s one where he keeps falling asleep in his water dish. I want a kitten.

Me: Absolutely not. I’d get stuck doing the litterbox.

Tucker: I’ll be your best friend for life.

Me: Unfortunately you already are. No kittens.

I set my phone down, looked up, then nearly choked on my tongue. Journey had moved to the side where the little coffee station was set up. He was talking to a man I vaguely recognized as the guy who owned the rink.

But he wasn’t the one who had me in a chokehold. No, it was the man who had me in a literal chokehold several weeks ago.

A man who had pinned me down, took my dick like he was born to do it, then sat on the shower floor with me and washed all of his come off my body.

A man I’d spent every waking hour trying not to think about, only to fall asleep and dream of him, waking up hard and desperate, rutting against my mattress.

Jean-Luc.

Except that wasn’t his name, was it?

“Hugo! It’s so good to see you again,” Jacob said. He wheeled around the table and offered Jean-Luc—no, Hugo, apparently—his hand.

All of the rules I’d set into place about my hookups just shattered like a hot glass touching cold ice.

“Fuck my life.”

Jacob turned to look at me, and he sighed. “Boden, please. I am begging you not to start. Just…hear me out, okay?”

It took me a moment to register what Jacob was saying and why. This man—Hugo—the one I should have never looked twice at the night at the bar, was the new coach? Was that what he was saying?

“You must be kidding me.” I looked from Jacob to Journey, then back to Hugo. God, it was too bizarre to know his name. “It can’t be him.”

Hugo swallowed thickly, then walked two steps toward me and offered his hand. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met, and Jacob didn’t give me the names of everyone who was in the meeting today.” Right. He didn’t know my name either, did he?

I took his hand as though I was operating on autopilot. His palm was the same as before—large, hot, soft, and so fucking strong. He gripped me, squeezed, then let me go, like touching me didn’t matter to him at all.

But his stare. Christ, he was looking right through me as though he wasn’t lying. As though we really hadn’t met. For a brief second, I wondered if maybe I’d hallucinated the entire thing. God, what if I’d been so desperate all this time for a good fuck that I’d made it all up.

Or worse…

What if he’d been too drunk to remember? What if I was the bad guy here? Maybe I was the same monster who had gotten Tucker wasted and left him in some strange place.

I wanted to throw up all over my shoes.

“…our captain and has been for the last five years. We’re very lucky to have a former Paralympian on our team,” Jacob was saying.

Journey snorted. “Can we call him that if he was kicked out?”

“If you’re not going to be helpful, please leave,” Jacob said tiredly. “I’m not in the mood for your weird bullying bullshit today, and I don’t think Boden is either.”

I forced myself back to the present, tearing my gaze from Hugo, who had taken several steps back and sat down in the chair Jacob had pulled out for him. He didn’t look fazed at all. He was glancing at me the way everyone did: mild curiosity and confusion.

God no. Not him. Please not him. He hadn’t been like everyone else that night, and while I’d been certain I wasn’t ever going to see him again, now that I had, I couldn’t stand the thought of him looking at me the way the rest of the world did.

“I expect that the best help you’re going to get while integrating with the team is from Boden,” Jacob said.

Something in me snapped. Yes, this had been the man that I fucked—I think, unless he had a sexy identical twin who knew exactly how to fuck me just right—but this was not the man I wanted to be our coach.

“Hold on.”

“Here we go,” Journey said from his spot by the coffee.

Jacob groaned. “Boden?—”

“What qualifications, exactly, do you have for this position?” I leaned over my thighs and stared at his legs. “I never assume able-bodied, but?—”

“I am,” Hugo said without much inflection in his voice.

My gaze darted over to Jacob. “Explain yourself.”

“I don’t have to. I’m the team owner, and I can hire whoever the fuck I want, Boden. And I expect the person I find fit will be treated with respect.”

“How are you qualified?” I asked again .