Ice Breaker (2 page)

RAZOR AND ZEE
ended up being right. I made the team.

After I went back to my hotel room for the night, I called my family to fill them in. Then I called my billet family, the Shaws, to let them know I might not be back. Not that I fully believed it. There was still the nine-game rule. Jim and Scotty Thomas, the Storm’s head coach, had both told me they intended to keep me for the full season, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath. They could keep me in Portland for now, let me play nine games, and then ultimately make the decision to send me back to my major-junior team. My contract would be put on hold if they decided to do that.

Mr. and Mrs. Shaw might have been even more excited than my own parents had been. I’d seen a lot more of them over the last two years, since I’d been in juniors, than I had my own family. I promised I’d try not to let them down.

I was still on the phone with them when Razor started banging down my door.

“Open up. I’m fucking starving.” He’d made the final cut, too. We were going to be rookies together.

I got up off the bed and opened the door, apologizing to Mrs. Shaw for having to cut off our conversation so soon. “I’ll call you once I’m settled so we can talk more,” I promised her as we hung up.

Razor gave me a look that said I was a pussy and barreled through the door. He straddled the desk chair facing the wrong direction. “Let’s go eat. We need to celebrate.”

“What kind of celebration did you have in mind?” I asked, sitting on the foot of the bed. I tossed my phone on the mattress. I’d learned early on to be leery of his ideas. They usually were the sort that Levi, the oldest of my younger brothers, would go for, not the sort I thought were a good plan. I liked Razor, and I loved my brother, but that didn’t mean I needed to follow their leads.

He shrugged in an offhanded move. “I can get us into a strip club. There’s this one on Powell where I know one of the bouncers.”

“Don’t you have to be twenty-one to get into those?” We weren’t exactly in Canada, where it was legal for us to drink, and it wasn’t like Razor was all
that
much older than me. He was still only twenty.

Razor gave me a devious look, and he winked. “Not if you know the right people.”

“I don’t know. Not sure it’s such a hot idea.”

“Afraid you’ll blush too fucking much, huh?”

“Why do you have to be such a fucking ass all the time?” I shot back, but I could feel the all-too-familiar heat creeping up my cheeks.

“I bet those girls would love it. They’d be all over you, trying to make you blush more. You’re a goddamn chick magnet.”

“Probably the only reason you want me to tag along. You can’t get their attention on your own. You need me to be with you or they’ll ignore you and your ugly face.”

“Nah, Babs.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m hot. Girls are all over me. I just want to bring you along because you’re so damn sheltered. You need to experience things. You need to live a little.”

“I’ve lived plenty.”
Living
didn’t mean I had to experience the wrong things, though, and I had lived enough to see that for myself.

“Yeah?” He raised a skeptical brow. “Tell me about the last chick you banged.”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” I said, knowing even before the words left my mouth that he would take it as proof he was right about my supposed sheltered existence.

“Yeah, whatever, Babs.” He rolled himself closer to me, draping his arms over the back of the chair and resting his chin on them. “Look, I’ll get us started. Met a girl after the game last week. Brunette. Long legs. Tiny tits. She didn’t even have a fucking bra on. Realized that when I got her up to my room and got her clothes off. Sucked my cock like a champ, and she made the sexiest fucking sounds when I pounded her from behind. She had no ass, though. No cushion, and I was practically bruised once I was done with her.”

I tried to brush it off, tried to stop picturing what he’d described, because he was my friend and that felt all sorts of wrong, but it wouldn’t go away. “So what was her name?” I finally asked.

“Not a fucking clue. She probably told me at one point, but it wasn’t important.”

I could only let out a grunting sort of sound, and I felt heat racing to my cheeks again. Damn blushing.

“She was just a one-night stand, Babs. It wasn’t ever going to be more than that.”

“You could have at least asked her name.”

“And she could have lied to me about it.”

I supposed he had a point, but he was deliberately ignoring mine.

“So tell me about yours,” Razor said. “Something tells me you knew her name. She was probably your girlfriend, wasn’t she? You two getting married soon or something? That who you were on the phone with when I got here?” He nodded toward my cell.

“I was talking to my billet family if you really have to know.”

“Talking to a girl would have been better. Fucking a girl would have been best.” He grinned.

I gave him a go-to-hell look.

“Shit,” he spluttered, trying and failing to hold back a laugh. “You’re a fucking virgin, aren’t you? Tell me you’re not a virgin.”

My blush told him everything he needed to know. I wanted to bury my head in the sand and never come up for air.

“Holy hell. You really are a virgin.”

“Does it matter?” I shot back.

“No, of course not,” he said, but he was practically snorting.

“Screw you.”

“No, thanks. I doubt you’d bruise my hip bones with that big ass you’ve got, but you’re not exactly my type. Besides, I doubt you want me to be your first. But this just further reinforces the idea that we should hit the strip club tonight.”

“And why is that?”

“So maybe by the time you actually get around to popping your own cherry, you can do it without blushing like a fucking girl.”

IT TURNED OUT
to be a night I wouldn’t soon forget. Razor was true to his word about having a connection to get us into the club. No one even asked to see our IDs; the bouncer waved us through, and a scantily clad woman walked us right up to the stage. She deposited us in front-row seats and returned a few minutes later with two beers, winking and jiggling breasts that were barely contained in a bra top that was more string than fabric at me before walking away.

