Nick

It’s not usually a wise idea to pick a fight with a guy who could crush you with his pinky, but Ares Berger is not only my teammate, he’s also my brother-in-law.

Also, no one’s ever accused me of being wise.

Plus, it’s his fault Kami’s pissed at me for the cow thing. I don’t like when my friends are pissed at me.

And Kami doesn’t get pissed at anyone. Not at the guy who spilled beer on her last week at Chester Green’s. Not at whoever left that ding in the side of her car door. Not at her dogs when they poop in her house.

It happens, she always says with that bright smile. Sometimes a resigned bright smile, but always a smile.

But she’s mad at me.

It’s sitting wrong in my gut.

And in my nuts.

“Morning, jackass.” I shoulder into Ares and push past him on my way into the dressing room to get ready for practice.

“Hey. Quit calling my brother names.”

Zeus Berger, Ares’s identical twin, is already inside, strapping on his skates in front of his locker. He’s the new guy on the team this year, and despite making no secret of his intentions to retire—for real this time—at the end of the season, he’s been working his ass off on the ice to prove himself. The two Berger twins together—known as the Brute and the Force—are seven hundred pounds and almost fourteen feet of pure hockey talent.

Ares gives me a shoulder brush back, and I almost lose my balance.

Zeus smirks.

Ares stays straight-faced while he heads to his locker and inspects his skate laces.

Duncan Lavoie shakes his head at me when I stop at my locker and start pulling out my gear. “You still haven’t learned not to pick a fight with one of them unless you have six of us behind you yet?”

“He’s hardly the intelligent Murphy sibling,” Manning Frey points out in his fancy accent. Dude’s a real fucking prince of a small country across the Atlantic, but he’s so far down the royal line to inherit that he left home to play pro hockey here instead of taking some ceremonial job in the kingdom.

“He knocked my sister up,” I tell Zeus. “I’ll call the fucker whatever I want to.”

I don’t mention the cow to any of them, because it’s part of the game. The next part of the game involves me getting Ares back, and I’m already plotting sweet, sweet revenge.

Probably something with a snake. Or maybe a litter of bunnies.

But it has to be somewhere that Felicity won’t have to deal with it.

“Ares outranks you in the family hierarchy now,” Zeus argues. “I’m fucking proud of him. Always wanted to be an uncle.”

“You’re already an uncle,” Frey observes, since his baby daughter is technically Zeus’s niece too because their wives are sisters.

“Only by marriage, and not on the Berger side of the family, dude. This baby’s gonna be fucking awesome. It’s already practically half me.”

“Felicity still puking every day?” Lavoie asks Ares.

He shakes his head and strips off his shirt, grabbing his pads.

“Saw her last night. She’s eating like a cow now,” Zeus offers with a sly grin.

Motherfucker.

The cow’s his fault.

Of course it is. Ares is too busy keeping Felicity happy when he’s not on the ice to put much effort into pranks.

But Zeus—his wife owns her own flight adventure company in Alabama, and she didn’t move here with him. He has time on his hands when he’s not having phone sex or playing hockey. And what you do to one Berger twin, you do to both.

Should’ve seen that coming.

“Get dressed,” Ares orders.

Dude doesn’t say a lot, so when he does, we all listen.

I yank on my practice gear, lace up my skates, and send Kami a quick text before I head to the rink.

Thanks for your help. What’s the name of that animal shelter you like again? Got ten grand sitting in my bank account with their name on it.

I wait, but she doesn’t reply. The text doesn’t change from delivered to read either.

She’s probably doing some vet shit.

Or pulling a cow out of my place.

“You still pissed about the game last night?” Lavoie asks as we step onto the ice and start warm-up laps. Last year’s championship banner hangs from the scoreboard over the ice, a reminder of what we have to live up to this year.

Of what I have to live up to this year. As goaltender, it’s ultimately my responsibility to not let anyone score on us. The better I do my job, the easier the rest of the team has it.

And last night didn’t give me a lot of confidence that I’ll be able to take on the tougher teams in the league.

Indianapolis—last year’s expansion team—nearly wiped us out in the first round of the playoffs last season.

Those two biscuits that got by me last night?

It would’ve been six if we’d been playing the Indies. I have a month to get back in my groove before we face them for the first time this year. The playoffs might be a long way away, but every game counts.

Especially the hard ones.

“Murphy?” Lavoie says.

“What? Oh. Yeah. The game fucking sucked. Thanks for those extra goals.”

He looks at me like he knows I’m just blowing smoke. The guy’s been with the Thrusters most of his career. Playing team captain this year, and he’s not an idiot.

“What’s her name?” he asks.

Kami’s easy smile flashes in my brain. Then the feel of her pussy squeezing my dick while she comes.

The way her cheeks flush when she shouts my name.

I ignore him, because it’s not like Kami and I are in a relationship. We’re friends. Friends who like to fuck. And I’m not gonna whine to Lavoie that Kami’s mad at me about the cow, because I’m not acknowledging the cow.

The Berger twins are racing Frey, all three of them grinning like kids who just learned to skate.

Lavoie follows my gaze, and he shakes his head. “What it’s supposed to look like,” he mutters.

I don’t know if he’s talking about hockey or relationships, but I know the three of them all have something I don’t.

Until two hours ago, I would’ve called them all suckers. Tied down with one woman. Domesticated.

But until two hours ago—we’re done, Nick—can’t say I’d been any different the last six or eight months.

Shit.

When was that night Kami and I hooked up? January? Or was it March? Was it really this year? I don’t remember a lot about that night, but it seems like there was something about a cattle prod and my dick.

What the fuck is up with the cow thing?

Coach blows the whistle, and we all line up for drills.

After practice, showers, and lunch with the team, I head back to my condo for a pre-game nap.

I swear I smell Kami’s shampoo in the elevator. She still hasn’t read my text. Probably has her hands full with the cow. Wonder if she had to rent a truck or something. Probably I should’ve offered to pay for that, but she knows I’m good for it.

The hallway smells like shit, and the smell gets stronger when I open my door. I don’t know how she works with animals all day, getting blood and shit and piss all over her, but it apparently doesn’t bother her.

Or maybe it does.

Because if it did bother her, wouldn’t she have picked up the pile of shit on my living room rug?

And is that—oh, fuck.

That’s cow piss all over my rug too.

My rug that used to be my grandmother’s rug.

I shoot a look at the ceiling and inwardly cringe, because I’m in total agreement with my sister. My grandmother could carry a grudge for eternity, and being in the afterlife won’t stop her. “Sorry, Gammy,” I mutter.

“Mooooo!” she answers from my bedroom.

Except that’s not my grandmother’s ghost.

That’s the fucking cow.

I dart to my bedroom and bolt through the door.

The cow’s standing on my bed.

She looks at me, grins, and switches her tail up.

And while I stand there watching, she drops a load.

Right there.

In the middle of my very nicely-made bed.

With a picture of me pointing at it and snickering hanging on the wall over my headboard where my championship ring goes, and with a note on the floor in Kami’s handwriting.

Kami’s angry handwriting.

Can handwriting be angry? Because that handwriting looks pissed as fuck.

The message sure as hell is.

In that moment, three things become crystal clear.

One, Zeus Berger is dead.

Two, Kami did not take care of the cow.

And three, she was serious when she said we were done.

I had a shit game last night.

I woke up with a cow this morning.

And it’s nothing compared to that hollow feeling sucking in my chest at knowing that I fucked up a good thing.

I thought Kami and I had something simple and easy and good.

Apparently, I was wrong.

So. Fucking. Wrong.