Hockey Royalty, book 5 (Standalone)
Releases October 29
Prologue
Landon
There’s nothing but hazy pale pink sky above me. The air is warm but there’s a layer of dew on me and the lounge chair I’m sprawled on… with someone else. It’s a double lounger in Grady Garrison’s backyard. He’s the goalie, and one of my closest friends, on the Los Angeles Quake hockey team. I roll onto my side. The pool water shimmers in the very early morning light. A hand lands on my hip. It’s not my girlfriend’s. Angela should be at home. I blink, my gritty eyes adjust to the hazy light of the sunrise, as I remember the night with crystal clarity — in spite of drinking what probably amounts to a magnum of champagne out of the Stanley Cup.
We won. We fucking did it. I beat cancer and won the hardest trophy in sports in the same year. I feel… incredible. Invincible. Bullet proof. And so fucking proud of myself. Also grateful as all hell. I couldn’t have done any of it on my own. Doctors, family and my girlfriend Angela helped me beat cancer and my teammates helped me win my first Cup. And it’s because of that, after partying at the arena, and then taking the Cup to the team’s favorite beach bar in Venice, we all said goodbye to our families and a bunch of teammates took the Cup to Chateau Marmont for an after-hours, private party in one of their bungalows. We’d all gone through what felt like war to win this thing, it was time to bond together.
My name will now be etched on the same Cup as my uncle and my father. I did it. Grady Garrison’s name would also be etched on the same silver Cup as some of his family members. We felt the same sense of accomplishment, I think. We proved we can live up to the family name. In his case, as he drunkenly murmured as we stumbled out of Marmont and down Sunset toward his house, “I finally proved my dad’s branch of the Garrison tree could win too.”
“You are the reason we won,” I return. “You. If you’d been half the goalie we’d never have made it.”
“I think you all had to score the goals,” he says with his trademark wink as he grabs my shoulder and gives me a friendly squeeze. “And you block at least half the shots that came my way. I’m surprised you never broke a bone.”
“I might have, but fuck it. Worth it.”
We spent another hours chilling here, in his backyard, ending up shoulder-to-shoulder on this double lounger staring at the sky and just laughing, like giddy prom queens after homecoming. I can say things to Grady I have never said to anyone. Things like “I thought I would be dead by now, not winning a Cup.” And I can say it to him because he doesn’t respond with a gasp or a sad, sympathetic stare. He says stuff like “I love a good plot twist.”
And better still, I can just look at him and he seems to get how I’m feeling. What I’m thinking. And I feel the same about him. I know when he feels shitty about a game, even when he’s eked out a win. And I make sure he knows to ease up on himself, with nothing but a nod and a stick tap ritual we’ve invented without ever discussing it. Like last night before the very last game, I could see his shoulders were higher than they should be. His grip on his stick seemed more rigid than normal as he used his skates to rough up the freshly cleaned ice in his crease. I skated by and tapped his ass with the end of my stick. I usually hit his lower back, but this time I purposely aimed for the ass because it would get his attention faster. Our eyes locked and I mouthed “breathe” and he mouthed “You too.”
And we fucking did and we fucking won.
I know it’s Grady beside me on the lounger, hand on my hip. It’s large and firm and oddly possessive. Angela’s at home, in our bed alone, sleeping off her own hangover I’m sure. My girl was drunk the she left Musica’s bar in a Lyft. She was smiling too, which is something that’s been rare lately. Also, if it were Angela behind me right now, I wouldn’t be feeling what seems like a steel rod pressed against the curve of my ass.
It doesn’t freak me out. Men get morning wood. I’m a dude, so I get the complete and utter uncontrollability of it. In junior hockey when we had to share rooms I’d usually wake up before my roommate and my eyes have caught the tent in the other guy’s bedsheets more than once. It’s simple biology.
But what freaks me out more than a little bit is that… I don’t want to move away. I like it. I even wonder what would happen if I gently pushed my ass back into him… the way Angie does to me. Or used to, before the whole cancer thing.
The feeling is new and intense, probably mixed up with the closeness Grady and I have developed as friends and the distance Angie and I have developed as lovers. I long for a good, brainless fuck. I mean not with Grady. I don’t… I’m not… and neither is he. But like, god it feels good to have this contact, even if he’s dreaming he’s with some hot puck bunny.
His body moves, his hand pulling me onto my back which I don’t fight. His wide, thick, impossibly muscled thigh drops across my… oh fuck. It’s draped across my morning wood. Oh holy hell.
I freeze. My eyes snap shut. He sort of stretches and flexes like a dog waking up from a deep sleep in a sun patch. If Grady was a dog he’d be a cane corso. I’d be a golden retriever. Whose hard dick is now being rubbed by this corso’s enormous leg. And fuck if it doesn’t feel exquisite.
But it can’t and it shouldn’t and we’ll both die of embarrassment if we realize what’s happening at the same time. Plus, I have a girlfriend. More than a girlfriend, Angie is a life partner. So as he yawns and his absurdly unruly ginger beard rubs deliciously against the column of my neck I force my face to relax and try to pretend I’m asleep. Passed out. Entirely unconscious and not aware that my blood is igniting with every brush of his thigh and tickle of his beard.
