: Chapter 6

The Dime is my favorite place in the city. It’s the epitome of a dive bar. Cramped. Dark. The pool table’s missing three balls, including the eight ball. The dartboard is cracked in half. The beer tastes watered down half the time, and the food is covered with a layer of grease that congeals like a rock in the pit of your stomach.

But despite its failings, I love it. The place is small, which means larger groups usually venture elsewhere. And the clientele is mostly male, so it’s the perfect spot to visit when you’re not looking to hook up.

That doesn’t stop Brooks, of course. My roommate can find a chick anywhere. Take him to a convent and he’d seduce a nun. Take him to a funeral and he’d be banging the grieving widow in the bathroom. Or hell, on the casket. Dude’s a slut.

Right now, he’s at a corner table making out with our waitress. Only two servers are working tonight, and Brooks has his tongue in one of their mouths.

The other one, an older dude with a beard and glasses, keeps clearing his throat pointedly. She keeps ignoring him. When he calls, “Rachel, your table’s waiting,” she breathlessly unlatches her lips from my teammate’s and waves her coworker off. “Can you handle it? Tips are yours.”

I’m assuming she doesn’t want the job anymore and this is her way of quitting, because there’s no way she’s escaping without punishment. The other waiter and the bartender keep exchanging sullen looks, and I’m pretty sure one of them already phoned the manager.

While Brooks is in the corner feeling up the waitress, the rest of us are enjoying the Bruins game and listening to Coby Chilton complain about the two-beer limit I’ve enforced. He can bitch about it all night, for all I care. We’re playing Princeton tomorrow afternoon and nobody is allowed to show up to a game hungover. Hell, I forbade Potts and Bray from going out tonight altogether. I don’t trust the beer pong duo.

“If you could bang any hockey player, dead or alive, who’d it be?” Coby asks Dmitry. Since a second ago he’d been talking about beer, the change of subject is jarring.

“What?” Dmitry sounds extremely confused. “You mean like a female hockey player?”

“And when you say ‘dead,’ do you mean I’m fucking her corpse or am I doing her when she was alive?” Heath pipes up.

“Nah, I’m talking NHL. And none of that necrophilia shit.” Coby’s expression conveys horror.

“Wait, you’re asking us which dude we’d fuck?” a senior D-man demands.

I swallow a laugh.

“Yeah. I’d pick Bobby Hull. I like blondes. How ’bout you guys?”

“Hold up. Chilton,” squawks Adam Middleton, our most promising freshman. “Are you gay?” The eighteen-year-old glances around the table. “Has he always been gay and I’m just finding out? Did y’all know?”

“You wish I was gay,” Coby shoots back.

The freshman’s eyebrows crash together. “Why would I wish that?”

“Because I’m a great lay. You’re missing out.”

“What is happening right now?” Adam asks me.

I press my trembling lips together. “No clue, man.”

“I heard a bunch of chicks debating this shit in Harvard Square the other day,” Coby explains, polishing off his second (and last) bottle of Sam Adams. He rolls his eyes dramatically. “They were choosing the lamest dudes. Tyler Seguin! Sidney Crosby!”

“I’d do Crosby,” Dmitry pipes up. “I wouldn’t even need to picture some girl to get hard. I’d just think about his stats line.”

As laughter breaks out at the table, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and pull it out.

HAZEL: Whatcha up to tonight? I’m home and bored.

I shoot a quick text back, telling her I’m out with the boys.

HAZEL: Use condoms!

I laugh out loud, drawing the attention of Coby. “What are you giggling about over there?” He scowls. “You better not be chatting up a girl. You banned hookups, remember?”

“I banned distractions,” I correct.

And so far it’s been working. McCarthy was in top form at morning skate, proving that his flirtation with Brenna Jensen was the cause of his recent bout of sucking. He didn’t come out with us tonight because he wanted to stay home and watch all the available game tape from Princeton’s season to prepare for tomorrow. See what happens when you eliminate pesky distractions?

“Also, I’m not chatting up a girl,” I add. “I’m texting Hazel.”

“Oh nice, tell her I say hi,” Coby orders.

Hazel was my “date” for a team event last year, so most of my teammates know her. Coby, in particular, took an immediate liking to her. Granted, Coby takes a liking to anyone with tits. And to blondes, apparently, regardless of gender.

“Are you ever gonna give me her number?” he gripes.

“Nope. You’re not allowed to mess around with my friends.” I don’t want Chilton anywhere near Hazel. He’s a major player, and he’d break her heart. She’s too inexperienced to handle someone like him.

