Chapter 9

For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to get ready for my game.

I had to report for warm-ups, so I couldn’t personally stop Anastasia’s date. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use other means to stop it.

I mean, I was better than that.

“What’s that smile on your face, Hero? You kind of look like a serial killer,” Ari drawled as I changed into my uniform.

“He’s probably thinking about a grandma he helped cross the road,” Logan commented seriously. “Grandpappy business.”

Ari rolled his eyes. “I said he looked like a serial killer, not someone helping little old ladies with their grocery bags.”

“I bet serial killers do that. As a cover,” Logan mused.

“Are we really talking about me being a serial killer right now? As I’m standing right here?”

“At least we’re the kind of friends that talk about you to your face,” offered Disney, strapping on his goalie pads.

“I think I’m alright with you talking about me being a serial killer behind my back,” I said. “Although this conversation is completely pointless. I am not a serial killer, and I did not help any old ladies cross the street. Geraldine is not fond of walking across roads in general.”

“Still going steady with Old Geraldine?” Ari asked.

“She must be good with her mouth,” Logan said. “She probably doesn’t have any teeth to get in the way.”

I stared at him horrified.

“Can we not talk about James and seventy-five-year-old women,” Lincoln said, wincing as he tightened his skates.

“I would appreciate that, thank you, Daniels,” I said magnanimously. I ignored the little thrill that came with Lincoln Daniels agreeing with me on…anything.

We didn’t need another simp on the team.

“Now that we got completely off track, we need to talk about warm-ups,” said Ari, staring at all of us seriously like he was about to give a big speech.

“What are you talking about, Lancaster?” Lincoln asked distractedly as he stared at some kind of video on his phone. It almost looked like he was staring at a live feed of Monroe in the back of a car.

Weird…

“Tonight’s the night. How could you have forgotten?” Ari asked, sounding outraged.

I blinked for a moment, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. Was there some kind of award ceremony? Kind of an odd part of the season to do that.

“Our performance!” Ari growled, throwing his hands up like we’d mortally offended him.

It took a second, but then horror hit me.

Hard.

The media had somehow gotten ahold of our little pregame ritual we did in the locker room most games—something that evidently had started when Ari and Walker were playing in L.A. and Walker got pre-game jitters. That video going viral had led to our media department requesting that we perform before one of the games.

I’d blocked out the exact date since I was completely against doing it. Ari had threatened me with the circle of trust when I’d voiced an objection.

And since I still didn’t know what that actually was…I had agreed to it.

But that was way before I’d concocted the plan to get Anastasia—to a game.

Although, the plan was definitely to get Anastasia as well.

“Can this be moved?” I asked seriously.

Ari threw an old sock at me. “No, we can’t move it! This is my time to shine.”

“You mean as opposed to the professional hockey games you play on a regular basis,” Lincoln offered.

“Stop raining on my parade, Golden Boy. It’s important that the world knows my secret talents.”

“You could just tell them about the ring at the end of your⁠—”

“What the hell are you all still doing in here? Get your asses out on the ice!” Coach Watts growled, popping his head in the locker room.

“We’ll need to circle back to whatever you were about to say,” I told Walker as we walked out of the locker room. Before he could say anything, Ari clapped his hand on Walker’s shoulder. Hard judging by Walker’s wince.

“Walker ‘Disney’ Davis,” Ari said threateningly. “Do we really want to talk about dick decorations?”

Walker grimaced, his hand hovering in front of his pants protectively, like he was in pain.

“Focus,” I snarled. “We still have time to back out of this. We can still have some dignity.”

“You agreed. I have it in writing,” Ari reminded me as we skated out on the ice to thumping music and screams.

Shaking my head, I shot a puck at the goal, before skating around the net.

“I’d like to revoke that agreement,” I hissed at Ari as I passed by him.

The asshole just laughed, like he didn’t believe me.

As I continued warm-ups, all I could hope was that the other part of my plan for the night was actually going well.

And that Anastasia’s “date” had never made it there.

She was here.

Alone.

