Chapter 1
Grand Shore, Westgate
Luxurious hotels were certainly a perk of being a professional athlete on one of the most legendary teams in the league, but staying in them could still get old.
Road trips became exhausting fast, and so did plane rides, and so did being stuck in Westgate during a blizzard and camping out in the lobby of the Grand Shore because most of the regular bars and restaurants had shut down for the storm.
At least there was alcohol and hors d'oeuvres from the hotel's restaurant.
But, as the Easton Pathfinders gathered in a semi-secluded section of the lobby on plush leather sofas, the atmosphere between them was about as dour as the weather outside.
It didn't help that they had just lost a game against the Westgate Grizzlies.
"I just want to go to a club, get fucking wasted, forget I ever stepped skate on the ice, find a girl, and fuck her until I forget the rest of my life, too," one of the reserve defensemen grumbled.
"Is that too much to fucking ask?"
"It's a shame," Max Tremblay agreed.
"So many good clubs here, even better restaurants, and we are missing them, stuck behind glass."
"And we don't even have a game tomorrow," Rory Nylund whined.
"We would have actually had time to sleep off the headache."
"Yeah, but even if we were lucky, we still would have been flying with hangovers," Mason Pryor pointed out.
"Right now, we just have to hope our flight doesn't get fucking cancelled."
"Nope, wrong again, Pryor!" the defenseman said.
"Right now, I have to get on Spark and see if I can find a girl who's willing to brave this weather to come visit me.
I'll make it worth her time," he leered.
"I guess I'll be sleeping in the hallway," Dubois said flatly.
"You aren't going to find a girl in Westgate," Mason scoffed.
"The only women who would want to hook up with
are hardcore hockey fans, and in this city, that means the Grizzlies.
They would literally burn you alive.
Do
tell them where you are sleeping."
"He has a point," Nylund said.
"I've never had less game than I do in Westgate.
They fucking hate us here."
"You never have any game at all," Tremblay laughed, and Ror rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
"Just don't tell them you are a hockey player!
Know your city, know your landscape.
We are not all Hartley, not every girl here will recognize you."
"I don't know, man," Mason said.
"Theo seems to be the only one of you who actually has a shot tonight.
Who are you texting over there, Captain?
Hartley!"
Theo jerked away from his phone, looking up like a frightened animal.
"Uh—yes." He blinked.
"Sorry, could you repeat that?"
Mason was clearly miffed.
He looked at Theo's phone, then raised an unimpressed (though neatly trimmed) eyebrow.
"Who are you texting?"
"No one," Theo said quickly.
"Right," Mason drawled.
"And would that be the same 'no one' you were texting last week?
You know, when you," he used his own phone to mimic Theo frantically slamming down his phone on the bed.
He had already told the team about that little freak out, so everyone laughed.
"I mean, that must have been some text."
"It must have been some picture," Tremblay laughed.
No, it was a news update," Theo said quickly, looking away.
He was a terrible liar, and everyone on the team knew it, including Theo.
When he did choose to lie, it was usually just an unspoken request for them to drop the subject.
"It was about Jamison-Holt transferring to Clearwater.
I just wasn't expecting it."
Another night, his teammates might have been more willing to let the matter drop, but they were all bored and frustrated.
Ror leaned forward.
"Were you, like, scheduling a date with this girl last week?
Plans disrupted by the storm, I guess."
"They'll have to stay inside instead," Dubois snickered.
No, actually," Theo stood, unfolding himself from the corner of the couch he had been tucked into.
His beer sat on a low side table, untouched.
"Actually, I, uh, I'm turning in early."
"Right," Mason said dubiously.
"Should
sleep in the hallway, then?"
"No!"
His phone buzzed.
Theo scrambled to tuck it into his pocket, not even reading the notification, but it slid out of his hand and scattered across the floor.
The guys all lunged for it like it was a puck in the last five minutes of the third period and they were down by one point.
Dubois won the face-off and held up the phone triumphantly.
"'One-six-two-three'!" he crowed, reading from the notification blurb.
"Who the fuck is Fleur, Hartley?"
Theo snatched his phone back with lightning-quick reflexes they seldom saw displayed off the ice.
It was blink and miss it, and then the phone was gone, disappearing into his pocket.
"No one," he said, but his cheeks were red.
Another thing about Theo Hartley's nonexistent skills of deception: he blushed when he lied.
"One-six-two-three," Mason repeated, frowning.
"That's not our room.
None of our rooms were booked on the sixteenth floor."
Theo stood still, not moving.
He looked frozen.
"Oh my god," Mason said.
"Captain, are you
breaking curfew?"
"To go to another hotel?" Ror asked.
"And meet Fleur there," Tremblay cooed.
"How sweet!
They have been planning this all week, and booked the room in advance!
No paltry snowstorm will slow down our captain!"
"That's not—no, that's not," Theo stuttered.
"Um, that is... something else.
I'm just going for a walk."
"I thought he was going to bed early," Ror whispered.
"What?" Mason laughed incredulously.
"Right now?"
They all turned to the large dark windows, with snow blasting against the sides and piling up in the corners.