TYLER

We lost to the same assholes that always make our team look like we’re still in youth hockey and trying to compete with the pros. Except we are professional hockey players, who should be able to compete at the same level. Going into our final game, we knew we were out of the playoffs, but that didn’t make our last loss any better. As the team captain, I was expected to give a motivational speech to rally the troops and make everyone feel as though we didn’t suck dick all season.

Every word I spoke was a load of crap. Gretzky could have been in our locker room earlier, giving a speech about teamwork and the guys still would have went to their respective corners and moped. The tone after the game was somber, to say the least. What was I supposed to say that would help pull any of us out of our funk? Sometimes I hate being the team captain. The guys look to me for guidance, when in all honesty, I don’t know any more than they do about how to get our shit together.

Before we lucked out with Alex Parker having another scandal that got him traded from the Capitals to the Flyers, we were on a ten game losing streak. We had zero chance of getting into the playoffs, let alone winning the Cup. With Alex, maybe next season we will have a real shot. But he spent most of our season wallowing in his depression over Coach. His game suffered. Our mojo suffered. Any team spirit we had gone down the fucking toilet.

Growing up in South Jersey, I watched the Flyers religiously. My life consisted of eating, sleeping, and breathing hockey. I was the local kid who busted his ass and lucked out, somehow managing to find an agent who signed me to the team I have loved my entire life right out of high school. But that agent couldn’t even get me a sponsor deal, so I had to replace him with Coach, a sexy female sports agent who Parker scored. I tried hard to hook up with Coach our first year together, but she had rules that Parker talked her into breaking. Lucky bastard.

Now, we’re at Club Rave to celebrate Parker handing over his balls on a silver platter to his girl, and I’m doing my best to drink away another loss. Bringing the glass to my lips, I look up at the girls dancing in cages suspended from the ceiling, knocking back my third Jack and Coke since I talked to the sports reporter with a sexy as fuck phone operator voice.

“What are you doing out here?” Donovan yells over the thump of the bass. “I’ve been looking for you for the last hour.”

“I went outside to call that reporter for Parker. Then, I got a little distracted.” I point at the girls dancing in slutty costumes on the bar in front of me, my eyes traveling up to the cages above.

My teammate and best friend, Carter Donovan nods. “I can see why.” He licks his lips, making eye contact with a girl who has long, dark hair pulled into pigtails over her shoulders wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. “We thought you left. Now that Parker doesn’t drink anymore, I look like an alcoholic doing shots by myself. Let’s go back to the VIP room. The next show is about to start.”

“If they’re not flashing their tits this time, I think I’ll stay right here.”

He clamps a hand on my shoulder, pinning me in place. Donovan is a big ass dude. Even at six feet two inches, I seem small in comparison to his giant frame. “It’s not that kind of club, bro. We can go down to Scores after Parker leaves.”

“Nah, we can stay here for now.”

My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, sending a tremor up my leg combined with the house music pumping through the speakers. Expecting it to be the reporter from Sports Buzz, I get a little excited as I pull the phone from my pocket. Until I check the Caller ID.

Then, my heart plunges into my stomach like an anchor hitting the ocean floor. The one person who has the ability to ruin my night in an instant has the nerve to text me. What does she want now?

Her message reads, Just a heads up. The Hudsons said we can come over to see Blake next Saturday instead of Sunday. I let your parents know about the change earlier.

I want to crush the phone and Hulk Smash it into a thousand pieces. She did this to me. She made me this way. She broke my fucking heart and gave away a piece of us that I wasn’t ready to give. I hate her. I hate that I still love her. I hate myself for letting her convince me that we did the right thing for us, for my career. Now, all I have is hockey and the pain I carry because of her conniving.

“You okay, man?” Donovan says with a concerned look on his face.

I shake my head, unable to look him in the eye, feeling ashamed. She opens up old wounds every time she calls, every time we have to be in the same room together.

