End Game (New York Stars Book 1)

TWO DAYS LATER

𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝄠 Stacy’s Mom – Fountains of Wayne

“YOU BILLETED WITH COLE KORHONEN, didn’t you?” Deschamps, one of our left defensemen, asks.

As I settle my shin guard into place and pull up my sock over it, I hitch a shoulder.

“You must know his weaknesses.”

I grin at Boucher, who’s a right wing on our second line. “Brunettes and hot wings.”

Boucher harrumphs. “That’s every fucker in the league.”

“Lewis likes blondes,” I reason as I start to strap tape over my shin guard. If my tongue sticks out as I work, that’s something I stopped giving a damn about when I was eighteen.

“I don’t discriminate,” Lewis argues, throwing a towel at me.

“What? You’ll fuck anything in a skirt?”

“I will now.”

“What happened with you and Lizzy anyway?” McIsaac, a left winger, asks. “I knew her. She was nice.”

Lewis’s expression immediately shuts down.

“When you woke up today, did you think about the stupid questions you could ask to fuck with people’s heads?” I snap.

Boucher snorts. “Good point. McIsaac, since when do we talk about exes in the locker room anyway?”

Ha. “When don’t we? But in this instance, we shut our traps before a game. Understood?”

“Gagné talks about his wife all the time,” McIsaac mutters, practically fucking pouting.

I hoot. “Jude? Did you hear that?”

“Hear McIsaac malign my woman? Yup.” As he draws his jersey on, Gagné bares his teeth. “He’s lucky he’s on our fucking side.”

“So, what you’re saying is, I could bring this up after the game?”

I roll my eyes. “If you can’t read a room, you’re not allowed to talk. Period.” With McIsaac still pouting, most of the limelight’s off Lewis by this point, but I ask, “You gonna be okay?”

He shrugs. “I’ll be fine.”

My gaze is watchful as he strides off. The damage is already done—McIsaac fucked with his routine.

We’ve all got our idiosyncrasies when it comes to pregame shit, and I can tell Lewis’s is broken. He should be on track to doing a hundred star jumps, not heading off to the showers.

“If we lose because you’re a dumbass,” I drawl, scratching my jaw which I shaved smooth ten minutes ago. “I’ll make the ‘green dye affair’ look like small potatoes, McIsaac.”

With a snort, Gagné inserts, “I’ll help.”

“Why the fuck not? We can call it a team-building exercise—I’m in,” Boucher chirps. “Worth the fine.”

“What fine?” Gagné demands.

“Raimond pulled some stunt on Greco. He got fined. If more ‘pranks’ happen, there’s a fine now.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Since when do we gossip?” I preach.

“Ha. You said it—since when don’t we?” Gagné frowns as he casts a glance at Greco and Raimond, who have switched cubbies with other teammates since the last game. Clearly, he just noticed. “What went down between them?”

“Rumor has it,” Boucher muses, stepping close enough to us that I can smell the stench of his aftershave. Jesus Christ, skunks stink better than he does. “Raimond was ‘tormenting’ Greco.”

“What? You heard about this?” Gagné asks me.

“No. I talked with Bradley, even stated that I should know what was going on as captain, but he wouldn’t say a word.” Finally, I get started on my skate.

The laces have to be precise, otherwise it’ll drive me insane the whole game.

I was anal before but now, I could get a ruler and measure the distances between each eyelet—that’s how precise I like things to be. These fuckers have no idea they’re messing with my math.

“Fuck,” Boucher rumbles. “I was hoping you’d know.”

“Nah. Just that he’s being ‘tormented,’ which I find hard to believe seeing as they’ve been thick as thieves from the get-go.”

“No smoke without fire,” Gagné points out.

I hum my agreement even as I check the time and see I need to hurry the hell up.

When Lewis comes out of nowhere with a massive tub of pasta and what looks like ranch dressing, my nose crinkles as he shifts into grand pliés. “Seriously, dude?”

“Isn’t it a little late to load up on carbs?” Boucher agrees.

“That’s not what I meant—he’s got ranch dressing. On pasta.” I gag. “Gross.”

“It’s the Quebecker in you,” Lewis mocks, grinning wide so that I can see the pasta in his teeth.

“Or the leftie,” Gagné jeers. “You know they’re hellspawn.”

“Well, it’s nice to know we’ve settled in the twenty-first century,” I mock. “Speaking of, Gagné, you’re a redhead so that means you’re also hellspawned.”

“Never said we wouldn’t burn together, mon frère,” Gagné jokes, his words making me think of that vow Gracie pledged to me… My lips quirk into a dopey grin as my teammate continues, “And we will be roasted if we don’t beat Jersey. I hate those motherfuckers.”

“Why?”

“Every time I take a ride to the Garden State, some jerk-off crashes into my car.”

“That’s a coincidence,” Boucher argues.

“Hell no, it isn’t. My insurance stopped paying out,” he grumbles. “We gotta show those motherfuckers, so Liam, you’d better tell us what weaknesses Korhonen has or I’ll wreck your car.”

I grin. “As your captain—”

Lewis starts playing his bowl of pasta like it’s a violin.

“—I can only tell you that he’s got a weak knee.”

“We all fucking know that,” Boucher complains. “He had surgery last year.”

My grin turns smug. “Exactly. What happens in the billet, stays in the billet.”

Lewis snickers. “Not everyone ended up with the Bukowskis. Some of us got the Condons. I’d spill shit on that asswipe so fast, you wouldn’t see me coming.”

I blink. “Fuck, I forgot you were billeted with them!”

“Yeah, Dean Condon and I never got along. I doubly appreciated you snapping his ACL,” Lewis cheers.

“Jessica Condon was hot in her day though,” Boucher rumbles, whistling beneath his breath as he jacks his dick.

Lewis groans. “Fuck off.”

For some reason, Campbell, who plays on McIsaac’s line, starts singing, “Stacy’s Mom” but switches it out with Dean’s.

I have no idea why these clowns bust a gut laughing, but I ignore them and try to reason with myself that my laces are straight.

Even if, from this angle, they look off-center.

Wonky laces or not, we beat Jersey.

3-1.