Delayed Penalty (Empire State Hockey #5)

Chapter 1 – Harris

Chapter One

Harris

“ A re we staying and getting another round of drinks or what?” Rex asks quietly as he looks down at the bill, his voice so low it’s almost a rasp, yet somehow it still seems out of place here.

The sound of classical music playing in the background blends with the sounds of champagne flutes clinking together reminding me we’re definitely not at Hudson’s. But I did this to myself, it was my dumbass idea that we start to branch out a bit. Really figure out where we could get the best wings for Wing Wednesday.

I just figured they would choose somewhere they actually serve wings. But Max is just… Max. He’s kind of his own little breed, always doing things the way he wants. And right now, he’s apparently in his boujee era based on the choices of caviar and some sort of crostini type thing with stuff I’ve never heard of on top of it. All I can think about is how bad I want some extra spicy wings and beer.

Apparently, next time I need to spell out that Wing Wednesday should always have fucking wings. Non-negotiable.

“Here?” Miles asks, his brow quirked and nose scrunched as he looks around. He looks just as uncomfortable as I feel, and I have to force down another laugh with a mouthful of expensive bourbon that isn’t worth the price tag.

When it comes to bourbon, it’s not that I’m against spending the money on a quality bourbon, I just hate when I spend the money and it’s not even good. I may make a pretty penny playing in the NHL but that doesn’t mean I want to burn it all just for the hell of it. And expensive bourbon just for the sake of being expensive is not what I’m about.

“I mean… we—” Miles starts to say, but fortunately, Max interrupts him first.

“Look, as much as I enjoyed our dinner tonight, we all know a fancy restaurant every now and then is a good time, but… I think I prefer these nights out with Cassie. In a short dress, where I have easy access to play with her under the table,” Max says with a wink, but I know damn well he’s not lying.

“What? Are we not pretty enough?” Cade grumbles but I can see he’s trying not to smile.

“Sorry, Cade, you guys aren’t exactly my type. I like ‘em quite a bit shorter, blonde, and with enough attitude she’s almost mean… and if I’m going to choke on the pretentiousness of this place, I’d prefer her choking on me afterward.”

“No offense taken,” Rex says coolly. “We all know I’d rather your sister swallow my cock than you, Maxy Baby.”

Max just flips him off. It took them a little while at first, but they’ve gotten really close since Max started playing on Rex’s team and Rex started dating Sawyer, Max’s sister. Once Max started to date Cassie, Sawyer’s best friend, it sort of became water under the bridge.

I love seeing my friends so happy—even if every time I listen to them talk about their girls, I think of her .

I’ve done everything I can to push thoughts of her down, but if I’m being honest they’ve been more and more frequent these last few weeks, ever since she didn’t show up to Rex’s mom’s gala alongside her lovely fiancé.

“Can we just pay our tab and go to Hudson’s? I’m dying for a cold beer and an order of honey barbeque wings,” Trevor says.

“Deal,” Max says, his whole face lighting up at the idea, which means I have to dim it down a bit.

“But, Maxy baby, don’t fuck up your wing night again or you’ll get your decision-making power revoked. Wing night should have wings. Say it with me— wiiiings. ”

“Fuck off, Danielson, I’m helping you be more cultured.”

“Well, do it better. One more strike and you’re out, this ain’t baseball, we’re playing by my rules,” I joke, adding a wink for good measure before laying down cash to cover our bill. “Let’s go, I don’t want to wait for our server to make his way back to us, his pretentiousness might be contagious.”

I may be an asshole, but it’s only ever for fun. Or at least, that’s my intention. I always want to make people laugh and have a good time. It takes a lot to bring that other side of me out, and it’s something I’ve honestly worked to keep buried down. It was never a problem in college—I was always level-headed, but willing to drop gloves if the situation called for it. After college, I didn’t handle my emotions in a healthy way and I used to let a lot of things get under my skin the first few years in the NHL. I had a lot of pent-up frustration and uncaged emotions which meant I dropped gloves on the ice damn near every game. Sometimes, more than once. One too many fights as a rookie mixed with a furious coach who threatened to trade me to the lowest ranked team in the league, and I knew I had to get my shit together.

It didn’t matter that I was one of the best defensemen in the league, even as a rookie. Nope, all of the good was overshadowed by a few unnecessary fights on the ice. Okay, quite a few of them. Every time it happened, I would end up sitting in the tiny little time-out box while I watched my team fight on the ice a man down—which, more often than not, is when the other team would end up scoring the winning goal.

It still sucks knowing I damn well could’ve been the reason we lost quite a few of those early games.

Hudson’s feels like home.

It’s dark, moody, and the music is never consistent unless Gwen’s here dominating the Jukebox, but it feels comfortable. So far, the music has been an eclectic mix of Olivia Rodrigo, Led Zeppelin, and Garth Brooks—sort of all over the place but that’s what makes me love it so much here.

There’s always a place for everyone here.

Plus, Andrew and Sandy are always here, and they give us the best service with Sandy always remembering the extra ranch our table requires. I’m still not exactly sure how we go through as much ranch as we do, especially on the weeks the girls stay back. I choose to blame Cade, though, because I’m positive he just drinks the ranch like a milkshake, treating the wings like sprinkles.

“This is so much better,” Miles says as he leans back in the booth and looks out around the bar, probably seeing how many of his frequent flyers were around tonight.

You know, options.

Wish I had options right now, but apparently my cock disagrees.

“You’re just saying that because Nicole is here. As well as Stephanie,” I joke, knowing damn well he clocked both of those girls the moment they walked through that door.

