Grudge Puck: A Hockey Romance Read online

  “C'mon guys. I just want one person to come with me. Don't be so lame.”

  “You want to sight-see what, exactly?” Iggy Morrow asked skeptically.

  I pointed at my cell phone screen. “This broad I knew in high school. Apparently she opened a vegan bakery in Fort Greene. I wanna pay her a visit.”

  A wave of amused laughter began to ripple throughout the room.

  I peeked up and narrowed my eyes at the boys. “What? Why are you guys laughing?”

  Hunter patted me on the back. “Was this the one that got away, Beau? Is this why you're so fucked up in the head? A girl broke your heart in high school and you never got over it?”

  “Ugh.” Repulsed, I stuck out my tongue. “Are you kidding me? You don't get it. We were mortal enemies. I can't stand this chick.”

  “So …” Leif, our Russian goalie, was struggling to follow the logic, and his face was pinched with confusion. “So why would you ever want to go visit her, then? That doesn't make sense.”

  I shrugged. “Isn't it obvious? I want to gloat about how amazing my life is now, and here she is, slinging cupcakes. Lotta good being so much smarter than me did her, eh boys?”

  Leif slapped his forehead. “I take it back. Knowing you, that makes perfect sense.”

  “So?” I asked. “C'mon, somebody come with me.”

  “I'll go with you,” Hunter said as he rose to his feet. “But not because I approve; only because I want to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  I clapped Hunter on the back. “My man!”

  And then I lowered my gaze to my cell phone.

  Honestly, I couldn't believe I was even friends with Camille Kennedy on Facebook. God knows when that happened—we've hated each other since middle school. But I hardly ever use Facebook, so maybe I just never noticed.

  I clicked her profile and flipped through some of her recent pics anyway. With each picture, my heart sank just a bit more.

  Well, I hate to admit it, but she still looks good, god damn it.

  It'd make this trip out to her bakery that much sweeter if she didn't.

  But no.

  She still had a deceptively cute face. Sure, she might look like an angel with that golden complexion. But really, that was just nature's way of giving her an ability to draw in poor and unsuspecting victims.

  And, oh that smile. That smile was just perfect—too perfect. Artificially perfect. She could trick probably anyone else with that smile, but not me. I knew Camille Kennedy well enough to look beyond that smile and peer deep into her emerald eyes instead. That's where I could see it, the bare truth, plain as day: for whatever reason, deep down, she wasn't happy.

  She'd probably never be happy, because that's just who she was.

  And who could forget those plump pink lips? What a shame that full set of DSLs ended up on her. If they were on any other girl? I'd die for just one chance to watch those glossy lips sliding up and down my throbbing cock.

  I flipped through more and more pics.

  Seeing her face again made my heart race—not in a good way. It was the same feeling I got whenever we were at each other's throats back in the day. Blood and adrenaline pumped through my veins as I prepared for battle.

  Funny, isn't it, how I can stare down the best players and toughest fighters in the NHL without batting an eyelid. But a girl from high school could get me all antsy and bothered. I loved this feeling, though. At the end of the day, it was exactly what I lived for.

  “That her?” Vinny asked, smearing his index-finger on my screen. Apparently, it was his turn to watch over my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I snarled. I wiped his oily finger grease off my screen. “Don't touch.”

  “Huh. I see why you're all bent out of shape over her. She's kinda cute.”

  “Keep dreaming,” I said as I shoved him away. “She'd never fuck you.”

  Vinny cackled. “Damn, Beau! Look how jealous you're getting!”

  “I'm not jealous. I'm just saying, she was a smart chick. Valedictorian, actually. So she hated guys like us in high school. To her, we were just a bunch of 'fucking jocks.' Trust me, I heard those words from her lips more than once.”

  “Mm. Speaking of her lips.” Vinny practically drooled on my phone.

  I shoved him away. “Fuck off, Vinny. You toad.”

  He laughed. “You'd be all over her in a minute if you thought she was DTF, Beau. You know you would.”

