Chapter 2
Pest
Beau Bradford
Chelsea Piers Practice Facility, mid-morning.
Me and the rest of the Blizzard players knelt on one knee at center ice while Coach wrapped up his game plan for tomorrow night's game against the New York Scouts.
“Just like we've been practicing all season long: be strong on the puck, be fast in transition. Get pucks on net and keep bodies in front. Let's come ready to do battle, boys, and start this road trip off with a W.”
We nodded and grunted with determination.
Coach clapped his stick on the ice. “Alright. Hit the showers.”
We popped up and made our way off the ice, but Coach grabbed the back of my jersey and held me back.
“Bradford.”
“Sup coach?”
“I'm matching you up against Dave Leroux tomorrow night.”
Coach apparently didn't have anything more to say. He slapped his palm against my shoulder pad, and I knew exactly the message he was trying to convey.
Here's the deal with Leroux. He's a solid two-way player that plays a heady game. He's not supremely talented, offensively speaking. But with his vision of the game? He doesn't need a world-class shot or stick-skills. Players like him anticipate the play. They have a habit of appearing in the right place at the right time. Guys with his hockey IQ can make a very good living in this league.
And after this past off-season, Leroux is set up for life. He just inked a 7-year, $6.5 million contract extension. Fans and media pundits who don't truly get hockey bleated on and on for months about how that contract was a “massive over-payment” that was going to “cripple the team financially for years.”
They're wrong.
They're dead wrong, in fact.
But that doesn't matter to me. It's not my job to cajole Leroux and ease his mind and tell him to ignore the haters, and let him know that I think he's actually a great player who is worth every cent.
In fact, my job is the opposite. Because tomorrow night, my assignment is to get Leroux off his game. And all those New York fans who screeched about what a terrible deal they got with Leroux have already done my work for me.
They pierced his armor, and now I've got an easy opening to work with—to jam my hand into that gaping hole in his chest and claw and twist and pull at whatever meat and sinew I can wrap my fingers around.
Because that's the kind of player I am: a pest. I make a living by getting under the skin of better players. My goal, to throw them off their game. To trash them, physically and mentally, until they're too broken down to skate or think straight.
In other words, Coach was just asking me to do my job: to be a complete pain in Leroux's ass.
I smirked. “You got it, Coach.”
With that, we parted. I shoved the door to the dressing room open, where all my rowdy teammates were joking and laughing and tearing off their sweaty equipment.
“Sup boys!” I boomed, making my presence known just as I always do.
A chorus greeted me: “Beau.” “'Ey Beau!” “Sup Bradford.”
I took my spot at my locker stall, right between my linemates: winger Vinny DeMarco and our captain, center Hunter Rockwell.
Vinny was busy staring into his glowing cell phone.
“What're you looking at there, Vinny?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.
With the flick of a wrist, Vinny scrolled through an endless page filled with cute girls. I recognized the app, MeatMarket, since I use it religiously myself.
“Seeing who wants to meet up after the game tonight,” Vinny answered.
For us young millionaire bachelors? Life as an athlete on the road is very, very kind. There's never a shortage of girls who want to meet us after a game, no matter what city we're in.
“Jesus. She's a smoke-show,” I mumbled, commenting on one of the scantily-clad babes that Vinny cycled past. “Now why the hell did you go past her?”
“She looks too high maintenance.”
I scoffed. “You're not trying to marry a girl you met off MeatMarket, are you?”
Hunter tried to explain on Vinny's behalf. “Vinny likes to find the right girl and craft her a personal message.”
“Oh, I know, I've seen how he works.” I rolled my eyes. “I prefer the scattershot approach.”
Hunter chuckled. “I know you do, Beau.”
“Don't lie, you miss the single life. Don't you, captain?” I jabbed Hunter, needling my elbow into his ribs until he swatted me away. “You can admit it. You know the things that we say in this room are sacred. Ain't that right, boys?”
Everyone else in the room grunted in agreement.
But Hunter just rolled his eyes at me and laughed.
“Someday, Beau, you're going to meet a girl who's gonna grab you by the balls and make you want to settle down.” Hunter nodded at me with this awful grin, as if he were passing down some kind of sage wisdom that only he and the other married guys could understand.
And I tried not to choke on all that sap. I'd never seen a guy so disgustingly and happily married. Yeah, he's got a great wife—her name's Honor—a real cute kid, and a perfect place up in the mountains in Boulder. A really picturesque life.
If, you know, that's the kind of life you want. A wife you have to be loyal to, when all these hot babes all over the country are dying to fuck your brains out. A kid that needs constant attention. And a home that needs taking care of.
It's certainly not the life I want.
I held up an invisible whip and snapped it at Hunter—the universal symbol for pussy-whipped. “Whippah! Whippah!”
Hunter took his whip-lashings with a good-natured smile. “Ah, Beau. I'm so glad you're on our team now.”
Hunter wasn't being sarcastic. What he meant by that comment was that he's glad he doesn't have to face me on the ice as rivals anymore. Players and fans always say I'm the type of player you absolutely hate to play against, but would love to have on your team.
That's because I'll do anything to help our team win. I'll hit, I'll fight, I'll score a garbage goal. I don't care how dirty a play is. I'll cheap-shot a guy if I have to. I don't care how 'wrong' it is to hit a guy behind the play when the ref isn't looking, or ram him face-first into the boards. I don't care how my behavior flies in the face of the code and traditions of hockey or any of that boring-ass moral bullshit.
I play to win. It's really that simple.
And if you're wearing the same jersey as me, you'll never be happier that I'm fighting on your side.
If you're wearing the other team's jersey? Buckle up, buttercup, because you're in for a rough ride. And you're gonna hate every second of it. Better get used to it.
Vinny swiped right past a girl in a tube-top, who had conveniently taken the shot with the camera held right over her breasts.
“Holy shit—her—wait!” I grabbed Vinny's wrist and tried to make him scroll back.
Vinny wrestled his arm free and knocked my hand away. “You've got your own phone, dick-head! Use it!”
I grumbled. “Fine. I'll show you how it's done.” I pulled out my own phone and loaded up MeatMarket. “Because getting laid isn't fucking rocket science, Vinny. You don't have to write these girls a goddamn poem. They want to fuck us just so they can brag about it to their friends. Not a single one of these girls want to get swept off their feet.”
If a girl caught my eye, I put a check by her profile. Once I rounded up a few dozen girls, I sent them the same message:
“6'3 millionaire pro athlete in town for two nights only. I'm hot and I do NOT want anything serious. Wanna meet tonight?”
That message, along with my profile pic—which is my shirtless, flexed, and shredded upper-body—does the trick.
“That easy, Vinny, that easy,” I chuckled. I closed MeatMarket, put it out of my mind, and took a look at Facebook instead.
At the top of my feed, posted seconds ago, I saw a status from an old classmate I once knew.
Holy shit, I thought with a smirk. Camille Kennedy, Little Miss Perfect, lives in New York City. And she opened a bakery? A vegan bakery? What the hell? That's so random.
“Hey!” I piped up, grabbing the room's attention. “Anyone up for some sight-seeing in Brooklyn?”
But the stares I got back told me all I needed to know. Athletes are creatures of habit and these guys wanted to go back to the hotel for their precious post-practice nap.
“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.