He’ll do anything for his best friend . . . even marry her.
I live by two universal truths:
1. When I step onto the ice, I’m a god.
2. Daisy Hall is the other half of my soul.
My teammates joke that I’m too co-dependent with the coach’s daughter, and maybe that’s true. We’ve been thick as thieves since college, and even when I got drafted to the Boston Blades, Daisy followed me across state lines. Which suited me just fine.
If a person can be a home, then Daisy Hall is mine.
Only, I never anticipated that my best friend might be keeping a secret from me, one big enough to rain down Hell from every team in the league. Now they’re all out for blood and I’m Daisy’s only shield.
The home we built together suddenly feels like it’s made of glass.
One wrong move, and it all might shatter.
The smart thing to do would be to focus on my game. We’re coming off a Cup win, and if I want another, I can’t afford any distractions. But there isn’t anything I won’t do to protect my girl…
Even make her my wife.
SLAP SHOT is a friends to lovers/marriage of convenience hockey romance. It is the fifth book in the Blades Hockey series and can be read as a complete standalone.
Prologue
Hartford, Connecticut
Weston
“Bottom’s up, bitch.”
My teammate and roommate, Jasper Connelly, clinks his glass tumbler with mine before pounding the drink back in one go. I wait until he comes up for air, spluttering like a total newb, to say, “You’re an idiot.”
“And you’re a boring sack of shit.” He fishes out a tiny bottle of vodka from the front pocket of his slacks, cracks the caps open with his teeth, and dumps the liquor into his empty glass. Then he peers over at me. “You gonna drink that?”
Since I’m not into playing babysitter, I hand over my soda. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him. “Just so you know, when Coach ends up handing you your ass for drinking, I fully plan on laughing in your face.”
“Like a bad friend.”
“A bad friend who’s gonna be takin’ names on the ice while you warm the bench.”
“Asshole,” Connie mutters, but there’s a grin lurking at the corner of his mouth when he tosses the incriminating evidence into the trash can beside him. “Come on, though. Coach Hall should have known better. Get the whole team to show up to a gala on New Year’s Eve and then tell us not to drink? Yeah-fucking-right.”
“You have something against kids, Connelly?”
He eyes me over the rim of his glass. “What?”
“Kids. Tonight’s for charity.”
“Oh.”
“Did you even read the email?”
He shrugs lazily. “I generally prefer to save any reading material for bed.”
“Not talking about your sexting habits, you fucker.”
“I’m not either.” His brown eyes practically gleam with humor. “Do sexting right, it’s more like a naughty game of Pictionary. You’d know this if you weren’t—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—A virgin.”
If we were thirteen, not nineteen, I’d slap a hand over his mouth just to shut him up. As it is, the dick has the audacity to grin at me, like he knows exactly what’s running through my head, and I have a split-second fantasy of grabbing him by his fancy suit jacket and stuffing him in the closest trash bin where he belongs.
“You’re blushing, Cain.”
“You need a muzzle, Connie.”
He barks out a laugh, and even though I crack a small smile at our usual banter, I find myself shifting uncomfortably while the nape of my neck warms like the heat of a thousand suns is beating down on me.
Everyone’s busy talking and dancing, so it’s not like anyone’s paying us any bit of attention, but I still feel like squirming. When I’m on the ice, playing for UConn like I always dreamed, I live and die for the spotlight. Hand me a stick, drop the puck down at my skates, and I’ll run you in circles until you’re begging for mercy. Off the ice, though . . . Well, I like to think that I do a decent job of at least pretending I’m the sort of hotshot hockey player who’s got his shit together.
Even if that’s the furthest thing from the truth.
Wetting my dry lips, I dart my gaze away, seeking an immediate exit from the conversation. Just as I’m about to make my escape, a heavy arm slings across my shoulders and pins me in place.
“Cain. Connie. I’m bored as fuck. Entertain me.”
“Entertainment is underway,” Jasper says to our goalie, Felix Daniels. “It’s time.”
Swear to God, Felix actually squeals with excitement. “Operation Get West Laid?”
Fuck. No.
Not this again.
I duck out from under Felix’s arm, putting some distance between me and the two knuckleheads that I’ve had the misfortune to call my best friends since we met at the start of freshman year. “I’m heading out,” I tell them.
Six-foot-four Felix pouts at me like I’ve just stolen his favorite toy. “You need this.”
