Page 3 of The Fake Husband Play (That Steamy Hockey Romance #1)

Chapter

Two

GRAMMERCY GERMAINE GRAVES

A six-figure deal to play hockey in the city I never wanted to leave, and my face plastered on billboards all over the highway?

How the hell is this my life?

I have no idea, but here I am, back in NOLA, playing hockey, and feeling no pain.

The sound of skates hitting fresh ice echoes through the Crescent Center, where “NEW ORLEANS VOODOO” is newly painted across the boards. It’s starting to feel real now. Training camp is almost over, and our first game is just around the corner.

And dammit, I intend to be ready. No way am I losing to the punks from Nebraska after the bullshit they pulled the last time we faced off in Portland.

Nope, the Voodoo is going to teach them why you don’t mess with boys stubborn enough to love hockey in a climate that makes ice damned hard to come by.

“Graves!” Parker’s voice carries across the rink as he glides over. “Where the hell have you been? The publicity woman just made us watch your ‘reading to kids in French’ video five times. What? You too good for social media training?”

I grin. “Keely said I could skip this one. Since I was the lesson plan and all.”

Parker rolls his eyes. “Barf. What a kiss-ass you are. Probably good you skipped it, though. She was practically dry-humping the monitor already. If you’d been there to hump, might’ve gotten awkward.”

“Nah, Keely’s cool,” I say. “And married.”

“And thirsty for your French-speaking tongue in her ear,” Parker counters, nodding over his shoulder. “Come on. Blue wants to run drills before the scrimmage.”

I push off, falling in beside him with an ease that comes naturally.

We’ve only been on the ice together for a month, but I’ve known Parker since we were teenagers.

He’s a little older, so we never played in the same youth leagues, but we’re both New Orleans boys—the only two on the team, which makes us even more determined to make our city proud.

“Getting nervous about opening night?” I ask.

“Nah, this is our city, brother. They’re going to love us,” Parker says as we reach Blue, the most massive member of the Voodoo defense. At six feet, three inches and two hundred and fifty pounds, Blue’s not built like your average hockey player.

He doesn’t act like one, either. I’ve barely heard the man put ten words together on the ice, and he’s a complete mute in team meetings.

But he’s no “cognitively challenged” athlete.

When Blue does speak, in those quiet moments after everyone else has left the locker room, it’s always wise, grounded, and exactly what someone needs to hear.

“Or hate you,” Blue rumbles softly .

Parker exhales a mock sigh. “Why so pessimistic, big guy?”

“Realistic,” Blue corrects with his usual economy of phrase. “Hometowns are tricky.”

“Glad I’m not at home, then,” comes a voice rough enough to sand wood.

Nix skates over, looking like he’s already mentally selecting which one of us he’s going to check during the scrimmage.

He’s a shit disturber on the ice, but a solid guy everywhere else.

“I’d give a kidney to be back in Detroit right now.

How much longer is it going to be hot as a dog’s sweaty nuts around here? It’s October, for fuck’s sake.”

“At least a couple more weeks,” I counter, grinning as his shoulders sag. “But don’t think of it as sweaty dog nut heat. Think of it as a sauna you get to enjoy free of charge every time you step outside.”

“Awesome. That makes it so much better, thank you, Captain,” Nix deadpans.

Coach Merwood’s whistle cuts through the air like a blade, and we push away from the boards. Looks like those drills will have to wait.

Merwood isn’t as militant as my old coach with the Badgers, but he has an intimidating aura all his own.

The man looks like an ogre made sweet love to a hobbit but somehow ended up even more hairy. Thanks to his cartoonishly broad shoulders, he’s almost as wide as he is tall, with facial hair so intense it can be hard to make eye contact through the foliage.

“Line it up!” Merwood barks, his furry brows bouncing like angry caterpillars as he corrals us to center ice. “Power play unit on. Graves, Parker, you’re up top. Blue, work the blue line. Nix, anchor low. Capo, let’s keep the five-hole closed this time, yeah? No more Swiss cheese.”

“Love the vote of confidence, Coach,” Capo mutters, gliding to his crease like a man skating to his own execution. He’s still raw from yesterday—he let a couple too many soft ones leak through in drills—but with our backup’s knee still on ice, Capo’s it until opening night.

We cluster at the dot, Parker leaning in close enough that I can smell whatever cologne he doused himself in this morning. “Merwood looks one stress ball squeeze away from an aneurysm. You ready to pull something fancy and give the man a heart attack?”