“It was Payton. No, I’m not okay.”

He places his big hand on my back and shoves me toward the bar, like the ogre he is, and calls out to the hot bartender dressed in black spandex and leather, her cleavage spilling out of her corset.

“Can I have a bottle of Johnnie Walker and two glasses?”

The girl raises an eyebrow at him. “We only have bottle service in the VIP rooms. You’ll have to book one if you want to order a bottle.”

He removes his wallet from his pocket and slides his American Express black card across the bar with his finger. “Now, do you have bottle service?”

A tiny smile crosses her full lips. “Sure. Coming right up.” She takes his card and slides it through the register, ringing up one of the most expensive bottles of whiskey they have, before standing on a stool, giving us a nice view of her perfect ass, to grab a bottle from the top shelf.

I bet she’s already counting the tip in her head as she climbs down from the stool. She lines up two glasses in front of us, her tits shaking out of her top. We chug down the amber liquid in one sip and slam the glasses down, waiting for her to pour us another one.

After that text, I could pound the entire bottle, and it still wouldn’t be enough to erase Payton from my brain.

I lean over the bar so the bartender can hear me better. “What are you doing later?”

“Closing down the bar and going home.”

“You should come back to my place,” I say, slipping my fingers through my short blond hair and giving her my best crooked smile, the same one that makes girls drop their inhibitions along with their panties.

She looks to Donovan first, biting the inside of her cheek, before shifting her gaze back to me. “Depends on if you will both be there?”

I get close enough that she can feel my breath on her lips. “No, just me.”

“Shame,” she says, brushing her hair over her shoulder, “but I guess you will do.”

“You guess I will do,” I challenge.

She takes a step back from the bar and winks, her attention landing on the opposite end of the bar as people call out their drink orders. “I have to get back to work. I’ll meet you out back around three if you decide to show.”

“Oh, I’ll be there.”

After she walks away, Donovan hands me another shot of whiskey, and we toast, the glasses clinking loudly in the noisy club.

“To the women who break our hearts,” he says. Donovan has his own issues just not the same kind as me.

“And to the ones who help us forget them.”

We suck down our shots. The liquor burns my throat, but that little sting feels good. Soon enough I won’t be able to feel my face, too drunk to give a fuck about Payton and the shit she has done to me. I want to forget her—even if it is only temporary.

* * *

I wake to the sound of my alarm blowing up on my phone, having no idea where the annoying sound is coming from. Opening one eye wide, I peek at the girl next to me. Her long hair frames her cupid shaped face, and with her lying on her stomach with her ass sticking up, my dick gets hard. But I can’t stand the damn ringing. Glancing around the room, I crawl out of bed and check the nightstand, the floor littered with our clothes, and the armchair in the corner that has my pants slung over it.

I fish my phone from my jean pocket and turn off the alarm. It’s only nine a.m. and way too early for me to function after drinking myself to death. Last night was a fucking blur. We polished off the bottle of Johnnie Walker right before closing with the help of some of our teammates.

How am I not in the hospital with alcohol poisoning?

She turns on her back with her legs spread open wide and her nipples pointed at me, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “What was that noise?”

“Just my alarm, sweetheart.” I wish I could remember her name, but that part of the night is also a blur. “I have to get going. This was fun.”

As per usual, I do my stop, drop, and roll style sweep of her bedroom, gathering my clothes and putting them on so fast I almost fall over and onto her bed. Attachments are not my thing, and neither are dates or anything that could give a chick the idea I am interested in anything more than sex.

I don’t hide it. I make no promises. I have no regrets. Living this way, after what happened between Payton and me, is the only way I know how to live. Because the one regret I have is allowing her to destroy me.

I leave without getting her number, knowing I will not call even if I had it. We had a mutual understanding that this was sex and nothing more, and she doesn’t put up a fight as I walk out the door.

The glare from the sun forces me to shield my face with my arm as I scan the busy city street for my car.

