Crew (Hockey Royalty #3)

7. Crew

Chapter 7

Crew

I hear voices. They’re not loud but they are filtering through the closed bedroom door. And then I feel the soft, warm naked body curled into mine tighten. The next thing I know the body is gone, and so are the sheets.

My eyes flutter open. Fireball is standing, beautifully naked in the middle of the room with her hands on her head, palms against her forehead. “Oh shit. Oh shit. Everyone’s awake. Fuck.”

She's whispering it to herself, I think. I sit up slowly and admire the view. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I remember we fooled around again. No sex, but kissing and touching and her clothes came off. So now when our eyes lock, and she realizes she's naked, she panics and starts grabbing clothes off the ground. She puts on my shirt from last night, wrapping it around her body like a bathrobe. "This can't be happening. They can't know you're here."

"Who are they?"

She doesn't answer. Her eyes drop to my exposed hips and my rock-hard cock currently trying to touch the ceiling. She points at it accusingly. "Stop doing that!"

“Umm… I can try but he doesn’t always listen,” I explain, and she shushes me like I just used a bullhorn to say that.

“Get dressed and get out,” she whispers and the voices outside the door, in the living room of the suite, seem to grow. There are a lot of people in this suite.

“Who’s out there?”

"The people I came with. Co-workers," she replies hastily. The glint in her brown eyes is wild like she's absolutely terrified. "And I'll lose my job if I get caught with you?"

She says it like it’s a question. Weird. And wait a minute…

“I thought you were a student?”

She nods and shakes her head and then nods again. “A student with a job.”

“Oh.”

There’s a knock at the door. She jumps at least a foot off the ground and covers her mouth to keep from squeaking. I have to admit, now I’m a little nervous. I mean, I don’t want to get her in any kind of trouble.

“Livvy! We’re going to brunch. Get your butt out of bed and join!” It’s a female voice.

“I’m good!” Livvy calls back—or Olivia, as she said last night. “Go without me!”

“No!”

And then the person attached to the stubborn voice tries turning the handle. Luckily Olivia locked it last night because it doesn’t open. So the person starts knocking, incessantly.

Olivia swears under her breath again. "Seriously! I'm hungover and want to sleep it off. Go! I'm fine!"

“Livanator, nothing cures a hangover better than the huevos rancheros in the restaurant in this hotel,” a male voice assures her. “Trust me. I have it every morning I’m here. It’s magic.”

That voice… it’s muffled but it sounds… familiar. Why? How? I climb out of bed and walk over to her. “Who is that?”

“Get dressed!” she hisses.

“Liv?” A third voice. Another female. “Come! I promise you won’t regret it.”

I hear mumbled talking like the group outside the door is discussing something amongst themselves. I take Olivia's arm and pull her away from the door so I can whisper without a chance of being overheard. "Why is this such a big deal. People hook up in Vegas all the time."

“Yeah but… I don’t do this and they don’t know I wanted to do this and I don’t want them to,” she whispers back and her pretty face is still awash with terror. I hug her because I don’t know what else to do to calm her down.

“Okay. I get it. Reputation and everything.” I try not to take it personally. She’s not ashamed of me. It’s bigger than that.

"Come on Livvy!" The first female voice is back. She's whining now. "If you don't go I'll feel bad like we broke you or something, and then I won't go."

“I’m fine Te…” She stops, puts a palm to her forehead again, closes her eyes, and sighs. “I’m fine. I promise. Please just go. I will meet you there in five minutes.”

“Good. Five minutes or we come back up here. Let’s go. I’m starving.” That familiar male voice again. How do I know that voice? “See you soon Livanator.”

The mumbling behind the closed and locked door diminishes, but Olivia, or Liv as they keep calling her, still looks petrified. I open my mouth to ask why but she rushes to me and slaps her hand over it. I grimace at the unexpected rough contact. “She’s still out there.”

I hear a door close, probably the main one to the suite. Our eyes connect and so do our torsos and… she jumps back and points at my still-hard dick. “I told you. That needs to disappear!”