To be honest, I don’t think she’s ever had an actual boyfriend. I assume she hooks up, because she’s an attractive, twenty-one-year-old woman, but I’ve never seen her with a man. In the past I wondered if maybe she was a lesbian, but I haven’t seen her with any women, either, and I’ve definitely caught her checking out dudes before. I think she just doesn’t have much game. And Coby has too much of it.

A loud wolf whistle cuts through the rock music blasting in the bar. It comes from the direction of the pool table. The two men standing there have abandoned their game to gape at the entryway.

I follow their stares and…da-yum.

Brenna Jensen is marching across the room. And she looks good enough to eat.

She’s wearing high-heeled leather boots, a short skirt, black leather jacket. Her chocolate-brown hair is loose around her shoulders, and her full lips are blood red.

Another dark-haired girl trails after her. Also pretty, but Brenna holds all my attention. Her dark eyes are on fire, and every molecule of heat is aimed directly at me.

“Connelly.” She reaches our table, baring her teeth in a mocking smile. “Boys. Fancy meeting you here. Mind if I join you?”

I pretend to be completely unfazed by her arrival. Inside, suspicion coils like a rattlesnake in my gut. “Sure thing.” I gesture to the sole empty chair. “Afraid there’s only one seat, though.”

“It’s okay, we won’t be staying long.” She addresses her friend. “Want to sit?”

“Nah.” The girl is clearly amused by all of this. Whatever this is. “I’m gonna call Lamar. Come grab me when you’re done.” She moseys over to the bar, phone already glued to her ear.

“It’s so hot in here,” Brenna remarks. “All the bodies crammed in this shoebox are generating some serious heat.” She unzips her jacket.

What she’s wearing underneath makes everyone’s eyeballs pop out of their sockets.

“Aw fuck,” I hear Coby mumble.

The crop top bares her flat, smooth belly, and it’s cut low enough to showcase some impressive cleavage. She’s also not wearing a bra, so I can see the outline of her nipples, two hard beads straining against the ribbed material. My cock stirs behind my zipper.

She appraises my teammates before focusing on me. “We need to have a chat, Connelly.”

“Do we?”

Her gaze sweeps over the table again. Each guy, even the lowly freshman Adam, receives a thorough examination. To my displeasure, the longest scrutiny is awarded to Coby, whose tongue has fallen to the Dime’s sticky floor.

“Have a seat already,” I say darkly.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Flicking up an eyebrow, she saunters to Coby and settles directly on his lap.

He makes a choked noise. Part surprise, part joy.

I narrow my eyes at her.

She smiles. “What’s wrong, Jakey? You told me to have a seat.”

“I think a chair would be more comfortable.” There’s an edge to my tone.

“Oh, but I’m super comfy right here.” She wraps a slender arm around Coby’s neck and rests her hand on his broad shoulder. He’s six-four and two hundred and forty pounds, making Brenna appear tiny in comparison.

I don’t miss the way his hand curls around her hip to keep her in place.

“Jensen,” I warn.

“Jensen! Hey!” Brooks, coming up for air, finally notices Brenna’s arrival. “When did you get here? Is Di Laurentis with ya?”

“No, Summer’s back in Hastings.”

“Oh. That sucks.” Shrugging, he resumes the game of tonsil-hockey he’s playing with our soon-to-be-unemployed waitress.

“So here’s the thing,” Brenna says. She might be in Coby’s lap, but she only has eyes for me. “You ordered Josh to break up with me.”

I raise my beer bottle and take a slow sip, contemplating what she said. “Break up, eh? I thought you weren’t dating.”

“We weren’t. But we had a good arrangement going. I liked him.”

It’s strangely frank of her. Most women probably wouldn’t enjoy admitting how much they liked the person who just dumped them. I experience a weird tug in my stomach at the notion that she might’ve actually been into McCarthy.

“I liked the way his hands felt on me,” she continues in a throaty voice, and suddenly every man at the table is eating up her every word. “I liked his lips…his fingers…”

A strangled cough comes from Adam the freshman. I silence him with a deadly glare. He gulps down some beer.

“I guess you’ll have to find other hands and lips and fingers to keep you occupied,” I tell her.

When Coby opens his mouth, I glare at him before he can volunteer his body parts. His mouth promptly slams.

“I told you, you don’t get to make decisions for me,” Brenna says coolly.

“I didn’t make any decisions for you. McCarthy made up his own mind.”

“I don’t believe that. And I don’t appreciate you interfering in my life.”

“I don’t appreciate you interfering with my players,” I retort.

My teammates’ heads swing back and forth from me to Brenna.

“Are we really going to have this argument again?” she asks in a bored tone. Her index finger trails down Coby’s arm.

His eyes glaze over.

Shit. Brenna is not only smoking hot, she’s also magnetic as hell. And her perfect ass is currently pressed up against the crotch of a hockey player who’s full of pent-up aggression and anticipation for tomorrow’s semifinals.