“I really, really don’t.”
Connie leans into our friend’s side, putting up a united front of dumbassery. “Your dick needs this.”
“He doesn’t.” I slam my eyes shut and belatedly amend, “I don’t, I mean. I don’t need anything.”
“Not everything’s about hockey.” Connie elbows Felix in the gut. “Tell him.”
Rubbing his side, Felix shrugs his shoulders in a you-heard-him gesture. “I mean, we’ve only got two more years of playing, right? One minute the game’s our whole life, the next it’s just a blip of a memory while we’re cryin’ in a cubicle. Don’t know ’bout you, but I plan to spend the rest of college living it up, and that includes getting my dick wet every chance—”
“I’m going to the Show.”
“What?”
“The Show,” I repeat, feeling a core of iron straighten my spine. I might know shit off the ice but there’s never been any doubt in my mind about where I’m ending up one day. “Maybe you’re cool with crying in a cubicle but that’s never gonna be me. I’m getting drafted.”
They exchange a wordless glance.
Something about it feels like a punch to the gut. “You think I can’t?”
“More like won’t.” Connie grimaces. “West, we both know that your dad’s not just gonna let you walk away and do what you want, even if you are . . .”
“Even if I’m what?”
He waves a hand at me. “Even if you are halfway decent.” In Jasper Connelly speak, it’s the equivalent of him calling me a hockey god.
Not that the compliment does much; my mood turns dark. And the hot sensation burning up my nape? It’s gone ice cold.
Logic says that I should take my ass home before I say something stupid, but if there’s anything I hate more than being told that I can’t do something, I haven’t encountered it yet.
As a kid, it was a tactic that my dad, a real estate mogul here in the Northeast, used to fire me up.
I bet you can’t make that goal, West.
I bet you’ll never make it to a D-1 college, West.
I bet you can’t—
I bet you can’t—
Flexing my hands down at my sides, I lift my chin and give voice to the words I’ve ached to tell my father for years but are coming out now instead: “I can do whatever I want.”
Connie opens his mouth but it’s too late; I’m steamrolling right over him.
“If I want to make it to the NHL, I’m gonna hustle so hard, no one’s ever gonna tell me to warm the bench. Not my dad, not the fans, not you. And if I sleep with someone, it’s gonna be because that’s what I want, when I want it, how I fuckin’ want it. You get that?”
He gapes up at me, his jaw going slack.
It’s probably the first time in the year and a half that we’ve known each other that he’s heard me give a damn about anything besides hockey. Technically, this is still about hockey. But also, it kind of isn’t. I don’t care that I’m still a virgin. For years, I’ve prioritized the game over everything else. What makes me uncomfortable is that everyone seems to think it’s a joke—that I’m a joke—for caring more about a sport than hooking up with girls.
I take a deep, steadying breath.
I’m so done with tonight.
“I’ll see you back at the dorm,” I mutter before flicking my gaze over to Felix, who’s standing with his hands knotted together in front of him. The look on his face says he’s about five seconds away from running away with his tail tucked between his legs. “Don’t let Connie get so wasted that he wakes me up puking again.”
As I turn away, I try to rein myself in. Try to—I don’t know—remind myself, I guess, that it’s fine if I’m not like everyone else. Guys like Connie and Felix, they’re pros at multitasking, as if it takes them zero mental bandwidth to handle juggling girls along with practice and games and schoolwork.
I can’t do that.
Maybe it’s that I’ve got tunnel vision. Maybe it’s that I’m just wired differently. Either way, I’m so deep in my own head that I barely notice the girl in my way until I’m tripping over her.
She lets out a gasp—not a squeak like Felix earlier, but this breathy little hitch as if she wasn’t prepared for me in any sort of way—before she shoves her forearm between us to create a barrier. It’s a good thing that I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to be quick on my feet because I right my equilibrium a moment later, saving us both from what would have been an embarrassing tumble to the ground with me in a tux and her in a floor-length gown.
“Shit, sorry.” Raking a hand through my hair, I step back to give her space. “Wasn’t looking where I was going—”
“Don’t listen to them.”
At the unexpected comment, I jerk my head up and find myself staring into a pair of warm amber eyes. “What?”
