Page 28 of Right Pucking Daddy (Daddies of the League #7)

TWENTY-TWO

AIDEN

As the buzzer sounded, I stood up, my momentum carrying me across the ice from the boards, coming to a stop in front of Ryan and the Mauler’s net. My stick, held tightly between my hands across my body, rose to rest on my shoulders.

Pandemonium seized the crowd and half the players on the ice.

The players screamed, knocking into each other as they cheered and hugged.

Their happiness drowned out by the fans in the stands who whirled towels above their heads and beat the acrylic dividers on top of the boards, cheering the win.

Half the players on the benches hopped over the boards, surrounding the other half of the players celebrating on the ice.

Unfortunately, the colors of the towels and the uniforms weren’t the black my teammates and I wore.

So, no, I wouldn’t be joining in the chaotic celebratory scrum at the other end of the ice.

Instead, I stood next to Ryan, Trey, the Huston twins, and Ethan Rugger as we stared up at the scoreboard.

My stick flexed across my shoulder pads.

The numbers glowed and seemed to grow bigger and bigger the longer I looked at them .

Maulers: 1 Visitors: 3

We lost.

Our first home game, and we freaking lost. It was just an exhibition game, but I didn’t care. Every game mattered. Especially with my last shot at the draft nine months away.

I couldn’t even say what happened. Despite all the craziness between me, Trey, and the twins, the first line just clicked.

All week, every practice, we found each other with ease as if we were speaking to each other telepathically.

The twins were our defensemen. They did their thing and did it well, and Ryan Riordan stopped everything that came at him.

All freaking week.

Staring up at the scoreboard, emotion swarmed like a disturbed hive of bees. I couldn’t even tell you what emotions I felt.

“C’mon, Mercer, we gotta line up.”

I skated off to the end of the line, Trey Malachek at my side. The others on the first line followed along behind us. All of us looked like we shut our dicks in the card door.

“What the fuck happened?” Ryan mused.

“I sucked.”

Trey opened his mouth, and I knew what he would say before the words left his lips. “No ‘I’ in team, dude. None of us is solely responsible.”

His words rang true, but I couldn’t accept them. Trey might be captain, but I was the center forward .

“Get outta your head,” Trey muttered in my ear as the starting lineup for Boston came toward us. “There’ll be plenty of time for that shit in the locker room.”

Oh, god.

I groaned under my breath. The locker room. With Alex…

Crap.

Sasha. Not Alex. He can’t ever be anything other than Sasha Storm. He’s my freaking coach. Nothing more.

Nothing proved that more than his refusal to say more than a few words to me at the rink the other day.

“Good game. Y’all played amazing,” I told their captain when we finally reached each other in the lineup.

“Good game.”

“Good game.”

“Good game.”

“Good game.”

It continued until we’d shaken the hands of each player, then skated to the bench.

Coach’s eyes met mine, and I wished for the billionth time I could fall into his arms and find solace in his bed the way I had that night at the club.

Pinpricks of fire pelted my eyes and nose until tears threatened.

I looked away. I couldn’t let myself think of that night.

There were too many obstacles in our way. Too much at stake for the both of us.

But he was everywhere. Forgetting him and the way he made me feel would be so much easier if I didn’t see the man every day.

The only way I could see him more was if we lived together.

And as much as the idea appealed to me, not the whole commitment living together thing, because that would be ridiculous.

I just met the man. I spent one night in his arms, but the idea of having someone, a Daddy-type someone that I could turn to when things got to be too much, too real… that was the goal.

The only problem… the only Daddy-type I knew was Alex, otherwise known as the Sasha Storm, my freaking coach.

And he was the only Daddy-type I wanted, because he ticked all my boxes.

An older Daddy Dom?

Check.

Hotter than Hades?

Check.

Knew hockey?

Check.

Understood the commitment the sport took?

Check.

Liked things on the rough, kinky side and not just the caring, nurturing side?

Check.

But I couldn’t have him, and I didn’t have the heart to go looking elsewhere, because I found what I wanted with Alex.

Only to have Sasha ruin it for us both. I ignored how crazy that made me sound.

To anyone else, he wasn’t two different men, but to me, he was.

Inside this building, and whenever I thought about hockey or the team, he was Sasha, but every other moment of every day, he was Alex.

We trudged toward the locker room, all of us barely functioning. The moment I stepped into the room, the melancholy turned to rage.