  I stared at her picture and imagined it: the two of us, naked and sweaty, boning loudly and angrily, both of us hating how much we loved using each other's flesh to get off.

  “Dude, no,” I answered Vinny with a laugh. I pushed all those images of Camille out of my head—last thing I wanted was to get hard before I headed for the shower.

  “Bullshit,” Vinny hissed. “Nothing's hotter than a hate-fueled grudge-fuck.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  I shrugged and made my way for the shower.

  Not like she'd ever go for it anyway.

  Chapter 3

  A Familiar Face …

  Camille

  Flour sprinkled the counter-tops and littered the floor, dirty pots and pans over-flowed from the sink, and tiny beads of sweat trickled down my back. It was our busiest day since we opened a month ago.

  We still had a few minutes left before we locked the door and called it a day. In the meantime, Piper and I busily worked to bring order to the shop's chaos as quickly as we could.

  And now, all I could think about was finishing up these tasks so I could count down the drawer for the moment of truth: to see if we'd managed to break even for the first time.

  I finished sweeping and Piper hopped over to the dishes.

  “Okay,” I said. “It's almost closing time.”

  I counted up all the cash and ran the credit card numbers. Piper would never admit it, but I knew she was just as anxious as I was. We desperately wanted some sign that we were on the right path, that this business of ours would take off.

  I punched the last of the numbers into a calculator.

  Piper, elbow-deep in sudsy water, watched me over her shoulder.

  “Well? Well?” she asked.

  I sighed. “We're about a hundred short.”

  Piper's face fell. “Damn.” She paused to dig her spirit out of the dumps. “Well, hey, that's still better. We're making progress, Cam.”

  “Yeah …”

  The shop's bells jangled as two young men opened the door. I raised my eyebrow at the sight of the stylish men in sunglasses. Both were tall and well-built and fashionably-dressed.

  These two didn't look like our normal clientele. I wondered if maybe their girlfriends had sent them? One of the boys in particular seemed to have a familiar air about him. I couldn't quite place it, but as the two walked up to the counter, the feeling that I knew him grew stronger and more undeniable.

  Maybe I just wish I knew him, I thought, biting my lip at the sight of his bulging muscles.

  His chino shorts were salmon-pink and ended a good two or three inches above his knee—treating the world to a sneak-peek of his deliciously round and muscular thighs.

  Damn, he's built.

  His billowy heather-gray shirt fluttered in the draft that followed him in. The sheer shirt was half-way see-through. And thank God for that, because when his shirt caught the sunlight just right, the ridges of his hard, carved torso and mountainous pecs showed right through.

  Uh. Yum.

  They approached. But something about familiar-boy's cocky, perfect smile was deeply unsettling—because, strangely, that smile was the most familiar thing about him. I squinted into his opaque metallic shades, wondering about the eyes behind them.

  Do I know you?

  “Hi!” I said, forcing a cheer through my suspicion. I kept my eyes trained on him. “Welcome to Velvet Bakery.”

  “Hey,” the other guy said first.

  “Hey there,” familiar-boy said. “Wait a minute—aren't you—”

 
And then he pulled off his metallic shades and revealed those tenacious, slate-gray eyes.

  And my guts twisted and knotted as my attraction turned to revulsion and horror.

  Oh. My. God.

  The theme of the day was high school flashbacks, apparently. First I wanted it, with the Pixies. But now I didn't want it, with Beau Bradford.

  And I felt sick to my stomach that I almost thought he was hot a second ago.

  “Rach?” Beau said with a shit-eating grin. “Rachel, is that really you?”

  Piper sidled next to me. I could tell by the way she elegantly glided to the counter that she thought these two guys were hot as hell. If only she knew!

  “I think you boys got the wrong girl,” Piper teased, adopting a Southern drawl for reasons that only Piper could know. She coquettishly flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I reckon there's no Rachel here.”

  I gritted my teeth with embarrassment.

  “No,” Beau said arrogantly, shaking his finger at me. “No, I'm pretty sure this is Rachel Kennedy. Apollo High School, St. Cloud Minnesota.”

