Puck Prince (Houston Scythes Hockey #1)

1. Callie

1

CALLIE

“Alexa, play ‘Powerful Women’ playlist,” I shout at the Echo Dot the moment I walk into my cousin's empty apartment.

Kennedy and I were supposed to drink wine—the wine I navigated an utter shit show of college kids and Friday night partiers to procure all by my pathetic lonesome. We were also going to order Thai food, my go-to in times of meltdown. (It’s also my go-to on any given night. I’m a slut for pad woon sen.) We were then supposed to sit on the couch and yap endless trash about all the men we—by which I mean Kennedy—have unwisely dated and/or slept with.

But thanks to Tinder or Bumble or whatever app Kennedy scraped her next social experiment out of, none of those plans are going to happen.

“Okay,” Alexa answers with her faux-human realism. “Now playing ‘Trouble’ by Taylor Swift.”

“Are you serious right now, Alexa?” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Skip, Alexa. Skip with a vengeance.”

I toss my keys, purse, and two bottles of wine on the counter. A rosé, because Kennedy refuses to drink booze unless it tastes like candy, and a cab sauv, because I only drink alcohol that does its job.

As punishment for abandoning me, I might drink Kennedy’s bottle, too. Whether it’ll end up being punishment for me or her, no one can say.

After the week I’ve had—no, the year. The life —I was looking forward to girl time. Time to let the walls crash down and get some feel-good, familial support from my cousin.

Kennedy and her dad are the only real familial support I’ve ever had.

My own parents missed out on the selfless love and affection gene. My dad’s eyes were always glazed from the pressure of domesticated life, and my mom kept her peripherals locked on other men. I learned very quickly not to count on anyone but myself.

Kennedy is the exception, but tonight, I can’t even count on her.

I pop the cork from the cab while Pink’s “Rockstar” pours through the speaker. It’s still not exactly the take-no-shit, kill-the-patriarchy, it’s-okay-to-drink-alone vibe I’m trying to cultivate, but it’ll have to do.

Truth be told, I might be beyond the help of female power ballads. Shit is bleak. Ken is nowhere to be found, and my only company is Delilah, who, as a black cat, is a literal omen of worse luck yet to come.

Right on cue, Delly curls up in my lap and starts snoring like I’m one of those elderly people from that one news story, knocking on death’s door.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

I look down at the world’s fattest cat and sigh. “Whatever you do, Delly, never fuck someone you’re working with.”

Delilah offers a disinterested blink, which I take as an enthusiastic, Please continue, O Sage One.

“Even if he is a tall, ripped, obnoxiously handsome hockey center… with dark, messy hair, olive skin, and velvety blue eyes that can undress you from across the room. Especially not a man like that…”

I let myself drift back to the memory of Spencer—only for a moment—before yanking myself back out of it and taking a healthy chug of wine. “Enough of that. Forget that. In fact, fuck that. Never date men you work with and never date men in sports. Period.”

When I look back down, Delilah is gone.

I could handle drinking wine alone in someone else’s apartment while my work life falls apart and my love life remains nonexistent. But confiding in a cat who got bored and walked out mid-conversation? Safe to say this is a low point.

“You know what? No.” I take another swig of wine for good measure and then cork the bottle. After that, I march over to where I dropped my suitcase and pull out Ophelia.

Traveling to my cousin’s house with a purple silicone magic wand in my suitcase could be yet a lower low, but I choose to see it as the intersection between great planning and a slightly more pleasurable future.

With sex toys like this, who needs friends?

“I don’t have to wallow in pity. I don’t have to hate myself. I can do whatever I want,” I announce to absolutely no one. “Because fuck the past.”

No one, not even the cat, responds. Fuck that, too.

I shimmy out of my leggings and leave them in a puddle at the foot of the couch. Yes. Yes, this is how I am going to spend my evening. This is a great idea. The first one I’ve had in a while.

“And fuck men in the hockey world who think they own the whole damn industry while people like me see to it that they’re even physically capable of playing every day.”

Given my profession, it’s a wonder it took me this long to consider a little physical therapy of my own.

I crawl back on the couch, legs open and ready, Ophelia in hand—or O, as I affectionately call her, because she never, ever fails me. In my other hand, I hold my phone, scrolling Instagram pages until I find the one I want.

“As a matter of fact, fuck everyone and everything except Jason Momoa.” I keep his photo on the screen as I let O do her work.

I start on the lowest setting, but even that is enough to make my mind staticky. My thoughts blur into the here and now. I stop caring, start forgetting, and arch my back, turning up the intensity.

“Yes.” I pant. “Just… like… that.”

I bring it back down, teasing myself, not wanting to come too quickly. My seventy-five dollar wand is good enough that, if I’m not careful, it’ll all be over too soon. I mess with the speeds, the rhythm, all while biting my lip as beads of sweat drip down my temples and something else drips onto the couch.

Sorry, Ken. I’ll pay for the steam cleaning.

I smirk through my lip bite at that. Then another shift in the pulsing takes my breath away. My hair is mussed in my face like this is the real thing.

Hell, it is the real thing.

Most of the best orgasms I’ve ever had, I’ve given myself. Men are too busy navel-gazing, marveling at their own ability to keep it up and keep it going to wonder if the reason it’s lasting so long is because it isn’t the mountaintop experience they seem to think it is. In the end, you make louder noises just to get them off so the whole thing can be over with.

Ophelia? Her only focus is me.

I whimper, dropping the phone and pulling my underwear aside for silicone-to-skin contact, flicking the speed up to a steady whirr.

