Hockey Royalty (book 4)
Prologue
Nash
Six months ago…
“I dare you.”
“You really are a child.”
“Chicken.”
“Bite me.”
“You’re way too boring to be into that.”
A guy in a priest costume floats in front of us. “These are the weirdest vows I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard some doozies.”
I roll over as the hazy dream, which is more like a nightmare because it involves Tenley Garrison, thankfully slips away into another dream. The dream is of the skyline… the flickering lights of Vegas, the dull roar of traffic below, so far below… And the wind… is whipping through my hair, carrying the sharp cackle of Tenley’s laugh. And then… I fall. It feels so real that my stomach catapults into my throat.
I wake up with a jolt, like one does from a falling nightmare. The sheets are twisted around me. My pillow is missing. Thankfully the room is pitch dark—bless the blackout blinds in this Vegas hotel. My leg aches like a mother fucker. I didn’t bother to get undressed last night. Didn’t even undo my belt or take off my socks, although thankfully I did remove my shoes. I’m sweaty because I usually sleep naked. I untangle myself from the sheets, sit up, and remove my shirt.
My hangover isn’t that bad, thankfully. I stand up, favoring my right foot because my left leg is still throbbing. That has got to get better before the season starts. Crew made fun of me yesterday in the gym, saying I wasn’t in shape, and he wasn’t wrong. I’m usually much more prepared this close to the start of the hockey season, but I haven’t been able to do much of the training I usually do because this stupid leg injury is not healing as fast as it should be. I drop my pants, shove my boxer briefs down to the floor, and debate getting back in bed. I want to, desperately, but I should probably get in a workout. I’m sure the team will want to do something stupid—like hang out at the pool or gamble and flirt with cocktail waitresses—with the time we have before we get on the plane tonight. I’ll get teased if I don’t join in.
Like Tenley teased me all last night. I frown just thinking about her. Last night went horribly awry. I ended up losing my brother Crew. No idea where he went. My other team bestie Tate snuck off with his girlfriend Mallory, leaving me with Tate’s sister Tenley, and a couple of teammates who party way harder than I do. Tenley latched onto me, which surprised me since cats and dogs have a better relationship than we do.
But then she started with the dares… I dare you to take this shot. I dare you to go dance with that stranger. I dare you to drink a flight of margaritas. I dare you to… well the rest is hazy but she never shut the hell up. And I didn’t say uncle.
And now… I’m paying for it. I stand in the dark room facing my bed, looking at the bathroom door and listening for signs of life in the rest of the suite. I don’t hear a thing. I should grab some workout clothes and get to the gym, but… fuck it. I fall onto the bed. If I suck this season, it’s Tenley Garrison’s fault.
The mattress absorbs my weight comfortably but my arm hits the piled-up duvet with a hard thump. What the hell did I leave in the bed? I roll over and root around with my hand. It’s… human-sized. This lump under the sheets is human. The absurd thought that maybe Crew got too drunk and stumbled into my room instead of his enters my brain but then… the lump groans. The sound is too gentle and too light in tone to be Crew. I blink, lift my head off the pillow, and take a closer look in the barely-there light. The lump is too small to be Crew.
I grab hold of the duvet and slowly pull it down. Blonde hair… long lashes… that arrogant mouth with the cupid’s bow and the dimple in that tiny chin…
“Oh fuck no!” I leap out of the bed like it’s on fire. Realizing I’m stark naked, I grab the sheet and yank with such force Tenley ends up rolling since she was lying on top of the sheet. It spins her right off the side of the bed. She hits the ground with a hard thump, but I manage to get the sheet around my waist before she pops her head up.
Her hair is a mess, wild golden waves sticking out every which way. There are smudges of mascara under her eyes, which are still annoyingly bright and blue. So freaking blue it makes me want to pick a new favorite color just so I don’t like them as much. Also, her lipstick is still on… mostly. And the most important fact is that she looks just as horrified to see me as I am to see her.
“Why are you in my hotel room?”
“I’m not. You’re in mine.”
