Forbidden Puck: A Hockey Romance Read online

  I groaned.

  “Sorry, Radar, but you should've known better than to get involved with a teammate's sister.”

  “I know. But what do I do now? How do I make things right?”

  Shea shrugged. “You don't. You don't tell another soul, and you hope you can take this with you to the grave.”

  I nodded somberly. “If I'm taking this to the grave, I have to get one last thing off my chest. It's the worst part.”

  “Oh, God. Do I even want to know?” Shea asked.

  “She's a virgin, Shea. That's why I didn't sleep with her. Not because of Lance.”

  The captain didn't reply. He just turned away, stared out the window and shook his head every so often.

  “God damn it, Radar.”

  “How fucked am I?”

  “Pretty well fucked.”

  The cab pulled to a stop outside MacAllister's. I paid and we hopped out, joining the rest of our teammates outside the restaurant.

  Chapter 23

  MacAllister's Redux

  Ella

  In the back of our cab, I was squished between Lance and Ilya, the Brawlers' great big Russian goaltender. I threw my elbows into the two huge human masses, hoping to clear a little extra breathing room.

  “Ow! Hey!” Ilya complained. “Her elbows! Man, she hits hard! Should give this girl a contract and put her on the blue line!”

  “Tell me about it. She's the Honey Badger, man. She don't give a fuck.”

  “Honey Badger?” Ilya asked. “What is a honey badger?”

  “Ignore my idiot brother,” I snapped.

  “Your sister is feisty,” Ilya said.

  “Moreso than usual, too,” Lance agreed.

  “Whatever,” I huffed. “Is there some other place we can go besides MacAllister's?”

  “What's everyone's problem with MacAllister's all of a sudden?” Lance asked. “Besides, you're from New York, what would you know about it?”

  “It's a sports bar and grill, right? I think we have them in New York, so they must be a chain,” I lied.

  Great. One lie begets another. Where does it end? Will I have to lie to Lance for the rest of my life, just because of one mistake I made with Radar? I ought to tell Lance the truth. Just to end all this.

  “Huh. No shit? That's weird. The restaurant was opened in the 70's by an old-time Brawlers legend, Vern 'Mack' MacAllister, so I always assumed it was Boston-only. I can't see why they'd open one in New York, since Mack was universally hated in NYC …”

  Oh, great. It just figures that in the end, Lance's encyclopedic hockey knowledge will be my undoing.

  “I can Google it,” Ilya said, reaching for his cell phone. But his phone was in the pocket closest to me, and I leaned against the Russian, hard, so he couldn't fish the phone out of his pocket without a serious struggle first.

  “Who knows, maybe I'm thinking of something else,” I said. “No need to Google it.”

  “Anyway, we're here,” Lance said as the cab rolled to a stop.

  We climbed out. A line of cabs had arrived ahead of us, and a dozen athletes in suits and ties waited for us. I spotted Radar, huddled closely with another one of his older teammates, having what appeared to be a serious chat.

  There's no way he'd tell any of his teammates about what happened, right?

  Radar looked my way every so often, hoping to catch my eye, but still I didn't acknowledge him.

  We entered the restaurant as a group. Bright and smiling at the hostess desk were two blonde girls—the same girls, I realized, that were working last night.

  They greeted all the players that went past by name.

  “Hi Brooks! … Hi Josh! … Hi Radar! … Hi Shea! … Hi Ilya! … ”

  Then we walked past.

  “Hi Lance!” one of the hostesses said. “And oh, you brought your little sister tonight! Ella, right?”

  “That's right!” Lance said, giving her a wink. But then he turned to me with a suspicious look. “Now how the hell did she know you're my sister?”

  “It's certainly not the family resemblance, thank God! Lance is a beast, but Ella?” Ilya joked—a joke which earned him Lance's fist to the gut.

  “Remember what I said about Winnipeg,” Lance quietly mumbled at him.

  Winnipeg must mean something to them … who knows.

