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It’s better this way. I should stay away. She’s a Bradley.

“It’s too big of an advantage now that you’ve already met her.” He shrugs as he drinks down more tequila, too.

“Then raise the stakes.” I raise a brow.

He laughs. “To what? Fuckin’…marry her. You get her to marry you in a week, I’ll give you twenty grand.”

“Dude, that’s fucked up. Even for you,” I say. I lift a shoulder. It’s not like I’m ever really considering marriage. Maybe when my playing days are over, or maybe not. Most guys I know who are married have been with their women since before they made it to the NHL.

For everyone else, it’s a little harder. Our season is long, and that leaves little time to get to know someone on a level deep enough to actually consider marrying them. Plus now we have to look at everyone through the filter of having money in the bank.

I guess that’s something to be said about the Bradley family. They’ve got their own money, and besides, Ivy didn’t seem to know who I was.

Ivy. Even her name sounds sexy.

I imagine grunting it out while I’m slamming into her. Ivy. Maybe shortened just to Ive. Ivy baby.

Fuck.

I run a hand down my jaw.

Aside from the money bullshit, there are other reasons I don’t particularly want to get married. My own parents had a happy, healthy relationship. One accident later, my mother was left alone, and I was the only one there to pick up the pieces.

I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I’m so dependent on someone else that if they were extracted from the equation, my life would fall apart. I saw it happen to my mom. I won’t let it happen to me.

My mom has been my motivation my entire life. Hockey’s an expensive sport, but she never made me feel like she couldn’t afford to pay for my gear or my private skating lessons or the Minnesota Hockey Spring High Performance Program that only elite players are invited to.

She made it happen because she saw something in me.

And I am forever indebted to her because of that.

When we lost my dad, I became her entire world. But she became mine, too.

She’s still back in Minnesota. I visit her when time allows, and she visits me, too. I put her up in a killer suite at whatever hotel she chooses, and it never feels like enough.

I know she’d be happy for me to get married, to give her grandchildren, to stop living my life the way I have—not that I share the details with her, but she sees it. She sees the headlines. She sees the pictures from events. She calls them my “flavors of the month,” which feels both degrading and accurate.

Some guys are strictly one-night stand kind of guys, and I’m not really that way. I don’t mind having a friend with benefits. I don’t mind having more than one night of fun if it’s the right kind of fun.

But I make it clear that it will never progress beyond that. I don’t have the capability of nurturing more than that, and I like to temper expectations right from the start.

Which is why West’s bet is out of left field. He’s the one-night stand type I’m talking about.

“I’ll need higher stakes than twenty K for a wedding, man,” I say, goading him on.

West does all right for himself. His cap hit is only a couple million under mine, so he can afford it.

He raises a brow. “Name it.”

“You get a ring on her finger first, I write you a check for a hundred K.” I raise my brows.

“And if you do, I owe you a hundred?”

“A hundred thousand,” I clarify. “Yes. And obviously, I’ll need this in writing.”

He pulls his phone out and taps out a text. “Expiration date?”

“September twentieth.” I name the date we need to be back for training camp.