My annoyed voice puts an end to the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever heard. “Oh good, you’re up,” Logan says.
“Of course I’m up,” I grumble, rubbing my eyes. “How am I supposed to sleep when you two fucktards are standing at the foot of my bed talking about angels blowing their loads?”
Garrett snickers. “Like I’m the first one to ever wonder about that.”
“Trust me, you are. When’d you guys get back?”
Logan props one massive shoulder against my doorframe. “About an hour ago. Gracie needed to be back early because she has a show to produce tonight.”
I nod. Logan’s girlfriend works as a producer at the campus radio station. Which reminds me… “You planning on calling in and professing your love again?” I ask mockingly.
He sighs. “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope.” Though I wish someone had recorded that radio segment so I could pull some quotes from it and torture him with them. After screwing up and nearly losing Grace last weekend, Logan had won her back by calling the advice show she produces and saying the sappiest shit imaginable. I worry about him sometimes.
I toss the covers aside and slide out of bed buck-ass naked. My roommates continue to lurk in the doorway.
I find a pair of clean boxers and tug them on. “I swear to God, if you tell me you’ve been watching me sleep for the last hour like a bunch of creepers, I’m calling the cops.”
“Coach called,” Garrett tells me. “He said he’s been trying your phone all morning but you weren’t picking up. He wants you at the arena in an hour.”
“Why?” I ask warily.
Garrett shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Maybe he found out you got wasted this weekend—I assume you got wasted, right?—and wants to ream you out.”
“How would he even know? It’s not like he’s got people tailing us.”
“Dude, Coach is like that spy master from Game of Thrones. His sources are endless.”
Shit. Hopefully I’m not in store for one of Coach Jensen’s long-winded lectures about keeping my nose clean. We’re not allowed to drink or dabble in drugs during the season, but that doesn’t stop any of us from getting plastered or smoking the occasional joint. Still, I’ve never failed a piss test or tarnished the team’s good name with my partying, so I’m not sure why Coach is constantly on my case about it.
“Hannah still here?” I ask Garrett as I hunt down some pants.
“Naah, she went home. She’s having a girl day with Allie.”
I’m glad my back is turned, because the moment he says Allie’s name, my dick actually goes half-mast. Wonderful. I’m turned on by the sound of her name now?
“You didn’t do anything stupid when she was here, did you?” Garrett’s tone is lined with suspicion.
I fucked her twice. So…yes?
I bite my tongue and throw on a T-shirt, followed by a navy-blue Briar hoodie. “I was a perfect gentleman.”
Logan snorts. “Well, that’s a first.”
“Fuck you very much. I happen to be skilled in the art of gentlemanry.”
“That’s not an art. Or a word.” Logan rolls his eyes and disappears from the room, but Garrett stays behind.
He studies my face for so long I shift in discomfort. “What?” I mutter.
“Nothing,” he says, but he still wears a suspicious expression as he ducks out of my bedroom.
When I pop into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I realize that the purple hickey on my neck is still very, very noticeable. Had Garrett seen it?
But so what if he had? Anyone could’ve sucked on my neck this weekend. There’s no reason for him to suspect it was Allie.
Goddamn Allie. I told her I wanted her again, and she’d hung up on me. That doesn’t happen to me—ever. I’m Dean Di Laurentis, for fuck’s sake. I can snap my fingers and a dozen chicks appear, begging to ride my dick. Last time I was at the campus coffeehouse, the hot barista handed me a free coffee and then offered to suck me off in the stock room.
So what the hell is Allie’s problem? I spent way too much time last night wondering if she’s playing hard to get. I mean, it’s not like she hadn’t enjoyed the sex. I’ve never been with anyone who showered my dick with so much glowing praise.
“Oh my gosh, I want to marry your cock!”
“Best. Dick. Ever.”
“Dean, you’re making me come…”
Her throaty cries run through my head on a perverted, boner-inducing loop, and I grip the towel rack with one hand as a groan slips out. The toothbrush in my mouth falls into the sink. My cock tents in my pants and nudges the porcelain, needing to make contact with something, anything.
I wonder if Coach would be pissed if I was late to meet him because I was jerking off.
Probably.
*
Thirty minutes later, I swipe my student ID in the keypad at the hockey facility, sipping on the coffee I grabbed on the way here. The wide corridor is deserted, and my sneakers squeak on the shiny floors as I head to the back of the building. I walk past the row of classrooms and the screening room, bypass the kitchen and weight rooms, then duck through the massive equipment area.
Our facility is state of the art. There are half a dozen big cozy offices that Chad Jensen could’ve parked his ass in, but for some reason he chose this modest office tucked away near the laundry room.
I knock on the door, only opening it when I hear Coach’s gruff, “Get in here.” The last player who waltzed in without knocking got a tongue-lashing that the rest of us could hear all the way from the showers. I like to think Coach uses the office to jack off and that’s why he insists on privacy. Logan hypothesizes that he has a secret office family that’s only allowed to venture out in the wee hours of the night.
Logan is an idiot.
“Hey, Coach. You wanted to see me—” I halt when I realize we’re not alone.
I’m not caught off guard often. I’m a go-with-the-flow kinda guy, which means it takes a helluva lot to shock or surprise me.
Right now, the only flow I’m going with is the rush of anxiety that travels through my blood and seeps into my bones.
Frank O’Shea rises from the visitor’s chair and flicks his cool gaze over me. I haven’t seen him since my senior year of high school, but he looks exactly the same. Dark buzz cut, stocky body, severe mouth.