Page 19 of Ice Rebel

He wasn’t kidding. Who did I know who could drop into a friends-with-benefits type of relationship? Or maybe a little fake dating action. Great. Now I was channeling my sister and her passion to become a romance author. I needed to stop listening to her when she described her horny shit.

“Last thing. We need a captain, Kendrick.”

Wait. After all that, he was considering me for the position? Hell, yes. I stood a little taller, sucked in my breath, and was ready to lead the team. More than ready. “Yes, we do.” Great. Now my voice didn’t hold any command, instead a little croak as if I was terrified of the job.

Was he offering a smirk? “I’ve come up with the perfect solution to this dilemma. I’m going to make you co-captains.”

I found myself leaning forward, barely able to keep standing. “What? Who?”

“You will share the duties with Jagger Black. You’ll work out your differences and I think you’ll both become even better players.”

“Coach. I’ll do what I can to make the world go around with him, but I don’t think we can work together that closely.”

The coach waved his hand. “That wasn’t a request to which you have any input or ability to say no. That was an order.”

“An order?” Why was I repeating what he’d said? This was horrible. This was perhaps the worst thing that could occur.

He stood, knuckling his desk as he leaned over. “I’ll make this very easy for you. If you’d like to continue playing for the Seattle Wild, you will do so as co-captain. Now, are we good?”

What in the hell was I supposed to say? “Yeah, Coach. We’re good.”

I was anything but good. Working with Jagger would not be in anyone’s best interest.

Maybe the best thing to do was to make his life miserable. Yeah, so he’d quit.

There was a plan.

“Send in Jagger on your way out. And don’t do anything stupid. It’s only fair you hear that I had a call from management encouraging me to put you on a four-game suspension.”

“They can’t do that!”

“Yeah, they can and they will force my hand if you can’t calm down and play nice with your teammates. As you might imagine, disciplinary actions will be taken into account by every NHL team when scouting for players. Just something for you to keep in mind.”

CHAPTER 5

Cole

A woman.

Where in the hell was I going to come up with a woman if only to create the pretense that I was a well-rounded dude for the coach?

As I jumped from my truck, I thought about the gorgeous woman from the gym. While I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, I could swear she was the same one who’d sung the national anthem at the game. What were the odds? Maybe an angel had come to shine her light on me.

Hell, I was sounding more and more like Samantha. But… what if I was right? At least I believed in karma, enough to convince her to go out on a date with me. That would be a start. Fake dating I wasn’t into, and I could tell by the girl’s attitude she hadn’t been impressed in the least. What wasn’t there to be impressed about?

I raked my fingers through my hair, doing a little sidestep that was cocky as fuck as I headed down the street toward the house. My ridiculous self-stroking didn’t last long. No wonder I’d been forced to park a block away. The driveway and both sides of the street were filled with vehicles.

Well, shit. My roommates had decided to throw an impromptu party. There was nothing worse than being the host. Between the trash and the stink of stale cigar smoke, stale beer, and in the case of two parties, piss, the sacrifice wasn’t worth the benefit. Besides, the dudes were all crazy as fuck, chugging liquor as if a contest.

And it usually was.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that drive to clear my head after meeting with the coach. What annoyed me more than what the coach had said was how I’d reacted when passing Jagger in the corridor. We’d gotten into a pissing contest, which had turned into a few nasty words said. We were just lucky our behavior hadn’t ended in blows.

As I opened the door and walked in, I was hit with thoughts about suspension and with the familiar fragrance of perfume.

They’d invited chicks to the party.

The music was booming, the bass loud enough the entire floor was vibrating. I appreciated hearing bands like Anthrax and Periphery like everyone else, but Christ, could they keep the volume down?