“It’s not a genie.” I chuckle. “well, maybe it is, come to think of it, because if you rub it the right way…”

“Shush!”

“Livvy, let me in. I’m worried. I haven’t seen you since last night.” The female voice is back. “Everyone else is gone.”

"I told you," Olivia mouths at me, and then she's scurrying around the room, grabbing my shoes, my socks, my underwear, and shorts and before I can do a thing about it, she’s shoving everything, and me, into the closet.

It’s a tight fit and I bang the back of my head on the rack. I hiss and she shushes me again. She pauses as I’m trying to pretzel myself against the back of the closet. “Promise me on all that is holy, on hockey and Wayne Gretzky and the Stanley Cup and all your dad’s trophies and medals and every single one you still have coming to you that no matter what you hear you will not… will not come out of here until exactly five minutes after you hear us leave.”

“Wow. You mean business.”

“I do. I’m all business. I’m more serious than a heart attack,” she whispers and our eyes lock. “Please?”

"I promise, Olivia," I say her full name. She smiles. It's fleeting and soft but my heart thumps harder in my chest. She's something else.

She starts to close the door but pauses. “And thank you. For last night. That was… I’m glad we did that.”

“Me too.” Before I can offer to do it again, if she wants, at a date to be determined later, she shuts me in the closet.

I hear nothing for almost thirty seconds and then there’s another bang on the door and Olivia yells. “I’m coming. Calm your tits!”

There’s a bark of laughter that sounds pretty loud so I think Olivia opened the door and let the relentless female friend into the room. “Oh my god, who are you and what have you done with my demure little cousin?”

“First of all, I’m older than you so I’m not your little cousin,” Olivia reminds the woman as my muscles burn trying to keep myself motionless in this ridiculously small closet. “Second of all, I had too much to drink last night and unlike the rest of you, I’m not a pro at that. I need to sleep it off. But since you won’t let me do that, let’s eat.”

“Yay for drunk Liv! And I promise my dear brother is right. The huevos rancheros here is fire,” the girl says happily.

So this is a family gathering? Interesting. Why did she lie and say it was co-workers? I always wanted a big family but I didn’t get one. It’s just me, my twin, and my parents. No cousins as my aunts and uncles didn’t procreate. I likely won’t either so the Westwood family will grow even tinier.

“Anyway I’m so glad it was just booze,” the cousin says and even in the cramped darkness of the closet I can hear the relief in her voice. “I thought maybe it was a panic attack that had you locked in here. You know, from the?—”

“Let’s go!” Liv cuts her off and I’m left wondering what the end of that sentence would have been.

“Where did you get that shirt?”

“Thrifted it.”

“It’s too big.”

“I like big.”

“That’s what she said.” Giggles and then a thump, like a door closing.

I wait an excruciating five minutes after that, as promised. Eventually, I pull myself out of the closet, tripping on a fallen hanger and landing in a heap at the foot of the bed. I hiss out an expletive and lift myself up off the carpet. I put on the clothes that tumbled out with me, but of course, my shirt walked out the door with Olivia.

I’m standing there, naked from the waist up, when I see her open suitcase. There’s a hoodie in the pile next to it. The kind with a zipper opening, not the over-the-head kind. I walk over and pluck it off the ground. It's charcoal gray and I start to put it on.

To say it doesn’t fit is an understatement. The arms, which I’m sure are full-length on her, are barely past my elbow. And I can’t get it done up at all. But if she can steal my shirt, I can steal her hoodie. Of course not forever, I hope. I am going to leave my phone number for her so she can call to get it back.

I glance around the room. It's still dark in here since she closed the door again when she left, but there's some hotel stationary and a pen on the night table. I walk over and grab it, jot down my number, but I don't leave my name or any other note. She'll know. Olivia is a smart cookie.