I’m straight. I’m straight. I’m straight.
The mantra sings through my head and when it doesn’t seem to be working. I change the tune.
He’s straight. He’s straight. He’s straight.
Before I can switch to the most important fact — I’m not a cheater. I do not do what has been done to me— Grady wakes up. I can tell because his body stiffens and his breath stops. I make sure not one fiber of my being reacts. I stay limp, where I can, and make sure my breathing is slow and steady and my eye lashes don’t flutter. Eventually Grady takes a breath and starts to move. As he untangles us his movements are way more light and graceful than you’d expect from a giant. He seems to paused, his ass pressed into the edge of the lounger, I think, because all I can sense is a vague weight on his side. I don’t dare open my eyes yet.
And then as I contemplate when to casually, fake waking-up, I feel his knuckles drag gently over my cheek, ghosting my own feeble playoff beard. The touch is so light and so unexpected I can’t seem to register it. I swear I hear a very faint. “Perfect.” Over the pounding of my heart and the roaring of my blood. Then, a few heartbeats later there’s a splash. I startle. My eye fly open and I sit up.
The water surface in the pool is a series of ferocious ripples before Grady’s head breaches the surface in the middle. My eyes dart to the pool deck but his clothes aren’t there. He’s still wearing everything but his shoes. His cellphone is beside me on the lounger by my right ankle. Mine is in my shoe beside the lounger where I dumped it when it died last night. I walk to the pool’s edge, I’m achy and wobbly from the hangover. Grady gives his head a shake like a wild coyote emerging from a lake. He wipes his eyes and smiles up at me.
“That happened right?” He says quietly. My heart skips. “We won the Stanley Cup?”
Oh yeah, that. I nod. “It happened.”
He lets out a roar of joy and it makes me laugh, the awkward tension I was feeling floats away and I cannon ball into the pool. The cool water around me soothes me and numbs the parts of me I’ve failed to control this morning. When I break through surface and run my hands over my face, shove the water from my eyes and my pale hair back from my forehead Grady is in front of me.
“What a fucking glorious day!” He bellows.
I slap the water with my hands and tip my head back and laugh. “Holy fuck what a ride. I can still feel the Cup in my hands as you handed it to me on the ice for my turn.”
He smiles and I stop notice the chill in the water. “You know the core memory I’m never gonna forget. When that buzzer sounded and you hurled yourself over those boards and skated right at me.”
“We all piled on you.”
“Yeah but you were first.”
I feel his hand catch the back of my neck and he tugs me toward him. It sends heat spiraling down my spine. He hugs me, water swirling around us, our wet bodies pressed together. It’s friendly, just friendly, but my body is reacting like it’s more for that brief second before he lets go and steps back. “I’m really glad I got to win this with you.”
“Think we can do it again next year?”
“You might be able to…” his smile falters. “We all know the Quake’s precariously close to being over the cap limit next year. They’re gonna have to trade some contracts.”
“Not you.”
“Yeah, probably me. I tend to be expendable. Look at my history.” Grady has been traded before. More than once. And I know there’s a grain of truth to his statement. He was brought in because our goalie Collingwood was put on long-term injury reserve due to back surgery. They traded our backup goalie for him and Grady really carried us through this playoff run.
“That would suck.” I utter what feels like the understatement of the year.
“Yeah.”
Our eyes lock and everything gets intense. And I feel like I’m suddenly drowning in emotions I never felt before, so I reach under the water for his pants. My fingers find soggy belt loops and I yank him into me until our bodies collide and I wrap an arm around his back like a standard bro-hug that feels anything but standard deep in the pit of my belly. “You’re my favorite teammate.”
The words feel thick and heavy but also kind of frivolous. Because he’s more than my favorite teammate. He’s one of my favorite people. He hugs me back, squeezing hard and holding me so close I can barely breathe, but it’s okay because I don’t want to. His head pulls back just a fraction of an inch on my shoulder, his beard brushing may neck again and I think… I think we’re both getting hard again. What the f—
“Morning winners!” Angela’s voice rings out like a fire alarm.
We step apart, no jumping, no freaking out. Because we haven’t done anything. Not a thing. She’s wearing sunglasses and a flowing white sundress with gold sandals, looking refreshed for a woman I know was hammered only four hours ago. One hand holds a tray of coffees and the other a bag of fast food breakfast. “I thought the bro-hug phase would have ended by now. Apparently it’s just move into the water.”
“It started on water,” Grady reminds her. “Ice is frozen water.”
She smiles bigger. “Full circle then. Time to eat.”
“You’re a savior,” Grady says wading over the the wide concrete steps of the pool. “I usually have to order Uber eats and it takes forever.”
And just like that… life goes back to normal. I feel relief as I follow him out of the pool… and pretend there isn’t an inkling of disappointment also dripping off me like the water off my saturated clothing.
Releases October 29