“Your teammates.” She nods her head toward where Connie and Felix were just standing. “Them giving you grief about you still being a virgin? Don’t listen to them.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to play dumb, to tell her that I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Virgin? Not this guy.
But nothing in her expression indicates that she’s judging me, and besides, she looks kinda familiar. Not like we’ve been in class together but rather like at some point, somewhere, she lingered in my periphery. A silent constant with pale blonde hair, delicate features, and bold, berry-painted lips that practically scream don’t fuck with me.
Same goes for her posture; she’s way shorter than I am but holds herself like she’s seven feet tall. I’ve been around enough athletes to recognize one at first glance, and she’s giving off ballerina or gymnast vibes. Elegant. Self-contained. Except, there’s something about the direct way she’s staring me down . . . Yeah, something about that brisk forthrightness spells all kinds of trouble.
I hear myself say, “Eavesdropping isn’t polite, you know.”
“Neither is hogging the only access to the restrooms.” She gestures to her burgundy dress, which is soaked from her mid-section to just below her breasts. Immediately, I lift my gaze back up to her face, warmth staining my cheeks.
“Did you dive into a water pitcher?”
“One of the servers didn’t see me.” She winces. “It wasn’t his fault. I was playing wallflower.” I have no idea what that means, and she must sense my confusion, because she clarifies with a dignified sort of sniff as if she’s reading aloud from a dictionary, “When a person decides to keep company with a wall, oftentimes in a secret, obscure part of a very crowded room, in an effort to avoid small talk.”
“Isn’t this small talk?”
“No way.” Her berry-colored lips curve in a delighted grin. “This is me telling you that your friends are total douchebags.”
I huff out a low laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You shouldn’t let them make you feel embarrassed about the virginity thing.”
“It’s not a thing. I mean, it’s not that I care what they—” Fuck it, lying seems pointless when this girl is already reading me like an open book. “I’m a hockey player,” I tell her instead, as if that should explain everything, and it must, at least in some capacity, because she rolls her eyes.
“Ah, yes. The almighty hockey player, winner of trophies and savior of pussies—”
Savior of . . .
My eyes go wide.
“—However shall us mere mortal women survive without your illustrious penises to keep us alive?”
For a second, neither one of us says anything. I’m too busy trying to wrap my head around, well, all of that, and she’s clearly trying to maintain a straight face, but then I sort of grunt out, “Illustrious penis?” because what the fuck, and then we’re both reduced to the sort of laughter that’s totally not acceptable at a charity event like this one.
“Who says that?” I gasp out, to which she shakes her head frantically as if she’s one second away from crumpling to the floor in a heap of mirth. “No, really. Who says that?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You aren’t.”
Her smile is all mischief. “Okay, I’m not. Your expression was priceless.”
Something about her compels me to stick out my hand. “Weston Cain.”
“I know.”
I figure she did. But still. “This is when you tell me that your name is . . .”
“Right. Yeah.” She straightens her shoulders, apparently content to ignore the fact that she still looks like she got into a fight with a water pitcher and lost, and then slides her hand into mine. It’s warm and small and I feel the most ridiculous urge to hold her tight and keep her safe. “I’m Daisy Hall.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
Yanking my hand back, I manage to stop myself from looking over my shoulder to make sure that a five-foot-eight grumpy monster isn’t coming this way to lop off my head for talking to—
“Coach Hall’s daughter,” she goes on, as if I really need the clarification.
Which I don’t.
Coach is a good guy. At least, we all assume so. At practice, the only time he smiles is when he’s making us cry. Then again, I guess his methods work because last year we won the Frozen Four. Still, it seems impossible to me that him and Daisy are in any way related. Although the connection at least explains why she seemed so familiar at first. While we’ve never officially met, Daisy’s attended a few of the same functions that I have in the last year as Coach’s plus one. From what I understand, she’s in her freshman year of college.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at Dartmouth?” I ask.
The light in her gaze dims a little. “I transferred.”
“For a specific reason or . . .”
“I don’t tell strangers my deepest, darkest secrets, Weston.”
“Meanwhile, you know that I’m a virgin.”
“Something tells me you don’t really care that I know you haven’t put your illustrious—”
“No.” I hold up a hand, cutting her off. “No, you are never allowed to say that again. Or we can’t be friends.”