“Did you come here to yell at me, Hottie? Because that’s not going to bring poor, sweet McCarthy back.” I’m goading her. Mostly because it’s fun to see her dark eyes smolder with anger, like two hot coals burning in a fire pit.

“You’re right. I’m not going to get McCarthy back. So I guess it’s time to find a replacement.” Her fingertips reach the hand that Coby placed on her hip. She laces their fingers together, and I frown when I glimpse her thumb rubbing the inside of his palm.

I think he might actually groan. The music muffles the sound, but his tortured expression tells me he’s not unaffected. I glower at him. “Focus, man. She’s just playing a game.”

“It’s not a game. I think your boy here is hot.” She tosses her silky hair over one shoulder and slants her head to meet Coby’s appreciative gaze. “What’s your name?”

“Coby.” Gravel thickens his voice.

Oh fuck. We’re in trouble. He’s looking at her as if she’s already naked. Hell, I think everyone in the bar is.

“I’m Brenna,” she coos. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“So nice,” he echoes, visibly gulping.

Brenna grins at me, and then unlaces their fingers and slides her palm up Coby’s beefy chest. She presses it to the Harvard logo that’s decaled onto his gray sweatshirt, her palm flattening over his left pec. “Your heart’s beating so fast. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s just fine.” He’s completely under her spell. From beneath heavy eyelids, he admires the curves of her body. Then he shifts in his chair, probably because he’s sporting a massive hard-on.

“Focus on me, Chilton,” I order. “Don’t let her lure you to the dark side.”

“Don’t listen to him, Coby. I mean, do you really want Connelly to run your life? He’s such a buzzkill. Who likes a buzzkill, right?” She snuggles closer to him. “So what do you like to do other than play hockey? Do you like to dance?”

“Love it,” he mumbles. His gaze is glued to her chest.

I know for a fact he’s got zero moves. “Coby, don’t fall for this. She’s not interested.”

They both ignore me.

“We should go dancing sometime. We’ll have so. Much. Fun.” She strokes his pec before gliding her hand up to his bearded chin. She strokes that, too. “I’d bet having our bodies so close like that would make your heart beat even faster.”

Adam starts coughing again. Beside him, Dmitry looks utterly captivated. They all do. Brenna has that effect on men.

I scowl at Coby. “She’s teasing you. This is payback for my perceived crimes against her.”

Brenna smirks defiantly. “Actually, I happen to find Coby incredibly appealing.”

“I’m sure you do,” I drawl. To the dumbass whose lap she’s on, I offer more encouragement. “You can do this, man. Crawl out of the darkness.”

When he finally speaks, the words are strangled, as if they’re being pried out of his mouth by force. “Sorry, Jake. I think I love her.”

She laughs, easily sliding off his lap.

Coby shoots to his feet, too. “We should go dancing tonight,” he says eagerly.

I sigh. “Weak bastard.”

With a sigh of her own, Brenna gently touches my teammate’s arm. “Sorry, babes, but Connelly was right. I was playing you.”

He gawks at her. “For real?”

“For real. I was manipulating you, and I apologize for that. You were an unwitting pawn in this little chess game between me and your captain.”

Coby looks so disappointed I have to choke down laughter. I don’t feel sorry for him, though. I did warn him.

Brenna turns to me. “See how easy that was?” She shakes her head irritably. “The only reason I’m not crying over this McCarthy thing is because it was a temporary arrangement. But let this serve as a warning to you, Connelly. Stay out of my life. My love life, my sex life, my life in general. You have no right to force someone to break up with me. That’s just childish.”

“And what you did right now wasn’t childish?” I challenge.

“Oh, it was. I don’t deny that. I absolutely stooped to your level, because I was trying to prove a point. If you mess with my life, I’ll mess with yours. Keep accusing me of distracting your guys, and guess what, I’ll start doing it. And based on what I just saw, it won’t be difficult at all.” She pats Coby on the shoulder. “Again, I’m truly sorry for involving you. For what it’s worth, I think you’re wicked hot, and I have this friend—Audrey—who I kind of want to set you up with. You’re exactly her type.”

Coby’s expression brightens. “Really?”

Brenna holds up her phone. “Smile. I’ll text her a pic of you and see if she’s interested.”

I watch in total disbelief as Coby actually stands there and poses for a picture. He flexes his biceps, for fuck’s sake. And then, to add insult to injury, he says, “Thanks.”

The idiot is thanking her. Christ. My teammates are unbelievable.

Brenna slides her phone into her purse and seeks out my gaze. “Enjoy the rest of your night, Jakey.” She gives me a wink. “And don’t forget… If you mess with me, I mess right back.”