Where am I?

While the streets are all similar, I’m smack dab in the middle of a block with no street signs visible from this angle. Parked in almost every spot along the one-way street, I have trouble finding the Beamer. My car stands out in a crowd with the San Marino Blue that sparkles in the sunlight.

So, where the fuck is it?

Either I am too drunk to see ten feet in front of me, or my car is nowhere in sight. Just fucking great. Stumbling down the street, I take the keys from my pocket and hit the alarm button, hoping that will help me locate my car. Nothing happens. All I can hear are the sounds of cars whooshing past me.

I remove my cell phone from my pocket and hit the speed dial for Donovan.

“This had better be good, fucker,” he says after a few rings, his voice sounding rougher than normal.

“I can’t find my car and don’t be a dick about it. I am not in the mood.”

“Are you still with the bartender?”

“No, I just left her apartment.”

“You went home with her. How could you forget, dumbass? She drove. Your car is still parked in the lot at the club.”

“Come pick me up then,” I spit back, annoyed.

“No can do. Call Uber.”

A girl laughs in the background, and now I see the source of the problem. I’m so pissed that he’s choosing a girl over me that I hang up, like a child having a temper tantrum, and kick my heel to the ground, causing myself more pain than I had intended.

“Fuck,” I yell, twisting my fingers through my hair. By the time I reach the corner, I take a seat on the curb and open the Uber app on my phone to type in the details.

Ten minutes later, a young boy in a black Honda Accord pulls up next to me. I get in the back seat, exchange pleasantries, and he drives in almost silence until we get close to Club Rave. He keeps looking at me in the mirror, his face lighting up in acknowledgment when he realizes who I am.

“Are you?” His voice trembles for a second before he continues, “Are you Tyler Kane? You sure look an awful lot like him.”

I nod. “Yes, I am.”

He slaps his hand down on the steering wheel in excitement. “No fucking way! My friends are going to be so jealous when I tell them you were in my car. Wow! This has to be the best day of my life. They’ll never believe me.”

My fans are what make losing not so bad. Every pro athlete, no matter how successful, had at least one player they looked up to as a kid. Mine was Gretzky, of course, because who wouldn’t want to be like him? And the fact I play the same position only made me want to aspire to be like him even more.

“They will believe you if you give them proof,” I tell him.

Confusion scrolls across his face. “Like what?”

I have nothing of value to give him, not unless he wants me to sign a condom or the crumpled hundred-dollar bill I have in my wallet. But I would need a pen to give him an autograph. “How about a picture?”

As he pulls into the parking lot at Club Rave, his eyes grow as wide as his smile. “Yeah, that would be awesome. Can I share it on Facebook?”

“Sure. Share it wherever you want.”

We both get out of the car and shut the doors behind us. He stands next to me, and I move closer, staring at the camera on his phone as he snaps a few pictures.

“Man, this is so awesome. You made my day, my week, my month.” He runs a hand through his shaggy brown hair and scans his phone for a second before he glances back up at me. “You have no idea.”

I had the same fan moment once when I was younger with a retired player from the Flyers. It was the best day of my life, or at least it felt that way until the Flyers selected me in the first round of the NHL draft after high school.

“My pleasure.” I take out my wallet and hand him a one hundred dollar bill, saving the condom for later. “Have a good day.”

He thanks me several times before I walk toward my car that sits all by itself in the vacant lot, lucky the police hadn’t towed it in the middle of the night.

“Go Flyers,” he says once I reach my car door.

I turn around, my hand held up in the air and balled into a fist. “Go Flyers!”

He smiles and gets into his car, reminding me that the fans are the best part of the game.

Now, it’s time to go home so I can shower and shave and look somewhat presentable for Coach’s basketball skills clinic this afternoon. The event means too much to both Coach and Parker for me to fuck this up. And I have to meet the reporter, the one who I’m hoping is just as sexy in person because I could use another distraction for the night.