“Told you,” Razor said, taking a deep swig from his glass. “Chick magnet. You just keep blushing like that, and you’ll lure them all over our way. Then I’ll work my magic.” He winked, and I wanted to crawl under the stage and pretend I’d never stepped foot inside the building.

But then the lights dimmed, the stage lit up, music pumped through the speakers, and the girls were all over the place. One of them caught my eye and smiled, and the next thing I knew, she was taking off her clothes right in front of me.

I didn’t just take a good sip from my beer; I chugged it.

Razor laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “You’re in for a good night, Babs. You have no idea.”

THE NEXT MORNING
came way too soon, and I had a hangover as big as the whole damn state. All I wanted was a vat of coffee, but Razor dragged my mug out of my reach and replaced it with an enormous bottle of water.

“You need to hydrate after a night like that if you’re going to get through this Ice Breaker.”

I let out a groan as I screwed off the cap. “You’re too loud.”

“You shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”

“I shouldn’t have done a fucking thing you encouraged me to do.” In fact, I made a mental note to think twice before going along with another thing Razor suggested. Something told me the choices he made wouldn’t be the best for my life.

“Maybe you should listen to me more often, and then nights like last night wouldn’t hit you so hard. I mean, look at me. I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Fine.” There wasn’t a chance in hell I would be spending many nights like that. Not if I wanted to be able to function the next day, and considering I was now a professional hockey player, functioning was high on my priority list.

“We should get an apartment together.” For the first time all day, Razor sounded completely serious.

I did my best not to snort out loud. “I think I’m going to take Zee up on his offer.” Zee wasn’t the kind of guy who stayed out too late and drank too much. Living with him would help keep me in line.

“Zee’s no fun. He’s old. Goes home every night, and for what?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“You’ve fucking lost your mind if you think living with him is going to be better for you than living with me.”

“Then call me crazy.” I chugged my water and hastily finished my breakfast so we could get over to the Moda Center in time for the Ice Breaker. Most of the team was already there when we arrived, and there was a huge line of fans heading out the door and halfway around the arena.

Zee waved me over when we came in. Razor rolled his eyes and headed off to a corner of the room where some of the other defensemen were huddled together.

I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that I was playing in the same league as him and the other guys in this room. Some of them, like Jack Boyle, were guys I’d been watching for as long as I could remember. And Zee was one of the biggest stars in the league, or at least in the Western Conference.

He handed me a Sharpie. “Keep this on you. You’ll be signing things all day long. You give any more thought to what I suggested? Living at my place?”

“Yeah. After last night, I think that’s a good plan.”

“Last night?” Zee raised a brow, glancing across to Razor.

“Never mind. It’s fine.” And I would make sure it didn’t happen again.

He let it drop, at least. Then he spent the next several minutes explaining how the Ice Breaker would work and what was expected of me once they opened the doors to the public. In my mind, I boiled it down to three simple rules: smile, don’t say anything stupid, and sign whatever was presented to me while keeping in mind it was a family event. I could remember that much.

I only had a few minutes to gather myself together before the public started swarming in. Then I wished I’d had a hell of a lot longer. But then again, no amount of time could have prepared me for the gaggle of teenaged girls heading straight for me, squealing and giggling and screaming.

I turned to Zee, but he was already surrounded by a bunch of fans. He was too busy talking and signing autographs to notice my panic that bordered on desperation. And it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. The girls descended upon me, and all I could do was try to stay afloat.

“Jamie! Oh my God. Mom, it’s really him!”

“Babs, will you sign my shirt?”

“Come to Homecoming with me?”

They were shouting, voices coming at me from every direction as they thrust photos and jerseys and posters and God only knew what else in my face. The closest thing I could compare it to was a One Direction concert, with this level of insanity.

“All right, all right,” a familiar, calming voice called out, somehow cutting through their squeals. Then I saw Jim Sutter’s head bobbing over the top of them as he forced his way up to me. “Let’s let him breathe, and you’ll all get your chance.”

Somehow, he wrangled them all into an almost orderly line and had each girl waiting for her chance to talk to me. At one point, when the line had thinned slightly and I was able to take a breath, I realized he was making his way through them, speaking with each girl individually. He smiled and laughed, and they acted like he was a fatherly figure. I didn’t know Jim very well, but I decided right then and there I was going to like him.

I kept signing autographs and doing my best not to get dragged into something stupid like signing some underage girl’s breasts—and yeah, a few tried to get me to do exactly that—until a woman working the event came over with some water and said Scotty had asked for me to join him in a different part of the room. I didn’t know what the coach needed me for, but I didn’t care. He was saving me from a line of teenaged girls that was still at least a mile or two long.

I excused myself and followed her, downing the water like a man dying of thirst. The second I lowered the bottle and glanced around, my eyes landed on the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen—easily more beautiful even than all the women who’d been dancing and jiggling their bits in front of me all night last night, and she was fully clothed. She was so pretty I nearly tripped over my own feet. Good thing they weren’t paying me to walk and drink water at the same time. She had long, rich brown hair and clear blue eyes, and she smiled at me before ducking her head and hurrying away. Probably laughing at me.

I was a fucking mess.