Closer…

Closer…

I almost shriek as I near the beautiful, white edge of bliss. But just as I am about to go tumbling over the cliff, there is a banging on the other side of the wall right next to my head. I nearly jump out of my skin as Ophelia goes buzzing across the carpeted floor.

“Yo! Do you think no one can hear you over there?!” A man’s voice booms from the apartment next door.

Surely he isn’t talking to me. Surely I’m not being that loud.

“Is he talking to me?” I whisper.

All night long, there’s been no one to talk back to me. But suddenly…

“Yes!” he answers, and I jump again. “You, the woman loudly orgasming while I am trying to watch the game. Think you could tone it down a bit?”

I stand up and turn to the wall, expecting to see a drive-thru style sliding window into the other apartment. Seriously, how thin are these walls? Then I feel a cool breeze across my bare legs and it clicks.

The door to the balcony is open.

The door to the shared balcony is open.

The door to the shared balcony—shared with none other than my nonconsenting voyeur next door—is wide fucking open.

I run across the living room in mute, abject horror to shut and lock my door and then maybe, I dunno, commit seppuku in the bathtub. But before I can, I see Delilah sitting primly in the center of the balcony. She couldn’t hang around for my emotional purge, but she shows up for this?

“Come here, kitty,” I grumble, slowly inching towards the cat while trying to hide the fact that I’m Winnie-the-Pooh-ing it on my cousin’s balcony. Excuse me, shared balcony. Because the microscopic gap and metal railings between Kennedy’s balcony and her neighbor’s do nothing to change the fact that they are angled towards one another at a forty-five degree angle, and I could reach over the railing and knock on the door.

Kennedy has a catio taking up half of her balcony, because she’s insane like that. I think it’s ridiculous, but I guess anti-feminist feline demons need fresh air, too. But Delilah isn’t in her catio right now. She’s matching each of my steps towards her with a step backward of her own.

“Come here, you little shit,” I sing-song, clicking my tongue like I have any idea what may or may not lure Delilah closer.

Her wide, yellow eyes take one look at me and then she ducks into some kind of tube.

“Damnit, cat, come here!” I drop to my knees and reach into the tube after her. I hear a hiss and then fire shoots up my hand. “Ow, you bitch!”

She swipes at me again, and I throw myself back into the door, causing it to slam shut behind me.

“Goddammit!” I examine my bleeding hand. “You know what? You want to stay out here? Fine. Stay. But I’m going back in.”

I lift my bare ass off the balcony, twist towards the door, and turn the handle.

Locked.

“Shit.”

My stomach damn near falls out of my ass as the full truth of the situation hits me like Ophelia cranked up to eleven out of ten.

I am trapped… outside… on a balcony… in the middle of the night… with no pants on.

In a burst of what can only be righteous rage, I kick the door. “You have to be kidding me!”

Of course, that hurts more than the cat scratch, and I scream again.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” The other door rips open. “I thought when I first moved in that you were going to be a chill neighbor, but I guess I was wrong, Kenn?—”

He stops talking.

I stop screaming and flailing.

Both of us stop pretty much everything.

All I can do is stare at the ridiculously tall, messy-haired figure in front of me. His eyes are the color of the ocean in Hawaii, framed with the darkest, thickest lashes I’ve ever seen. A man could get away with anything with eyes like that. Murder, even. Fittingly, his jawline is sharp enough to cut a noose.

His lips tip in the hint of smirk as those devilish eyes rake over me. “You’re not Kennedy.”

“No, I’m not,” I agree. “I’m Callie, her cousin. And you are?”

“Enjoying the show.” The man leans against the door frame, his eyes lazily making their way up my body and back to my face. “By the sound of it, I was expecting a crime scene.”

I hold up my bleeding hand. “I was assaulted by a cat.”

“Did the cat steal your pants, too?”

“Wha—” I look down because somehow, I forgot that I’m still full Donald Duck-in it. “Oh my God!” I whip around and try yanking on the door that has not magically unlocked itself at any point during the last few mortifying seconds. Unsurprisingly, it does not yield. Meanwhile, the man with the dangerous eyes is still smirking while Delilah does figure eights around his ankles. That horny bitch.

“You need help?” he asks, biting back a laugh and crossing his impossibly muscular arms. I can see the tone even through the hockey jersey he has on. He is also wearing fitted gray sweats, and, well… enough said there.

“Why? You happen to have a key?” I turn back to cross my arms and hold my sassy stance. I’ve given up on trying to hide my wardrobe malfunction. At this point, it is what it is.

“No. But I happen to have another door.” He holds his hand out, gesturing towards his apartment.

I’d rather die. I’d rather shimmy down the fire escape. Hell, I’d rather just jump at this point and pray that Jesus catches me before the asphalt does.

“I’m not a serial killer, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Sounds suspiciously like something a serial killer would say.”

He arches a brow and shrugs simultaneously, which has no right to be even half as cute as it is. “I’m just a guy with a big couch, sweatpants you can borrow, and an open case of beer. Do with that what you will.”

I’m prepared to refuse it outright and die a stubborn, noble death on this balcony.

But, over his shoulder, the light is warm and the couch looks plush. Meanwhile, out here, the night air is delivering an extremely unpleasant chill to my lady bits.

It’s either stay out here and freeze, or take my chances with the gorgeous neighbor.

But after the pep talk I gave myself and Delilah earlier, it feels like a betrayal of womankind to revert to being a damsel-in-distress so soon. “I…”

He does the eyebrow-shrug thing again. “Suit yourself.”

He turns to leave?—

“Wait!”

He pauses and looks over his shoulder at me. “Yeah?”

“Can I at least grab those sweatpants first?”

He chuckles. “Usually, I help women undress, not the other way around. But for you, I’ll make an exception. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.”