She looks around, but probably can’t see much because it’s still dark in here so I lean over and tap the tablet on the night table that controls all the features in the room. The bedside lights turn on, way too high. We both squint and groan. She stands up and she’s fully clothed, like I was. Although with Tenley that doesn’t mean much. Her outfit last night was a florescent pink dress that was made out of a facecloth, or at least that amount of material. It had one strap that pulled the fabric over her left shoulder. It’s hanging off her shoulder now. She wipes sleep from her eyes, adjusts to the light, and takes me in… as I stand on the other side of the bed holding the sheet around my lower half. Her whole face drops. Her skin pales.
“Where are your clothes?” she asks and then she takes a breath that makes her shoulders shudder ever so slightly. “You… we… I didn’t. No. I…”
“I woke up fully clothed,” I say to her, realizing why she’s panicking. “Just like you. Also, sex with you is the furthest thing from my mind. There isn’t enough alcohol in the world for that.”
Her hands go to her stomach, to her hips. Her brow furrows but I know she isn’t offended by my words, she just doesn’t believe them. I honestly can’t stand what women have to live with on the daily thanks to some men. “Tenley, seriously. I don’t remember much about last night, but I do know we didn’t have sex. And you might think I’m a lot of things, but even you have to admit a liar isn’t one of them.”
“Okay.” Tenley pauses and nods her head, as if convincing herself. Her eyes find mine. “Right. You’re the guy who walks little old ladies across the street. You would rather read a book than fuck a woman.”
Okay well, that’s not true, but I don’t correct her because, for one thing, it’s useless to argue with her. Tenley hears and believes what she wants. And two, she’s trying to talk herself out of panicking, and as much as I dislike her I don’t want her worrying I took advantage of her. She inhales and exhales slowly like she’s pushing out bad thoughts. Then she stands straighter and asks, “Why are you naked now?”
“I was going to shower off the stench of a whole night of drinking,” I reply. “But then decided to sleep again and that’s when I found you.”
“Oh.” She blinks and looks around the room. She sees her heels at the foot of the bed and walks over and grabs them. Her body is long and lean but yet she’s got a juicy, perky ass. It’s a shame such perfection is wasted on her. “Okay well, is Crew here? Because the absolute last thing I need is for anyone to think that we…”
“If he’s home, he’s still asleep. The place has been dead silent.”
She walks towards the door and shoots me a cocky smile over her shoulder. “You check your pants for pee?”
“What? I don’t piss myself when I’m drunk.”
“No, but you did the SkyJump, remember? Well, you almost didn’t because you were trembling so hard the attendant almost couldn’t get the harness on you.”
“I wasn’t trembling. My knee twitches. From my injury,” I reply sharply and add, “And no. I didn’t piss myself on that jump thing.”
The memory fuzzily fills my head. She dared me to do the Stratosphere SkyJump. That must be the falling dream that woke me up. I was reliving that. Great. I’m sure I’ll have nightmares about that for weeks. I hate heights. It was fucking terrifying.
“How are the snails doing in that little stomach of yours?” I ask because now I also remember daring her to eat escargot, which apparently she hates. She did it, gagging the whole time.
Her hand goes to her stomach and her eyes snap shut. “Whatever. I did it.”
“And I did every stupid thing you dared me to,” I remind her proudly. “Because I’m not the lame, boring, robotic guy you like to think I am.”
“No. You’re still all of that,” Tenley counters, her annoying smug grin back in place. “But you’re also scared of losing to me.”
I’m scared of losing to anyone, but she doesn’t need to know that. So instead of answering I just roll my eyes. “You can leave now. I have better things to do than talk to you.”
“Like what? Work out? Eat egg whites and protein shakes? Watch paint dry?” Tenley doesn’t wait for a response. She cracks the door to my room and peeks out. The coast must be clear because she swings the door wide and marches through the suite. “I’m going to get a Bloody Mary, put on the smallest bikini I own, then go to the pool and meet some real men so this trip isn’t a complete waste.”
“No one forced you to hang with me last night. I would have been happy to spend my time with anyone else. Or even alone,” I reply, following her into the living area. She pauses by the front door to put on her heels, which makes her a good two inches taller. They also make her look even leaner and tilt that ass of hers to the perfect angle.
“You should go to the gym. I think your brother has better abs.” She exits the suite before I can think of a biting retort.