  “… And this is Beau Bradford,” I mumbled, staring daggers at my old arch-nemesis.

  “Huh?” Piper dropped the accent and shot me an investigative look. “Wait, who's Rachel?”

  “I am,” I admitted with a sigh. “Camille's my middle name. I always hated the name Rachel.”

  Beau back-handed his buddy's chest and mumbled. “Oh, that's right, she goes by Camille now. I forgot.”

  I knew this was all an act, that this run-in was not a chance encounter.

  I said to Piper, “I've been going by Camille ever since middle school, but some people are apparently too meat-headed to remember simple facts.”

  “Wow, so you've known this guy since middle school?” Piper mumbled as she ran her eyes up and down Beau's muscular body.

  “Unfortunately,” I answered. And I didn't take my eyes off Beau either, but for different reasons entirely: you can't ever trust a snake.

  Beau extended his hand to Piper over the counter, with his eyes not-so-subtly going straight to her cleavage. Ugh.

  “Hi, I'm Beau Bradford,” he said, speaking smoothly and confidently. “I play hockey for the Colorado Blizzard.”

  “And he's very humble about it, too,” I remarked cynically.

  But Piper's jaw dropped.

  “Like, pro—professional hockey?” she stammered. “In the NHL?”

  “Yup.” Beau beamed proudly. “And this here's my captain, roommate on the road, buddy, and all around good guy, Hunter Rockwell.”

  “Hi ladies,” Hunter said, and he extended his hand for us both to shake. For his part, he looked like he had a case of some mild regret—like he didn't want any part of this.

  Beau butted in. “Hunter's a happily married man with a beautiful daughter, so don't get any ideas, Rach.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good to know you're still just as annoying as you were in middle school, Beau.”

  Beau took a look around our shop, and waves of hot embarrassment rushed over me. I hated that he was here. I felt so exposed, so naked and embarrassed. This shop represented my hopes and dreams—in some way, it was a private part of myself that I didn't want to show to anyone who knew me outside these walls.

  But who waltzed right in? Beau Bradford. Just so he could take delight in casting his eyes over something I never wanted him to see in the first place.

  “Nice little shop you got here, Rach,” he said at last.

  “Camille,” I corrected him curtly.

  “Right.” He grinned at me. “So, a vegan bakery, huh.”

  “Yep.”

  “I had no idea people even put meat in cakes in the first place.”

  I tittered at his expense. “You're such an ass. Vegan implies no animal products, not just meat. No eggs, no dairy.”

  “So what do you bake with? Tree bark and mud?”

  My patience was beginning to run thin. “Yeah, exactly,” I said with an eye-roll.

  I stared at him while I waited for whatever dumb remark came next. His blonde hair was kept neat and tidy, with just a small swoop at his bangs. As much as it pained me to admit it, he'd filled out since our high school days and really grown into a man. A handsome man with all those classic good-looking features: the strong jawline, the rugged chin, the lovely cheek-bones.

  Because of course a guy that was a total dick also had to be sinfully attractive. And mega successful in life.

  I shook my head. “What did you come here for, Beau?”

  “To get a taste,” he answered, and his eyes swept over my cleavage. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

  Ugh. Ew.

  “… I'm going to ignore the creepy subtext and assume you meant a taste of cupcake,” I mumbled.

  I slid the display door open, grabbed a cupcake, and set it on the counter in front of him.

  Beau scooped the cupcake up in his giant hand and scarfed it down in practically one bite.

  Gross.

  But I guess the guy's gotta have a big appetite. Pro athlete and all.

  I watched him chew and waited for the verdict. Even though I knew he'd act like it was the worst thing ever, even if he truly didn't think so. So why did I care at all?

  His Adam's apple plunged down his wide and muscled neck as he gulped down the last bite.

  “Huh,” he said, looking genuinely surprised. “That's actually good. G'job, Rach.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “What flavor is that?”

  “Vanilla raspberry.”

  “I'll take two dozen cupcakes. Whichever flavor.”

  I squinted at him. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “This isn't some kind of prank?”

