Puck Princess (Houston Scythes Hockey #2)

28. Owen

28

OWEN

“You need to lift, Jameson. You know, like, use your muscles?” Lachlan says through gritted teeth as the three of us attempt to get my bachelor-coded L-shaped leather couch out of the apartment.

“I am lifting! It’s you that’s not holding up your end of the damn couch!” Heath shoots back.

“Guys,” I breathe out. “Can we just get it out of here before Lance and Kason come up with the new shit?”

“You heard the man,” Lachlan shouts. “Move!”

Meanwhile, the girls are all standing in the kitchen watching as we try to maneuver the couch I used to love and now hate out the door.

“It’s like watching three men try to fit the Goodyear Blimp into a Prius,” Kennedy jokes.

“More like watching Nicky try to fit a square peg into the round hole on his wooden puzzle toy.” Summer bites back a laugh.

“You know what I think?” Dax joins in. He is doing nothing but sitting on a barstool, drinking a beer, and dictating the whole thing. “Y’all need to pivot .”

“And just like that, we have become America’s favorite sitcom.” Heath growls, trying not to drop his end.

“I think Dax is right,” Callie says.

“ Et tu, Callie ?” Heath pants.

She shrugs. “You need to turn it or you’re gonna get wedged.”

“How the fuck did you get this thing up here anyways?” Lachlan asks.

I actually can’t remember. I probably blacked out the memory.

With a little more heaving and swearing, we get the sectional into the hallway, which is apparently as far as we’re getting it for the moment. Lachlan and Heath collapse on top of it.

Callie brings me a water bottle and kisses my cheek. “Thank you.”

“This new couch you ordered better be comfortable,” I grumble.

“It’s velvet.”

I take a chug of water and arch a sweaty eyebrow. “Velvet? Good god woman, you are going to ruin me.”

“Every night,” she whispers under her breath. “Just not on my new couch.”

Just like that, all the backbreaking work is worth it. I could take her right here, right now. On this couch in the hallway. What a sendoff that would be for my bachelor lifestyle.

While that dirty thought is at the forefront of my mind, Coach Coleman appears at the top of the stairs. “I don’t think that’s where the couch goes.”

Callie hugs him. “What are you doing here, Uncle Randy?”

“I heard it’s move-in day, so I brought some backup. From the looks of it, it’s a good thing I did.”

Before I can ask what he means, four guys I don’t know jog up the stairs. College recruits, I assume.

“I think we’ve got it,” I start to say.

Then the freight elevator door at the end of the hall opens.

“Housekeeping!” Kason sings out as he and Lance appear with the first piece of the new sectional. Problem is, the old one is blocking them from going anywhere. It’s also blocking most of the floor from the fire exits.

We are literally taking up the whole hallway in a giant, furniture store clusterfuck.

“Do you got it, though?” Coach asks.

I huff out a breath as Summer pokes her head into the hallway. “Hey, your kitchen is a disaster, O. I’m going to get rid of… well, everything.”

“Or you could leave my stuff the fuck alone. Why are you even?—”

“Cool, bye!” she calls out, disappearing.

Just when I think my head couldn’t explode anymore, the normal elevator doors open and one of the very last people I want to see appears.

“Whoa.” Spencer steps back into the elevator. If only he’d disappear down the open shaft. “Good thing I’m here, I guess, huh?

Like the jackass he is, he hops over the back of the couch and lands between me and Callie.

“Hey, Cal. Long time, no see.”

She takes a step back.

“What are you doing here, Santos?”

“Helping,” Spencer says simply. “The whole team is here. And what kind of teammate would I be if I didn’t help my captain on move-in day?” He coats the word in synthetic sugar.

Lance is holding the freight elevator door open. Kason is on his phone. Meanwhile Lachlan and Heath are still lounging on the couch.

I’m ready to kill each and every one of them.

“We don’t need any more help.”

“Sure you do!” Coach kicks the back of the couch. “Where are we going with this? Out, I assume?”

“And this one is coming in,” Lance says, pushing the emergency stop button so the doors will stop trying to close on him.

“Got it. Come on, boys.” Spencer waves at the college dudes who follow like toy soldiers. They grab the new couch on each corner, lifting it over the old one, including Lachlan and Heath, and haul it into the apartment.

“Well, that was handy,” Heath laughs. I glare at him, and his smile all but falls off his stupid face. “What?”

“Get up and get this couch out of here!” I bark out.

Lachlan and Heath share a look before they get to it.

Callie puts her hand on my chest. “Just breathe.”

“Remind me why we are doing this?” I say through my teeth.

“So we can be together. So we can fall asleep together and wake up together and do everything together like you said the other night.”

I close my eyes, nodding and breathing deep. “Right, right, right.”

She stretches onto her toes to kiss me. “We got this.”

And I gotta admit, when she says it like that, I believe her.

We walk back inside, and Summer chucks a protein bar at me. “Hey, bro, think fast!”

I catch it before it hits me in the face. “What the hell?”

“The guys said you’re getting grumpy, so I figured you need a snack. You know, before the pizza gets here.”

“Pizza? Sweet! I’m starved.” Dax is still sitting on the stool drinking a beer.