I flash a grin. “I was born ready.”

The puck drops. Instinct takes over. I catch it clean, push it to Parker streaking down the wing, then cut hard through the slot for the return.

He sends it right back, tape to tape, but the pass is a hair behind me.

I drag it with my skate, snap it to my stick, and rip a shot far side that clangs off the pipe.

“Bad angle,” Blue calls from the line, calm and unbothered, like he’s got all day to quarterback from the point.

I give him a salute, circle back, and snag the rebound. Nix crashes down low, creating havoc in front of Capo, and I fake another shot. Capo bites, drops to his knees, and I feather it across the crease. Parker taps it in behind him like it’s a damn beer league layup.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Parker crows, slamming a glove against mine.

“Nice job mucking it up, Nix,” I call, and he grunts a grin back, shoulders still parked in the paint.

Blue glides over with his typical slow nod of approval. “Now that was jazz. ”

Parker rolls his eyes. “Or just Graves trying to get on the highlight reel.”

I shrug, breathless and buzzing. “Nah, just having fun, man.”

I am having fun. More fun than I’ve had on ice since I first got called up to the pros last year. In Portland, I was the new guy out to prove himself, the rookie trying to find his place in a franchise desperate to reclaim its former glory. It was exhilarating, yeah, but also stressful as fuck.

Here, I get to be part of building something from scratch, something that’s brand new, with no preconceived ideas.

Playing hockey in Louisiana just feels right.

This is where I fell in love with the game.

The second I stepped foot in the arena for the first time, all that love and fun came rushing back, and damn… I hope I never lose it again.

We run through more drills, and I catch myself glancing up at the stands between plays.

It’s a habit I picked up as a kid—looking for Beanie in the bleachers at youth league games, making sure she was there to see me play.

Back then, my mom was one of the only parents who showed up for every single game, rain or shine, changing her shifts at the long-term care facility to work nights if she had to, so she’d never miss a chance to cheer me on.

She’s so psyched to watch my first pro game back home. I’ve already secured her a box seat in one of the rooms with a buffet and all the Diet Root Beer my little mama can drink, because that woman?

She deserves nothing but the best.

That’s been a great part of being home, too, getting to spend Sundays with my mama…and her cooking. You ca n’t get Cajun food in Portland, at least nothing that tastes like the real thing.

After practice, I’m dripping sweat despite the chill in the arena and a little shaky, but it’s the good kind of exhaustion that comes from pushing hard for every play.

“So,” Capo mutters as he towels off his black curls, “we gonna talk about how that scrimmage looked like a clown car on ice for a minute there?”

“He’s not wrong,” Nix says, shaking his head. “Took us half the drill to stop crowding the same lane.”

“Early days,” I say, though I noticed it too, the way guys kept second-guessing instead of trusting the flow. “We’re still learning the system. And each other.”

“Systems can be learned,” Nix points out, echoing his steady, defenseman pragmatism. “Flexibility? That’s harder.”

Parker’s quiet for once, chewing on something behind his smirk. Finally, he shrugs. “Yeah. Doesn’t matter how good any of us are solo if we can’t figure out how to play jazz together.”

Blue just lifts a shoulder. “Can’t force chemistry.”

“Yeah,” I say, leaning back against the bench. “It’s like sex, either you’ve got rhythm from the jump or you don’t.”

Parker snorts. “Speak for yourself. I always bring the rhythm.”

“Please,” Nix says, rolling his eyes. “You couldn’t find a beat if it smacked you on the ass.”

“All this talk about jazz and dancing reminds me,” Nix says, pivoting with that trademark sly grin.

“Where do the locals actually go on weekends? The hot female locals, specifically. Because that club I hit on Bourbon Street last week was a dump with a cover band that sounded like the lead singer was being tortured to death. Slowly. On stage.”

“Christ, man. What’s wrong with you?” Parker pulls a breath—likely to give Nix shit about hanging out on Bourbon Street after we told him it was all tourist trap territory—but shuts his mouth again when Merwood appears in the doorway.

“Graves.” Coach’s eyebrows form a question mark that floats in the center of his wrinkled forehead. “A word.”

I follow him to his office, a cozy, dimly lit room with thick drapes covering the windows and heavy wooden furniture that gives off Hobbit vibes. But when he settles behind his desk, there’s nothing warm or welcoming about the look he shoots my way.

“You grew up here,” he says without preamble.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good kid or troublemaker? The internet didn’t have much to say about you before you joined Portland’s feeder team.”