Spite Crush (Rock Hard #2)

Chapter One

~Kellen Fox~

“I hate hockey,” I complained as I pulled my ball cap lower to try to shield my face as my manager led me down the stairs through throngs of fans. “When you said we were going to check out the arena, I didn’t realize you meant we’d be doing it during a game.”

“Yeah, I know.” Craig clapped a hand against my shoulder. “But just think, tomorrow night all this screaming will be for you. ”

“Not my first rodeo,” I grumbled as we continued our long descent toward the glass surrounding the rink. “You had to put us against the boards?”

“Right next to the Inferno penalty box,” he clarified. “They’re great seats.”

“Whatever.” We finally reached the front row and I mumbled apologies as we climbed our way across the legs of seated fans.

I turned a glare to Craig as I wrenched my jacket off before dropping into the folding chair. He hadn’t been kidding. My shoulder was pressed to the plexiglass separating the stands from the penalty box.

“Take your hat off, too” Craig insisted.

“No,” I snapped. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.”

“Well, I do,” he said, reaching over to snatch the cap off my head. “It’s good publicity.”

“It’s obnoxious,” I told him, my hand trembling as I tried to wrestle my hat back from him. “First of all we showed up late, which you know I hate doing for anything. And second, no one cares about celebrities at sporting events. Especially not hockey.”

“What the hell does that mean?” he asked with a deep chuckle as he crammed my hat into his jacket pocket. “Especially not hockey.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Hockey is stupid and no one watches it anyway.”

“Clearly.” Craig motioned to the massive crowd surrounding us.

Yeah, yeah. To be fair, it wasn’t just hockey that I didn’t like. It was all sports in general. It was violent and messy and just not my thing.

I jumped in surprise as two men crashed into the glass right in front of us. The sound was unbelievably loud, even over the roar of the crowd around us and I watched in disgust as the two players started throwing punches at each other.

“Well, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my Friday night,” I complained, rolling my eyes toward Craig .

“It’s great, right?” he shot back, ignoring my tone and obvious displeasure.

A referee skated over and broke up the fight, his hand signals indicating something that seemed to anger the crowd, as well as the player wearing number thirteen for the Inferno, who wrenched open the door to the penalty box and skated inside before turning and screaming loudly across the rink.

“Hey, Ref, did you get permission from your wife to come out here and fuck me tonight? ”

“Whoa,” I said, unable to stop myself from turning wide eyes toward the player who’d just shouted and was now literally seated next to me on the other side of the partition.

I was surprised to see the player look over at me. He smirked before turning back to watch the game still going on without him.

“That’s Zak Dempsey,” Craig said, motioning with a nod toward the man in the box. “One of the best fucking players in the league.”

“Well, he’s certainly got a mouth on him,” I said .

“Eh.” Craig shrugged. “That’s hockey. They all talk like that. But, to be fair, Dempsey’s the best at that, too.”

Zak Dempsey’s face suddenly filled the massive screen suspended above the arena, and thanks to the wide angle of the shot, I was clearly visible as well.

The crowd exploded in cheers and Dempsey and I waved at the same time, him grinning and me grimacing as I realized I had no idea who the fans were actually cheering about seeing .

In my defense, I was a public figure as well. And it was difficult to blend in with my blond hair and distinctive tattoos littering my neck and arms. Which was why I’d worn the hat in the first place, in an attempt to shield myself from unwanted attention. Maybe I should have kept my jacket on.

“Oh my God,” Craig said, laughing behind his hand as if he didn’t want the camera to pick him up as well. “This is fucking golden.”

“Is he looking at me?” I asked, my gaze now locked on the floor, my hands clasped tightly together in an attempt to get them to stop shaking so violently. I could feel a familiar tightness blooming across my chest and wondered for a moment if I could have a panic attack from worrying about having a panic attack.

“Oh yeah,” Craig said, leaning forward and bending completely across my lap to wave at Zak Dempsey.

“How does he look?”

“Pissed.” I could hear the smile in Craig’s voice and I was tempted to reach over and punch him, but I had no idea where the cameras were currently pointed and didn’t want to see myself on the big screen again, so I just sat there, my leg now bouncing from anxiety.

After a minute, a loud knock sounded next to my head and I blew out a sigh as I turned to meet the bright blue gaze of Zak Dempsey, who was standing up, staring down at me. He flipped me the bird then exited the box to retake his place on the ice .

“You’re going to make a Hockey Tonight highlight reel,” Craig said, knocking his shoulder against mine.

“Fantastic,” I said. “You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me,” he said as he wrapped one arm around my shoulders and opened his phone with his other hand. “You just sold out the last thousand tickets for the show tomorrow night.”

“Because of that?” I asked in disbelief. “It was a ten second blip that happened two minutes ago.”

“Word travels fast, Kellen. You want your hat back? ”

“I want to leave,” I said, sliding down in my chair and resting my feet against the boards in front of me. Now that the attention was off of me, I could feel the tension easing from my body and I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly before turning to look at Craig again. “I want to not use a professional sports team full of guys that could beat me up for my own publicity.” I groaned as another fight broke out in front of us, leading to Dempsey once again being sent to the principal’s office. “And I want to not sit here anymore. ”

“Fuck Ref, it’s a whistle not a dick, try to keep it out of your mouth for a minute!” Dempsey shouted before slamming the door and dropping hard onto the bench.

Once again the camera panned over to him and once again I was included in the shot on the big screen over the crowd, who once again went insane.

“Hey, pretty boy!” Dempsey shouted, banging on the glass next to my head. “They’re cheering for me.”

“You think I’m pretty?” I shot back, forcing myself to turn and glare back at him. I was glad to hear that my voice was firm and steady because clapping back doesn’t work so well when you sound as terrified as you feel inside.

Dempsey grinned then winked at me before jumping to his feet with the rest of the crowd, slamming his stick against the boards as the Inferno scored.

The penalty clock expired and once again, Zak Dempsey flipped me off before climbing back onto the ice.

Honestly, I was thrilled that we’d sold out our show. I’d been nervous about the remaining tickets, because a sold-out show sounded a lot better than, you know, not a sold-out show. And it was hard to keep calling yourself the biggest rock band in the world if you couldn’t sell out a one-night arena venue in Michigan.

But this wasn’t how I’d wanted to accomplish it. And the whole ‘ no publicity was bad publicity ’ thing was crap if I was going to be a highlight on Hockey Tonight for embarrassing myself at the game.

“Craig, you’re fired. ”

“Shut up and watch the game,” Craig insisted. “You might actually find something to like about it.”

I highly doubted that. Though, I had to admit, Zak Dempsey was really hot. And I liked that quite a bit.