I don’t know what does it exactly—the banter, the mention of friendship—but Daisy’s entire countenance shifts, blossoming into something that radiates pure joy. It’s hard to look at her when she’s shining this bright. Can’t quite bring myself to look away, either. I’m fascinated by the play of light and shadow lurking in her gaze.
“Can we be friends?” she asks eagerly.
“Kinda feels like we already are. You know that I’m a virgin and I know you’re . . .”
“Not,” she supplies like I was fishing for info, which I wasn’t. “I have a condition, though.”
I lean my shoulder against the wall beside us. “Which is?”
“Friends, that’s it. I’m not interested in anything more.”
Any of my teammates would be willing to face Coach’s wrath just to have a chance with this girl. I’m not blind. She’s beautiful. Ethereal, almost, with amber eyes shot through with threads of gold, and cinnamon freckles spilling across the bridge of her nose. Her long hair is piled into a loose knot atop her head, exposing the graceful lines of her throat and shoulders.
But I just . . . there’s this innate sense of relief lifting from my shoulders. And my chest feels warm and happy, like maybe she could—like maybe we could—
Keep this light. Keep this fun. Don’t be awkward.
So, I tease, “Should I feel offended?”
“Only if you think with just your dick.”
“What if I don’t?” Because that’s pretty much the crux of it. I rarely, if ever, think with just my dick. “What should the rest of me think?”
“Your head’s probably thinking that I don’t have much of a filter. You can blame Dad—Coach Hall, I mean—for that. He’s the one who raised me.”
Fair enough.
I try not to let my grimace show.
Seeing right through me, Daisy points at my face. “Yeah, that.”
We both laugh.
Wishing my voice wasn’t so hoarse, I force myself to ask, “And what if my heart’s got a say in this?”
“Then you should know that I’m loyal to a fault.”
“Like Bonnie and Clyde?” I cross my arms over my chest, feeling grateful that I haven’t managed to make this conversation weird, the way that I usually do with anything that isn’t related to hockey. “You gonna get arrested with me, Daisy?”
“Absolutely not.”
“A fair-weather friend, then. Should have known.”
“I’ll bail you out,” she sniffs. “Stage a whole rescue and everything.”
“What if it’s just typical college debauchery? What if I’m hungover and dying?”
“I’ll hold your hair back, princess, while you pray to the porcelain gods. Tell you that everything’s going to be all right.”
“What if it isn’t?” I make a point to hold her gaze, noting the way that she’s matched my pose, arms folded casually over her chest. “What if everything is falling apart and there’s no getting out?”
Her throat works with a delicate, inaudible swallow. “I’ll probably hold your hand just so we both know that we’re not alone.”
I suck in a sharp breath.
This whole conversation should feel ridiculous. I don’t know this girl and she sure as hell doesn’t know me. Truth is, I have a lot of friends but only a few people that I’d die for. My identical twin brother, Tory, is at the top of the list, followed shortly by Connie and Felix, even though they sometimes annoy the fuck outta me.
I’m too laser-focused on the future to really get invested in people.
Everyone seems to want something from me that I’m not capable of giving. Girls want a boyfriend, or at least a hookup, and guys want a bro they can party with. Somehow, even when I try my hardest to meet their expectations, I’m often left feeling like the only part of me they want doesn’t actually exist.
The way Daisy’s looking up at me, though, feels . . .
Safe.
It feels like safety and understanding, as if we’ve both been swimming upstream for years in search of a raft—until now.
“You push a hard bargain,” I tell her, my voice low.
“Desperation.” When I lift a brow in response, she shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I don’t have many friends.”
“Where’s their sense of loyalty?”
She looks down. “Sometimes loyalty isn’t enough.”
I want to hug her. And I never hug anyone.
I settle for tapping her foot with mine. “Hey, Daisy.”
“Yeah, Weston?”
“Never been friends with a girl before.”
She laughs, the sound as shiny and bright as it was before. “Just don’t, like, fart in front of me and we’ll be fine.”
“That’s it for prerequisites?” I keep my foot next to hers. She doesn’t move away and neither do I. “Like, am I allowed to breathe or . . .”
“I’ll take it up with management.”
“You do that.”
Her good humor fades. It’s not completely obvious but after thirty-some minutes of talking with her, seems like I’ve gotten a good enough read on her to at least recognize the signs that she’s ruminating on something else.
“Say it,” I prompt softly.
“One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Please don’t fall in love with me.”