“Doing nothing works up an appetite,” I grumble.

Callie steps in to defend him. “His shoulder blade is out.”

Dax nods. “See? I’m injured. Doctor says so.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Moral support.”

I open my mouth to say something, but Callie unwraps the bar and shoves it in my mouth. Probably for the best, honestly.

Spencer peacocks in the room like he owns it. “Cute place, Sharpe. Not really the kind of pad I pictured you in though, Callie.”

I want to question why he’s picturing anything about my girlfriend, but my mouth is still full.

Callie levels him with a neutral look that only I know is lethal enough to kill. “And how would you know what I want, Spencer?”

Something I can’t read flashes across his face. But Lance calls my name from the hallway.

“Something else is being delivered and they want to know where to bring it. I think it’s a dresser.”

As much as I want to see this play out, I walk into the hall. Sure enough there’s a dresser and some end tables. All at once, I regret letting Callie talk me into all new furniture. Then again, she did it while we were naked in bed, so… I don’t have many regrets.

I direct a few of the college guys to take the end tables to the living room, but Lance helps me with the dresser.

Callie is busy helping Summer reorganize the kitchen, but Spencer is nowhere to be seen.

Good . I hope he left. Actually, I hope he’s crushed somewhere under the new velvet sofa.

I’m heading into our room with the dresser when Callie calls out. “That goes in the spare room!”

The spare room.

Otherwise known as the nursery. It’s still mostly empty except for the hockey memorabilia still clinging to the walls. I’m more than happy to ditch all of it to make space for our baby.

“Is that a signed Gretzky?” Lance all but drops the dresser as he rushes towards the jersey hanging behind glass on the wall.

“Yeah. I bought it when I got my first professional paycheck.”

“Did you use the whole damn thing?”

“Bro, I ate Ramen for a month.” I chuckle. “Unless Callie wants it in our room, it might be going into storage for a bit. I have to make room for the baby.”

Lance whistles. “That’s fucking wild.”

“If you’re gonna tell me I’m whipped, save your breath. Dax already did.”

“Ah, so that’s how his shoulder got fucked.” Lance laughs at his own joke. “No, I was talking about you being a dad—it’s fucking wild.”

“If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be a dad before the year was out, I wouldn’t have believed you. I never saw this for myself.”

“What? Really?” Lance looks more surprised than I think he has any right to. “It’s wild that it’s happening now—and like this—but you’ll make a great dad, O. You take care of everyone—your sister, the idiots we work with, Callie. You’re a natural.”

I have no idea what to say to any of that, so I’m grateful when Dax starts yelling about pizza from the other room.

Moving furniture isn’t how I would’ve chosen to spend today, but as we head back into the kitchen, everyone is laughing and talking and having a good time. I realize I have a lot to be thankful for right now.

Callie is positively glowing, just standing there with her soda looking flat out like forever.

I’m about to beeline towards her, maybe talk her into sneaking out of the apartment and putting that emergency stop button in the elevator to good use. But as I pass our bedroom, I hear something inside.

The door is cracked, and I poke my head in to find Spencer standing at the foot of our bed.

“The fuck you doing in my room?” I ask. Though I realize immediately I don’t actually care. “You need to learn to mind your business, Santos.”

Spencer just looks at me smugly. “I think you’d be surprised how much of your business and my business coincide.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Spencer bites his bottom lip, chewing on his next words. If Coach wasn’t in the other room, I’d give him something else to chew on.

I’ve never wanted to knock a man’s lights out quite the way I want to wreck Spencer Santos.

“The pizza is here. Grab a slice and leave.”

“That how you say ‘thank you?’” he mutters, heading for the door.

I step in front of him, blocking him in. As much as it physically pains me not to hit him, I ball my hand at my side.

“That’s how I remind you where your place is. You need to learn who is in charge, in my home and at the rink.”

“Captain it like a true man and maybe I would. Then again… probably not.”

He tries to slip past me, but I shove him into the hall.

The asshole bounces off the drywall, and I want to use his skull as a battering ram.

The conversation in the other room dies down as he whirls back to me. “What the f?—”

“Get out,” I snarl.

Spencer laughs, but he’s livid. I can see it in the set of his jaw. “I came here to help and you’re making me leave?”

“You came here to be an insufferable asshole, so yeah, I am.” I shove his shoulder again. “Get. Out.”

“Owen?” Callie appears at the end of the hallway. Her voice is strained, scared.

I don’t know if she’s worried about me or what I’ll do to Spencer. Either way, she doesn’t need to bother. I can handle my own, and Spencer deserves whatever is coming to him.

“Tell your boyfriend to back off.” Spencer starts to turn towards her, and it’s the last straw.

I don’t want him looking at her. Being in this house.

I don’t want him on my team or in my city, either, but I have slightly less control over those things. The first two, though?

I force him towards the door. We move right past Coach, who doesn’t say a word. No one does, actually. The only person who moves is Lance, and all he does is open the door.

Spencer’s bravado fades a little as he makes his way past our silent teammates. He mutters something under his breath as he leaves, but I don’t care.

I didn’t fight him. I kept my cool. But I made my point.

These are my friends. This is my team. Callie is my girl.

And this is my house.