  Lance turned to me again. “No, but seriously, she knew your name was Ella. How'd she know that?”

  “Maybe you mentioned me in an interview once upon a time? She's probably a huge fan of yours,” I muttered.

  When in doubt, always appeal to an athlete's ego.

  Lance smirked. “Heh. You're probably right.”

  I'd gotten away with another lie. With each lie, it felt like I slowly transformed into someone else, something dark and monstrous, something I wasn't …

  The hostesses led us to a private event room with a giant table. Lance sat at one head of the table, and I sat at his right. Their older teammate sat at the other head—I'd pieced together that his name was Shea.

  Radar tried to sit next to Shea, but Lance wouldn't have it. “The hell are you doing down there? Sit by us, Radar. We've got the guest of honor over here.”

  Radar neared. He sat on Lance's left, across from me. I couldn't avoid him now.

  If eyes could speak, his said, I'm sorry I got us into this mess.

  If my eyes could reply, they'd say, yeah, well, being sorry doesn't change a thing, does it?

  “The reason I want you sitting by us,” Lance began, “is because I'm sure everyone wants to hear Ella's re-telling of Radar's night yesterday.”

  “What? No!” I protested.

  But my voice was drowned out by the approving grunts and jeers of twenty-some grown men. Once they quieted down, all eyes were on me in anticipation.

  “I don't really want to tell it again,” I said. “I don't really remember what happened now. My memory's fuzzy.”

  I was met with boos.

  “Sorry …”

  Lance frowned at me. “Seriously, sis? You're not going to tell them?”

  “I don't want to, Lance.”

  “Ugh, fine. Okay, for those who didn't hear the story this morning . . .”

  While Lance launched into a re-telling of the events I'd made up this morning, I caught Radar's gaze from across the table.

  If his eyes could speak, they were saying, remember when I told you making all that shit up was a bad idea? Welp, here you go—hope you're enjoying this!

  And if my eyes could answer, they'd say, I don't want to hear it! You made me lie in the first place, remember? How the hell am I supposed to be good at lying? I never even do it! Before I met you, anyway … now I'm suddenly getting a lot of practice at it …

  Okay, maybe he didn't get all that just from my eyes, but that was certainly what was going through my mind.

  Eventually, Lance's story came to an end, and everyone joked around about Radar's bad game, and openly wondered what could've been the cause of it.

  “Obviously, she was too great of a lay. Drained his nuts completely dry, and today he's got nothing left in the tank.”

  “Look, he isn't even talking!”

  “Is that why Radar's so moody today? He just had his mind blown all night, and today he's thinking about the one that got away?”

  “The one that got away is the one that screams like a million wolves in hell?”

  “Bwahahah!”

  “Radar, you're never gonna live this one down!”

  I frowned at Radar while he suffered his teammate's jokes in silence.

  My eyes said to him, Okay, maybe I did take it a little too far.

  You think? His eyes said to me.

  “Do you think Radar might've fallen in love with this girl?” someone asked. “Like maybe he fell, legit, head-over-heels in love with this chick.”

  Lance pointed at his teammate. “Yes! Thank you. That's what I said.”

  I spoke up at last. “Oh, I certainly doubt that.”

  �
�What makes you so sure?” Radar spoke, his eyes locked on mine with a burning intensity. “Who knows. Maybe I did.”

  While his teammates exploded into delirious shouts and elated screams of ahhhh! and I fucking knew it!, I was left breathless, my heart and mind racing.

  You don't mean it.

  You can't just say that.

  Don't fuck with my head any more than you already have.

  Beneath the table, he touched his shoe against mine. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I knew it meant something.

  When the excitement died down, Radar was inundated with questions about whether or not he got this girl's number, what her panties were like (what a strange question to be asking him; God, hockey players are weird), and how he intended to pursue her now that she'd escaped him.

  “I don't know. I haven't quite worked that out yet.” His eyes never strayed from mine the whole time.

  Stop it, Radar! You're going to get us caught!

