Page 24 of Pucking Bad Boys

“No, it’s not that. I mean, Mack is a little inexperienced since I was his first. But he’s good at listening to my instructions, and you’re right that he’s hot. I have no problem orgasming when we do it.”

Thank fuck. But my relief is short-lived.

“If that’s the case,” Olivia chimes in. “Why chase someone unavailable like Tucker when you can have fun with your own boyfriend? Besides, they’re teammates and friends. Tucker might not want to break the bro-code. It’s really a thing between teammates.”

Gen’s next words make me wish I never had the stupid idea to surprise her with a fun date right before spring break. “I’m not with Mack because he’s hot or because of the sex.”

Her friends voice the question on the tip of my tongue. “No?”

“No,” Gen shrugs as if her next words didn’t hit me harder than a hockey stick to the teeth. “Sex is a useful tool to keep Mack interested and to get him to do what I say. But I’m with Mack because of who he’s going to be once he’s out of college. He’s only a sophomore this year, and the bidding war to sign him has already begun. My daddy told me all the most recent Stanley Cup winners are already circling around him. They’re already making offers to Mack’s dad. They’re prepared to offer crazy signing bonuses that make the entry level contract he’s supposed to sign look like pocket change. And that’s only the beginning. There will be sponsors ready to pay him millions to have him as the face of their products. He’s probably going to go pro even before he graduates college.”

That’s where Genevieve is wrong. I want to graduate. Hockey isn’t forever, even though it can earn you so much money that you might not need to work again after you retire. But careers have ended because of injuries, or fizzled out for a number of different reasons. Some careers last just a small handful of years. We can’t all be Crosby or Ovechkin and there’s no guarantee of what I’ll be doing in five years.

The fact that my dad played in the NHL before me isn’t a guarantee either. If anything, I have even bigger shoes to fill than someone who doesn’t come from a hockey lineage. I want to graduate college so I’ll have something to fall back on if my hockey career doesn’t pan out. Tucker gave me the idea, and when I spoke to my father about it, he surprisingly agreed.

“Really?” Olivia gawks. “You have another year before graduation yourself. What are you going to do if Mack decides not to come back to college for his junior year? Will you do the long distance thing again?”

Even though that isn’t going to happen, I listen intently. Genevieve seems to have plans for us that I wasn’t made aware of.

“Oh, fuck no.” She giggles. “School is so boring and long distance sucks. Besides, I can’t risk Mack falling for some puck bunny or some model if he gets signed by a team on the East Coast or in Canada. My mom and I have it all planned out. She married my daddy and dropped out of college during my daddy’s rookie season. One year later, she was pregnant with me. Mack and I are going to get engaged this summer. You didn’t hear this from me, but my daddy is sponsoring a professional cheerleading team in preparation for bringing an expansion NHL team to Star Cove. I’m gonna be team captain, and there will be a reality show tied to the cheerleading team recruitment and the Cove Knights’ summer training. Mack will propose on live TV. Think about how famous we’ll become. Ihad to work super hard to even get close to a hundred thousand followers on my social media. But when I got Mack to start his own profile, he got a million followers in a matter of months. We’ll be a power couple, and being his fiancée and then his wife will launch my influencer career. And that’s only the beginning. Maybe one day I’ll be a movie star or a supermodel.”

What?

Even if things between me and Gen were going well, like I thought ten minutes ago when I came here like a total dumbass who wasted a grand on concert tickets for a band I don’t even like, proposing hadn’t even crossed my mind.

First of all, I’m too young to think about marriage and kids. But even if I were crazy enough to think that I’m ready for that, I would never have proposed to someone who breaks up with me every six months like clockwork.

And that was before I heard about how many times she cheated on me. Or that she’s planning on fucking my teammate during spring break. Before I knew that to her I’m nothing but a meal ticket and the gateway to fame and fortune she knows she can’t get on her own.

Gen and her girlfriends are still talking about “the plan” while I take a couple of deep breaths in a futile attempt to get my temper under control.

Every word that comes out of her mouth does nothing to quell my desire to grab her and throw her into the deep end of the pool.

“Mom has already booked a consultation with three top designers who dressed the winners of the Oscar for best actress in the last three years to design my wedding dress.”

“What about Mack? Are they gonna design his suit too?” Madison asks.

Gen dismisses the question with a nonchalant wave of her perfectly manicured hand. “No one ever looks at the groomduring a wedding. We all know that. What matters is that I’m gonna be the most famous bride of the decade.”

That’s it. That’s what does it.

Rather than causing my temper to explode, Genevieve’s callous words have the opposite effect. I’ve never been so furious in my life, but I’m suddenly calm and collected. It’s the same thing that happens on the ice if someone slams me against the boards harder than necessary. When I go in for the kill, I do it with surgical precision. My opponents should be more scared of me when I’m calm than when I’m yelling or insulting them. And Gen right now? She’s my opponent. The enemy.

“So,” I smile, walking out of my hiding spot behind the potted mini palm tree. “Did you have a timeline in mind for the proposal and for the wedding?”

The girls’ chatter ends, and for a second I see it. Terror is etched all over Gen’s face as she must be wondering how much I’ve heard. But the fear in her eyes is short-lived, turning into a calculating smile when she concludes that I must have just walked in. She probably thinks that if I heard her plans to cheat on me and how to her, I’m just a means to an end, I couldn’t possibly be so calm.

“Mack!” she beams, her giggle a little louder than usual. “What are you doing here? I thought you had an extra workout planned today after practice.”

“I did. But I blew it off to come and surprise my girlfriend. I got VIP tickets to the concert you were dying to see.”

Her eyes travel down my body and stop when they reach the crumpled envelope that’s still in my clenched fist.

“Oh.” I see the first flicker of doubt when she spots it. “That’s so sweet of you. But what happened to it? It looks a little worse for wear.”

My smile widens. My tone is as artificially light and carefree as hers. “I guess the state of these tickets is a dead ringer for the state of our relationship.”

“Come again? I don’t understand.”