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CHAPTER 5

DECK

LUXURY = A LONG SHOWER

The practice rooms had mostly cleared out by the time I ended the world’s longest hot shower. The trainers were clearing things up, and there wasn’t another player around.

I liked the place this way. Quiet and empty. It made me feel like I could do anything I liked and no one would be bothered. Of course the only thing I generally did was take stupidly long showers. Not that I couldn’t do that at home, but there was something about the locker room shower—the reality of being here, on this team, in this place.

It was what I’d always dreamed about. Once I knew what hockey was, of course. Before that, I’d simply dreamed of America. The space, the freedom. The anonymity.

It wasn’t that my life at home was bad. Far from it. Most kids would probably say they’d kill to be awoken by three butlers carrying trays of food and picking up after them as they moved through their four-room apartment on the way to say hello to Mom and Dad. But those kids hadn’t thought that dream through. They didn’t know about the weight of responsibility that came with being the spare heir, about the expectations on everything from whether you used your finger bowl correctly to if you addressed the right duke in the right way in the right order when a bunch of frilly dudes showed up at court to chat up your dad. The king.

It felt like I’d been seeking an escape since the day I realized my position. I knew I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of what my dad did all day—worrying about international relations, mitigating in-country battles between factions, and monitoring public sentiment around taxes and housing costs. No thanks.

I had spent my days bribing attendants to get me old DVDs of American sports matches. Baseball, football, and of course—ice hockey. It was all I wanted to think about, to learn about, to do.

Lucky for me, I was number two. Lambert was born first, like it or not, and so he didn’t have the same kind of freedom I did. Did I ever feel bad for him? Sure, but there were probably benefits to being the future king. I just couldn’t imagine what they might be. He could have them.

Mom and Dad were happy enough to let me go (taking my athletics obsession and constant begging for a palace hockey rink with me.) Dad had a distant cousin in Colorado, and while I’d never been there, the place sounded a lot like heaven to me. A private school with other boys? A suburban home with my own bedroom and no valets or butlers in sight? The chance to join sports teams? I was in.

I was sent to Colorado to meet Uncle Jericho, who wasn’t my uncle at all.

That was when my life began.

I might not have been the most athletically inclined kid by genetics, but what I lacked in natural ability I made up for in sheer grit. I wanted it more than anyone else.

And after a lot of help from Uncle Jericho, lots and lots of practices and camps, and lots of years of working my ass off, I got it.

I sighed happily, gathering my bag to my shoulder and heading for the back door to let myself out into the player’s lot.

“Night Deck,” Al called.

“Have a good night, Al.”

Al was the security guard who patrolled the arena overnight. He was a good guy, and I often thought about how if I couldn’t play hockey, I might be happy to do a job like his, or maybe like Julius, who drove the ice cleaner. Just to be here. To be this free.

Though, the playing was a lot of fun too.

The parking lot was dim in the graying light, and my car sat almost alone beneath the lone lamp post. I grabbed my keys out of my pocket and froze, the hair on the back of my neck suddenly standing on end.

Spinning around, I realized I wasn’t alone.

The PR lady. She was just coming around the corner of the building, strutting in a way that told me she didn’t have a care in the world, despite wearing three-inch heels and a sheath dress that hugged her muscular curves.

She did have a care, though. She just didn’t know it.

I spotted the two guys on the other side of the lot closing in on her fast. They wore dark cargoes and T-shirts, and moved like panthers gliding through the shadows.

I let my bag slide from my shoulder to the pavement and took a steady breath, readying myself.

The guys were closing in on us now, and if they thought they were going to assault this woman right here in front of me, they had another think coming.

“Lizzy!” I hissed, but she was already angling toward me, practically breaking into a run. I was surprised at her hustle, given the heels.

“Deck, get in your car, now!”

She was awfully bossy for a woman in danger, I thought. And oddly chivalrous.

I hit the unlock button so she could get in and lock the doors, but she actually detoured, coming to my side just as the two men broke into a dead sprint, heading right for us.

“Shit, what are you—?” But there was no time for questions.

I tried to throw myself in front of Lizzy, but she was actually doing the exact same thing, and her erratic behavior threw me off balance. Why wouldn’t this woman let me just save her?

The two men reached her just as I went down, hard, on the pavement, but I shot a foot out and tripped one of the guys, landing him next to me. I just had to hope Lizzy could hold off the other guy for a minute while I dealt with this one.

Adrenaline surged through me when I saw that the attacker held a baton in one hand and had a knife sheathed at his belt. I rolled, moving to straddle him, but he slid out from beneath me, reversing our positions so fast I didn’t see it coming. He got in a good strike with the baton that would have knocked me out if I hadn’t blocked with my forearm. He was almost on top of me a second later, and I managed to buck up enough to keep him from pinning me.

There was a lot of grunting and groaning, but I got a solid blow in to the guy’s nose just before he slid off me suddenly, clearly changing his mind about taking me on.

“Lizzy!” I yelled, getting to my feet.

The other guy had her from behind, and I bolted to rescue her, hoping this wasn’t going to end badly.