God damn that woman.
I go back to sleep for a couple hours and when I wake up Crew has left me a note saying he’s at the pool with everyone and I should join. I don’t. I head to the gym and try and strengthen my stupid leg. The surgery was six weeks ago and I was told it was minor. They just needed to clean up the cartilage in my knee. Why does it still hurt this bad?
I’m lying on a yoga mat, stretching out my groin, when Tenley storms into the gym.
“We need to talk.”
“Sorry, I’ve reached my Tenley Garrison limit for… oh the entire year, I think.” I keep stretching.
She stops half a foot from the edge of the mat. Her toes are a glittery pale pink. Her flip flops are a neon blue, like the bikini she’s spilling out of and the wrap loosely tied around those hips she’s got her hands on. “Why are you stretching your groin? You don’t use it. You’re like a monk or something.”
“Leave.”
“I would except I was just at the pool with all your teammates and girlfriends, you know the normal people who come to Vegas to relax and have fun,” she gives me a pointed stare, “and Taylor told me we got married.”
I don’t even know what part of that sentence confuses me the most. It’s like she’s speaking gibberish. I push up off my forearms and sit back on my heels. My eyes lock with hers. “Who the hell is Taylor? You and me? Married?”
I would laugh but it’s actually a terrifying thought. The serious look on Tenley’s face is scaring me too. “Apparently we dared each other to go to a chapel and get married.”
“Who is Taylor?”
“That’s your question?” Tenley gapes at me. “Taylor is Carter’s fiancée. She was out with us last night. So was he. They did the SkyJump thing with us.”
Carter is Josh Carter. He’s a defenseman. Good guy. Right. Memories start forcing their way to the front of my brain like a salmon swimming up a stream of margaritas. Carter and his girlfriend Taylor hung out with us most of the night. It was originally Taylor’s idea to try zip lining on Fremont Street. She invited Tenley who then dared me. And then we ate the snails. And then we went to another club and she dared me to dance with the bachelorette party there. I dared her to wear a double XL sweatshirt I bought at a tacky gift store, daring her to cover up. She did of course and still got hit on by the bartender.
“Nash!”
“I don’t remember!”
“I don’t either.” She sighs and starts to pace in front of me. As she turns to the side I see the back of her swimsuit doesn’t exist. It’s basically a thong and that ass… the perfect, round, tight work of art she doesn’t deserve to have, is on full display. I stand up and swivel to face the weight bench so I can adjust the front of my workout shorts without her noticing. I grab the towel I left there and make sure to hold it casually in front of me so that if my dick stops listening to my brain, and gets hard over that perfect ass, she hopefully won’t notice.
“What exactly did Taylor say happened?”
“After the SkyJump, we said we were gonna get hitched at this crappy little chapel we walked by.”
“Who dared who?”
“Who cares?” Tenley snaps. “She said she and Carter left because there was a wait, but you and I refused to budge.”
“So she doesn’t know if we actually did it,” I reply, but more memories start pushing into the forefront of my brain. The dream I had… the vows. The goofy guy in a priest’s costume… was it not a costume?
Tenley sighs and rubs her forehead. “I remember doing it. Vaguely. But I mean there would be paperwork, right?”
“Yeah. If it was legal. But even if we did it,” I start, my brain spinning, “it’s not legally binding if the people are so drunk they don’t remember it. That’s on the chapel, not us, so it wouldn’t be valid. But I doubt we even did it. I mean, we hate each other.”
“We do. A lot,” Tenley agrees, but I see a glint of skepticism in her eyes. She isn’t sure we would let that hate stop us. “And I wouldn’t dare you into something that would ruin my life.”
“Right, and I wouldn’t dare you into something that would ruin mine.”
We stare at each other. She looks nervous. Panicked. Sick. All the things I currently feel.
“I’ll call a lawyer. Just in case,” I tell her. “They can do a document search and make sure nothing was filed.”
“And if it was?”
“They’ll make it go away. We were drunk.”
“Okay.”
She starts to back away, turning towards the door. She pauses as she pulls it open and looks at me over her shoulder. “It probably didn’t really happen. We are not that stupid.”
“Well look at that. We agree on something.”