  “Shit, Rach! Can a man order two dozen cupcakes or not? I'm going to bring them to the boys. Some of us like to have a little sugar before the game. Helps to get our legs going.”

  With a shrug, I started filling a couple boxes.

  Still feels like he's setting me up for something.

  Piper, looking star-struck, twirled the end of her hair around her finger and stared longingly at the two athletes.

  “So, you two have a game tomorrow night?” she asked.

  “Sure do,” Beau answered.

  “Where?”

  “Madison Square Garden. We're playing against your hometown New York Scouts.”

  “Ooh,” Piper cooed. “I've never been to a hockey game before.”

  “Really?” Beau asked.

  “Yeah, really.”

  I cut in and stacked Beau's two boxes on the counter-top. “Here you are.” I punched his order into the register. “Anything else before you two leave?”

  Beau turned to Hunter. “You want anything bro?”

  Hunter shook his head. “Nah.”

  “That'll be $89.28,” I said to Beau.

  “Hold on. I'm starved.” Beau pointed at the rosemary and cream-cheese roll. “Better give me two of those rolls for the road.”

  I wrapped the rolls up for him and gave him his new total. “That'll be $100.17.”

  Beau reached for his wallet and plucked out two fresh hundred dollar bills from an absurdly healthy stack of them.

  I tried to hand him one of the bills back. “No sense breaking a $100 bill over seventeen cents.”

  Beau shrugged cockily. “Hell, I don't care. Keep the change.”

  I wouldn't keep the change. I knew that'd only make him happy and somehow victorious. I shook my head and held that bill out to him, waiting for him to take it.

  But he just wouldn't take it.

  The stand-off persisted, until Beau had had enough. With a huff, he wrapped his huge hand around my wrist. Moving my hand over the tip jar, Beau made me drop the $100 bill into the jar.

  “There,” he grinned.

  Fucker.

  And as if that wasn't enough, his wallet came out again.

  “And, since Piper said she's never been to a game,” Beau trailed off as he pulled two t
ickets from his wallet. “Here's two tickets for the game tomorrow night.”

  He displayed those tickets with a smug grin before he placed those in our tip jar, too. And then, just for good measure, another $100.

  I wasn't amused. Oh, stop it already.

  But Piper clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh my God! That's so nice of you! Thank you, Mr. Bradford!”

  “Anytime, sweetheart. And please, just call me Beau.” Beau winked at Piper.

  Piper leaned against the counter-top. “So, Beau, we'd love to go to the game tomorrow night. But what will you fellas be getting up to tonight?”

  I quietly reprimanded her. “Piper!”

  Beau smiled that charming snake-smile of his. “We'll be hanging out at club 1 OAK. Love to see you ladies there.”

  He turned that smile on me next—except I was immune to its voodoo. “Camille. Hope you can make it.”

  Oh, how kind, he does know my name after all.

  “Yeah, we'll see. Bye Beau.”

  We watched as the two men gathered up their boxes and took off.

  The second our door closed after them, Piper fanned herself like she could faint at any moment.

  “Holy fuck, Camille. Those guys are smoking hot.”

  I groaned. “Piper! I can't believe you.”

  “What? They are! My God, those bodies. When they first walked into the shop, I was going to ask if they were firefighters. And heck, that thought made me weak in the knees. But once Beau said that they're professional hockey players?” Piper's eyes rolled into the back of her head. “Marone.”

  I had to laugh. “If you grew up with Beau like I did, you wouldn't think so. But hey, I don't blame you. Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “Really?” Piper asked as she fished the tickets and both hundred dollar bills out of the tip jar. “Because Beau seems nice as hell!”

  “Trust me—he's not.”

  “I'm still just shocked. You never, ever told me that someone you went to high school with is a professional hockey player. That is so cool. And he's so down-to-Earth.”

  “Down-to-Earth! Beau Bradford!” I had to have a hearty laugh over that one. “Judging by the size of that guy's ego in high school? Let's just say that I seriously doubt that he's any more humble now that he's a famous athlete.”