I crack the door to the rest of the suite. It’s deadly silent. They’re all definitely gone so I make a beeline for the main door. I open that one slowly too, peering out the crack to make sure I can’t see anyone in the hall. There’s a housekeeping cart a few doors down but that’s it. I slip out of the suite and down the hall to the elevators. The housekeeper comes out of one of the rooms with her arms filled with dirty sheets and she does a bit of a double take at my hulking torso squeezed into the too-small hoodie. I smile and wink.

She ignores me completely and goes back to her job. As a housekeeper in Vegas, I'm sure she's seen much worse than a professional hockey player in a woman's sweatshirt. The elevator opens and… I'm face-to-face with Tate.

Oh well. I’ve been caught in worse situations by people I know.

“Hey!” he says with a smile that falters when he sees my attire. “Did they shrink your clothes at the dry cleaner? Is this another wardrobe malfunction like the Hawaiian shirt last night?”

I grin. “Not exactly.”

He glances past me down the corridor and then to the left where the hotel hallway stretches out in a different direction. He’s clearly trying to figure out where I came from. The color drains from his face fairly quickly. “Please dear God do not say you hooked up with Tenley.”

“What? No! Of course not. Team rules,” I reply and make a face like hooking up with his sister is the most horrendous thing I can think of. It’s not, honestly. Tenley is hot as all hell. I mean she’s no Olivia, but she’s stunning.

But a bunch of core guys on the team made a pact one night. Granted we were all drunk but we promised each other that family was off-limits. Too many teammates fall out and create drama for the entire team when they date a sibling of their teammate. And to be honest, as pretty as Tenley is, she's also hell on wheels. Not at all unlikable, but feisty and wild and the type of girl you say you would never marry and then wake up one day on your fifteenth wedding anniversary, four kids in, madly in love, and trying to figure out how the hell that happened. I am not looking for that on any level.

“Why on earth would you jump to that conclusion?” I ask.

“Because…” He scans my outfit again. “That’s a woman’s hoodie and this is our floor.”

“You and Tenley?” I ask. “You’re sharing a room with your sister and your girlfriend? I’m not here to judge but I’m judging.”

The housekeeper and her cart wander by as Tate smirks at me and my comment. “No dipshit. I’m sharing a suite with my sister, my girlfriend, and my cousin. I mean technically. And I thought I heard Tenley sneaking someone out of her room early this morning.”

“Obviously not me, because we made a pact.” I raise my hands. “Also, I’m sneaking out now, not in the wee hours.”

“Right.” Tate nods and then he smiles again, relieved. “I gotta go. I forgot my phone but we’re downstairs having breakfast if you want to join.”

“Nah thanks. I need some sleep. I didn’t get much last night.” I grin, and he gives me a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. I hit the elevator button again because it closed behind him. He takes a couple steps and then something he said earlier echoes in my brain. Cousin . I turn as he walks down the hall. The wing I just sauntered down, not the other one. “Tate! Who all are you here with again?”

“Ten, Mal, and Liv.”

Oh fuck.

He stares at me and I stare back. My only thought is do not let your jaw drop. Do not react at all. “Liv is…”

“Conner’s sister. My uncle Devin and Aunt Callie’s oldest daughter,” Tate explains. “She lives with Ten and they go to UCLA.”

My expression must be as blank as my mind because my brain has literally short-circuited. That’s why the male voice was familiar. It was Tate’s. My mystery lay. My sexy stranger. My Olivia. Is my teammate’s cousin. The one he protects at all costs. The one he says is shy and sensitive and stays out of the hockey limelight. And… is a virgin.

“You said Liv doesn’t do hockey stuff.”

“She doesn’t. And she doesn’t do much of anything like this for sure,” Tate agrees and stops in front of the door I just exited. My heart beats faster. His green eyes stay on me as he pulls his key card from his pocket. “She’s been through some stuff lately and she’s… well she’s trying new things. Anyway, she went home from the club early last night so maybe she’s not as ready as she thinks she is for a new lifestyle. See you later?”

“Yeah. Later!” I nod and slip into the elevator just as the doors are starting to close again.

It’s me. I’m the new thing Olivia Garrison is trying.

Did I just take her virginity?

Oh fuckity fuck fuck.