And fuck, it was probably cheating to give the ballet school jerseys with my last name on them—Lancaster would definitely have something to say about that—but the opportunity to have Anastasia in a jersey with my name on it wasn’t something I was going to pass up.

It was better than I’d even jacked off to.

The blue Knights logo really made her eyes pop.

Or maybe it was her perfect tits under the Knights logo that was doing that.

The only thing that would’ve made it better was if it said “Mrs. James.” That definitely had a ring to it.

Baby steps, though.

That would come soon enough.

Anastasia was sitting at the end of the row, her eyes wide and nervous as the other dance people talked around her. I really needed to do some research on ballet—not sure it would impress Anastasia for me to call them dance people in conversation.

Her arms were tucked around herself, and she was watching the ice avidly—mostly me, I noticed. I couldn’t wait until she was sitting with Monroe, Blake, and Olivia. I had a feeling my girl didn’t have a lot of friends, and I knew those girls would scoop her right up and love her.

Not as much as I would love her, of course.

Her “date” was nowhere to be found. I guess having your car towed and an eviction notice placed on your door meant you didn’t have time for a hockey game—or a date.

Thank fuck for Ryan. Ryan was a college bud who happened to be a detective with the Dallas Police Department. Since he spent most of his time with the underbelly of the city, sometimes he didn’t mind doing some more questionable things when asked.

Pro tip: If you find your fraternity buddy butt naked, peeing on a snowman during Winter Carnival, get him back to his room and into some clothes before his dick freezes off.

He’ll owe you for life.

“James, get back to fucking work,” one of the assistant coaches growled, and I reluctantly pulled my attention back to the ice.

It was still difficult to comprehend that I had something in my life that could actually distract me from hockey. I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. I breathed in the chill of the ice, I listened to the roar of the crowd, and I took in my teammates skating around me.

No matter how hard I tried…it didn’t quite light a fire in my bloodstream like it used to. What once was blazing color, the only thing I could see—it had dimmed.

It was terrifying.

Because it meant that I couldn’t afford to lose. Hockey has always been the focal point of my life. The only thing I needed.

If I didn’t get Anastasia, hockey wasn’t going to fill the gaping hole inside of me.

I took a shot at the goal and then started my stretches.

One thing about hockey stretches—they’re very necessary.

To be the kind of skaters we needed to be on the ice, we needed explosive hip abductors/extenders for our stride and strong hip flexors for a powerful brake.

Another thing about hockey stretches—they apparently were kryptonite for the ladies.

Although we weren’t really humping the ice—and I’d never had the thought that I was trying to hump the ice—a few TikTok videos had shown me it perhaps could be considered that way.

Which is why, as I started my stretches, I made sure to lock eyes with Anastasia, grinning when her cheeks flushed and she couldn’t take her eyes off of me.

I may have done a few extra stretches for good measure. Anything I could do to get her to picture what I could do with my hips—I was going to use to my advantage.

It was easier to really get into it with Neil Diamond blaring through the speakers.

“Trying to go viral, James? How about you grind your dick into the ice a little more,” drawled Logan as he skated by. “Not exactly ‘Grandpappy’ behavior.”

I scoffed, not ashamed at all that I was giving my girl a show.

Although, he did have a point about me potentially going viral. Now that I had dragged my gaze away from Anastasia, I could see that there were quite a bit more cameras pointed at me than usual.

I straightened up right in time to stop a puck that happened to be sliding by…and then I launched it at Logan.

“Hey,” he growled, rubbing at his leg.

“Whoops,” I responded, winking at him for good measure. “Guess that’s why I’m a defender.”

Logan flipped me off, and I’m sure my answering grin looked a little crazy.

“Did you have a hand in this song selection, James? Is your taste in music really this bad?” Ari asked as he skated up next to me. “Because there’s no way our entertainment department picked this.”

I scoffed before wiping my palms on my pants. It was almost time for our dance.

“He didn’t pick it,” Disney provided helpfully as he appeared next to me.

“But I think his taste in music really is this bad. He had “Go The Distance” in his top songs of the last year,” offered Logan.