  “Radar—” Shea called from the far end of the table in a serious tone. “Maybe let's talk about something else, yeah? How's the butt model?”

  “Lindsay's great! She's meeting us at the club tonight and I'll be spending the second night in a row at her place.”

  Radar turned to Lance.

  “Hey Lance. You mind if we chat outside for a few, bud?”

  “Uh, why can't we chat right here?”

  “I just gotta talk to you about something in private.”

  Lance shrugged. “Alright, sure. Let's go.”

  If eyes could talk?

  Mine screamed, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DON'T DO WHAT I THINK YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO!

  And his said, you wanted me to tell the truth, right?

  I was left at the table with their rowdy teammates. They barely noticed Radar and Lance had left.

  With my pulse banging in my throat, I looked at Lance and Radar's suit jackets, draped around the backs of their chairs, and wondered.

  How's this going to end?

  Chapter 24

  Coming Clean

  Radar

  Outside the restaurant, the air was chilly and each hot breath gave off a puff of steam. We walked from the front of the restaurant to the back. Two of the restaurant's cooks huddled outside the rear entrance with cigarettes. Their faces looked long and tired, and their white shirts were spattered with red sauce. They watched us with a distant curiosity, blowing out clouds of smoke.

  “So what's up? What's the deal?” Lance asked, sensing something wasn't right.

  “Look, man, I've gotta tell you something.”

  “So what is it? Spit it out already. You're making me nervous as fuck here, man.”

  I rubbed my mouth, wondering how to say it.

  God damn, am I about to make another mistake? Shea said to take it to the grave …

  “It's about Ella.”

  “What about Ella?” Lance asked, his fists balling with rage.

  “Last night, after you left for Lindsay's, I saw Ella on my way out the door.”

  “And?” Lance asked, wanting me to get right to the point.

  “I felt bad for her, Lance. She hadn't eaten dinner. I told her I was going to meet a girl from MeatMarket, so she might be third wheel or whatever, but she didn't mind. She wanted to get out of the house. We came here, to MacAllister's.”

  “So that's why the hostess knew her,” he mumbled under his breath. “But what the fuck? Why would Ella lie about that? She never lies. And why am I only finding out about this right now? What'd you guys do, Radar?”

  I took a deep breath. “She went with me to Regret after we ate.”

  “And?”

  “And when I met the puck bunny, Ella ran home. But I felt bad, and I was worried she wouldn't know the way home, so I went after her.”

  “Tell me what fucking happened already, Radar,” he growled.

  I sighed. “Lance, I don't know what happened. From the moment she showed up, I felt like there was something about her, about us—”

  Pop.

  A sudden force impacted my face, right below my eye, and a bright flash forked like lightning across my vision.

  I staggered backwards from Lance's punch.

  “Yep,” I mumbled with a hand pressed over the sudden throbbing pain. “I deserve that.”

  “I don't want to hear your whole fucking love story, asshole, I want you tell me what the fuck you did with my sister,” Lance snarled at me.

  “I kissed her,” I said. “I kissed her, and one thing led to another, and we fooled around, but that's it, that's all—”

  Lance interrupted me with two more punches—the first to the gut, and the second to the jaw. The latter knocked me off my feet, and I landed on my ass in a sludgy puddle of MacAllister's fry grease.

  He grabbed me by the collar.

  “Did you fuck my sister?!” he yelled, his other fist clenched.

  “No, I swear I didn't.”

  He let go of my collar and gave me a shove, throwing me right back into the puddle of fry grease. Now it covered the back of my shirt, and the sickly smell of greasy, salty, burnt fry oil made me queasy.

  One of the cooks shouted at us. “Hey, uh, everything alright with you guys?”

  We both waved and smiled at them. “Yep!”

  They shrugged, ended their smoke-break, and went back inside.

  Lance squatted over me and stared me down, face-to-face. “Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't add her panties to your fucking collection.”

  “I didn't add her panties to my collection, Lance.”

  “Were those her panties in the living room?”

  “Yes,” I swallowed, “but I wasn't going to take them anyway. They just, uh, ended up there.”