“Don’t forget about Maddie; although, she seems pretty happy in O’Neil’s lap right now so she might be out of the game tonight,” Cade adds, and without question all of our eyes fall to the corner where they’re sitting.

O’Neil is the star quarterback for the Seattle Raptors, but he went to college with us since he grew up in New York so every once in a while when it’s their off season, we end up hanging out. Tonight, though, it looks like he’s out with some of his old teammates since they are in their off-season.

“Yeah, she definitely looks happy where she’s at right now.” Miles laughs as Maddie turns to straddle O’Neil and they start making out. “What do you say, Harris? You want to go over and talk to Nicole and Stephanie with me? They’re usually down to get in some trouble.”

I turn to look over at the girls who are still at the bar sipping what I can only assume are cosmos while talking to a group of friends. They keep looking over here at us, but I can’t find it in me to beckon them over.

It’s not that I don’t want to… okay, that’s a lie. I actually really don’t want to, and for the life of me I just can’t figure out why.

“Maybe. We’ll see in a bit. We just got here, and I’m sure as hell not going to start looking desperate by picking someone up for the night already,” I say with a shrug, not wanting to explain the truth to them.

I’ve never had any problems picking up a woman at the bar. Hell, I’ve picked up more than one at a time and never thought twice about it. The thought of being with two women at once is usually enough to get me going, get the blood rushing down to my cock rearing to go.

Not tonight.

Hell, not since the night at the gala earlier this month when I got to watch that douchebag Peter parade around the party with a beautiful woman all over him—only the woman wasn’t his fiancée. No, it was all wrong. Where was the woman I left six years ago, heartbroken and devastated, believing lies I was forced to tell and have spent every moment since that day regretting?

No, that night, Peter was there with someone else. This woman had black hair and the brightest red lips I’d ever seen in my life. She was beautiful, her smile bright, but at the end of the day, she still wasn’t Avery.

No one is.

And if another woman was there on his arm, then where the fuck was my Avery?

That’s all I’ve been able to think about, and knowing there’s a chance they aren’t together anymore gave me the kind of hope I wouldn’t wish for anyone. It felt like finding water after walking for weeks in a desert. Like a warm blanket after a day full of snowboarding in weather cold enough to freeze your beard. Now, she’s all I can think about, and my cock refuses to respond to anyone else with a vagina, because they aren’t her.

Based on the smirk the guys gave me when I answered Miles, it’s definitely possible they’re starting to notice something’s up with me.

I’m not as much of a manwhore as everyone makes me out to be, not that there would be anything wrong with it if I was. Sex is incredible in whatever quantities you’d like to have it, as long as it’s consensual. I had a couple of girls I would see at a bar and go home with for the night, or bring back to my place, but it wasn’t frequent by any means.

I’m lost in thought as the guys continue drinking around me, my eyes bouncing around to the groups of people, many of them women who are looking our way, but no one interests me in the slightest. I don’t mean this in a rude way, there’s nothing wrong with any of these women—at least, not something they can change. It’s not their fault they aren’t a short little brunette with the lightest blue eyes that often look gray.

I need to stop looking for her. I need to stop waiting for someone who never waited for me.

“Did you ever find out what was going on with Stella?” Trevor asks across the table toward Rex who looks up from his phone with a devilish smile and a raised finger.

“Hold on,” he murmurs before looking down at his phone where his fingers fly across the keyboard.

“Sorry, Trevor, your question isn’t as important as his sexting.”

“Is anything?” Rex jokes, his eyes full of glee. “No. Though, I haven’t heard much after she mentioned she might be moving. My dad mentioned something about her getting an offer on the place she’s at right now, but she’d be a damn fool to accept it. She’ll never find a place like that in such an incredible location for that price again.”

“Damn, I hope everything is okay. This isn’t typical of her,” Trevor says with a shake of his head.

Stella, Rex’s sister, has always been super close with him but in the last couple of months she’s started to bail on hanging out with us, usually saying she’s trying to get together with a friend who was trying to be business partners with her. As soon as we voiced we thought it was a bad idea to get into a business arrangement when she had no need for one, she started to shut us all out.

“Yeah, I’m just trying to trust her, let her figure it out on her own. But I can only allow that to happen for so long,” Rex says, but I’m no longer listening.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a glimpse of brown hair moving toward the bathrooms, a woman with long legs and a tiny little dress that looks like it was made for her, and damn… it looks like her.

Without saying anything, I’m standing up, ignoring their questions as I head in the direction she just went. My heart starts racing as I get closer to her, but I don’t want her to slip away.

“Excuse me,” I say, her head quickly turning around to look at me and the moment those light blue eyes meet mine, all the air is ripped from my lungs.

“Avery?” I rasp out. Although I thought and followed her in hopes it was her, I didn’t actually think I’d be lucky enough to run into her here.

She just stands there staring at me long enough I’m wondering if I’m wrong. Is it not her? Has it been so long since I’ve seen her that I forgot what she looks like? Even thinking that sounds absolutely ridiculous. No amount of time or distance could come between me and Avery that would have me forgetting anything about her.

Including the way she looks when she’s about to bolt. Avery is nothing if not good at avoiding awkward situations—it used to make me laugh. Right now, though, it’s making me nervous. I want to talk to her, I want to see how she’s doing. She’s been on my mind since I saw her at the gala last year, clearly upset. I know there’s something off between her and Peter, but I also know I’m probably the last person in the world she wants to divulge her life secrets to.

Doesn’t mean I worry any less, though.

Then you should’ve stayed. You shouldn’t have left her to get scooped up by a man like him.

Her mouth opens like she’s finally going to say something, but instead she just turns on her heel with a bashful smile and the bathroom door shuts on my face, leaving me wondering what the fuck just happened.