“Excuse me, Rookie. That song snaps. And also…get out of my fucking Spotify playlists,” I hissed, thoroughly annoyed.

Logan blinked at me for a moment before laughing uproariously.

“That song snaps, Hero?” Ari gasped, also leaning forward and laughing like he was about to die.

“Why aren’t all of you more concerned that Logan is stalking me?” I growled. “And also…I hate you all.”

“So does that mean you’re dancing by yourself—I’m positive it was your moonwalk that made this event happen,” said Disney.

It was a really good moonwalk, but I still stared at him, aghast. “Of course it doesn’t mean that. You think this friendship has outs like that just because I know cool lingo and you don’t?”

They started laughing at me harder.

I flipped them all off, with both fingers for good measure and then went back to staring at Anastasia.

Before I danced.

Fuck. Was I really about to do this?

“Let’s go, boys,” Ari whooped, because sometimes he liked to pretend that we were in a Shania Twain video.

I glanced up at the official Knights DJ booth located in one of the suites and gave him a head nod as I skated toward center ice. Anastasia was staring at us questioningly, her face so pretty I wanted to leap over the glass and drag her into a closet somewhere.

I willed myself not to get hard, what I was about to do was going to get enough attention.

My dick didn’t need to come out and try to steal the show.

The pulsating beats of “Baby Got Back,” filled the arena then, and I took a deep breath, wishing it wasn’t questionable to take shots before games.

I was really going to do this, though.

Ari skated by and slapped me on the ass on the way to his spot.

Winking at her, I launched into my dance, gyrating and twisting to Sir Mix-a-Lot as I turned and shook my ass, pretending it was just at Anastasia and not an arena filled with people recording me.

Lincoln scooted me over, and I glared at him before realizing why he’d moved me. I was technically on the side of the ice closest to Monroe, and apparently, I’d gotten too close to the invisible barrier that was supposed to surround his wife at all times.

Lincoln started shaking his ass in front of Monroe, who was staring at him with a kind of bemused look on her face.

He was completely stealing my best moves!

I forgot about the thief, though, as Anastasia got a sort of dreamy looking smile on her face, her gaze pinned to my every move.

Everything was going well until Lancaster snuck up behind me and tried to ride me like a pony.

And then Walker was trying to ride my other side.

And everything turned to pure chaos.

The fans were screaming louder than I think I’d ever heard them, which was offensive because we were on a ten-game winning streak at the moment. There seemed to be more high-pitched screams than usual as well.

And I wasn’t sure those high-pitched screams were just coming from women.

Logan did some kind of moonwalk across the ice in front of us, and hell, I was suddenly wondering if I could get away with punching my own teammate in front of an arena filled with people because obviously the only person who could moonwalk in front of my girl was me…

That’s how we’d gotten into this mess to begin with, obviously.

The last notes finally—thankfully—faded, and I lifted my jersey to show off our finishing touches.

“Anastasia” was written in paint across my chest—fun for the uniform people to get out later. Lincoln, Ari, and Walker all had their girls’ names on their chests as well. I’m sure they would have questions about who Anastasia was later on.

Logan’s chest said “open for business” with an arrow pointing down…

Anastasia stared at my chest, her mouth gaping before she glanced up at my face. I dropped the jersey and made a heart sign before Coach began screaming at us to get our asses in gear.

“Went a little off script there, Lancaster,” I muttered to him as we headed down the tunnel toward our locker room where we would no doubt get reamed by Coach until the game started.

“I’m an entertainer, James,” Ari said sarcastically. “I have to do what the music compels me to do.”

“The music compelled you to mount me?”

He grinned at me smugly. “Sir Mix-a-Lot demands someone be mounted.”

Lincoln snorted as he passed us, shaking his head.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t think I’m funny, Golden Boy,” Ari called after him.

“Don’t pretend like you need Sir Mix-a-Lot to mount something,” Lincoln shot back.

I was still shaking my head as we reached the locker room, wondering at the same time—how freaked out was Anastasia right now?