  “Oh, they just ended up there, did they?” he snickered. “Why should I believe you weren't going to swoop in and take those panties?”

  “Because I'm not into stealing a girl's panties. And if I explained it to her, first of all, and she'd look at me like a freak. Don't you get it? That was something I only did with puck bunnies or girls I didn't care about.”

  He gave a snort. “Oh, so now you're saying you care about my sister?”

  I paused. I wasn't sure if admitting this part made it better or worse.

  “I actually like her, Lance. I like her a lot.”

  “What the fuck, Radar. You think you like her? You've known her what, two days? And that's enough to know that you like her?”

  “I can't explain it. I've never felt this way about a girl before.” I gave a defeated chuckle. “Doesn't matter, though. She hates my guts.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. That whole story she told you this morning? About me and the puck bunny I brought home? She made it all up.”

  Lance shook his head. “But why would Ella lie?”

  “Because I made her. She would've told you the truth about us, but … I was afraid you'd kill me if you found out.”

  “Oh.” Lance suddenly looked lighter, and he stepped away from me. “You fucked up, Radar.”

  “I know.”

  “First, you fucked up when you touched my sister. I meant what I said about getting traded to Winnipeg, bud. Hell, maybe Winnipeg's not even far enough.”

  I accepted my fate with a heavy head nod.

  “But second, man, if you truly had a thing for my sister? Lying to her is bad, but making her lie? You really fucked it all up. That's the last thing you should've done. She'll never forgive you for that.” He snickered at me, looking pathetic as I laid in a puddle of trash and grease. “Fuckin' idiot.”

  Lance wrung his hands, as if cleaning me off of them.

  “Don't bother coming back inside. You look and stink like shit now. You should head home, clean yourself up, and get a head start on packing your bags, because you'll be getting a call from the team GM first thing in the morning.”

  “What will you tell the boys?”

  “That's not your problem.”

  He walked off.

  Slowly, I
staggered to my feet, and started walking for the water taxi. I knew there was no point in calling a cab—they'd kick me out as soon as they smelled my fry oil stinkin' ass.

  I felt disgusting, covered in that slimy grease. My jaw hurt like a bitch, and my eye was swelling shut. Without my suit jacket, I was cold as hell—especially once I got on the water taxi and had the harbor breeze blowing over me.

  But as cold and dirty and miserable as I was? I actually felt better than I had before, now that I'd come come clean. Ella might hate me even more for telling Lance the truth, but …

  At least she wouldn't have to lie about it anymore.

  Chapter 25

  Nauseating

  Ella

  The rowdy athletes never stopped talking, sharing dirty jokes, or making fun of each other in that non-stop, rapid-fire way that hockey players do. Eventually, their raucous banter faded into a distant background noise that I was able to tune out. My mind was elsewhere, and I nervously fidgeted with my hands while Lance and Radar were having a chat outside.

  Radar wouldn't really tell Lance, would he? But what if he did? How would I feel? Would it change things?

  I didn't know.

  All I knew was that, when Lance returned ten minutes later, Radar wasn't with him. Lance was smiling, but I could tell he was straining to put that smile on for all of us.

  “Hey, where'd Radar go?” one of his teammates shouted.

  “Turns out, Radar really wasn't feeling well, guys. He went home.”

  The room groaned.

  Maybe Lance was telling the truth? I didn't know. But then I spotted Radar's jacket.

  He would've taken it with him if he was planning on leaving, wouldn't he?

  “I bet we got too close to the truth,” Ilya joked. “He is love-struck, isn't he?”

  “Who the hell knows with that guy?” Lance shrugged.

  He grabbed his glass of ice water, took a sip, and then did something strange: he lowered the glass to his lap, out of sight, where he held the cold glass against his knuckles.

  Oh my God, did they have a fight?

  I slunk in my seat.

  Now what?

  The servers entered with our food. While all the starving athletes around me inhaled their meals, I stared at mine. I felt sick.