The Langfield Brothers: Box Set

40. Aiden

FORTY

AIDEN

The music in the locker room is turned up loud, and the guys are getting into the zone. For years, my pregame routine has been to dance and sing and get the team pumped up.

Brooks couldn’t be more different. He slips on a pair of headphones and ignores every one of us while he goes through every play he thinks could occur on the ice.

Our lineup isn’t the only thing that is different this year.

I’m changing up my routine. Sitting against the bench, I focus on my phone, reading each word as Lennox does. The last two months have been nothing short of everything I’ve ever dreamed of, despite the normal dips in my mood. Hockey during the day, Lennox in my bed at night. Scratch that. Me in Lennox’s bed every night. Fulfilling every one of her desires. Making her come until we’re both sweaty and exhausted. Until her guard has lowered and she spills every thought that enters her brain. Every wish. Every desire.

I absorb every word. Using them as a play map to win her back. To keep her.

I study her every move, her every desire. Like right now. My girl is reading a stalker romance about two men who are obsessed with the same woman. Naturally, I’m cataloging every detail, running through ways I can make this little fantasy play out for her. Without anyone else touching her, of course. I’m crazy about her, not plain crazy.

“What are you doing? Did you manage to get New York’s play sheet?” Daniel’s question pulls me from my deep thoughts.

I lock my phone. The pages have stopped flipping anyway, which means Lennox has stopped reading. My guess is that she’s getting ready to head to the arena with Sara. In my jersey.

My cock swells at the mere thought of it. I begged her to put it on last night. Told her I’d get a chubby during the game if she didn’t give me a preview.

She refused.

And here I am, hard at just the thought.

I’m so fucked.

“Just a book.” I tip forward and stretch, ready to move through the rest of my routine. No more fucking around. Tonight is going to take all my focus and attention.

Not only is it the first game of the season, but it’s the first time I’ll be up against Vincent Lukov since I found out he’d been fucking my girlfriend for years behind my back.

Scumbag.

I’ve already gotten my revenge on Jill. Tonight, I’ll take down Lukov for good. And then I’ll move on.

“Since when do you read?” Camden chirps, earning him a swift hit in the back of the head from our new captain.

“Don’t be an ass.”War has been different the last few weeks. More focused. More serious.

“I see the C hasn’t eased that aggression,” I tease.

He folds his arms over his chest and lifts his chin. “Fine. Be an ass, Camden. Ask him what he’s reading.”

The knowing tone has the back of my neck heating. Does he know?

No. He couldn’t possibly know what I did.

Camden runs his hands through his hair with a grimace. “I feel like I’m walking into a trap.”

Eyes narrowed, I study War. “What do you know?”

He doesn’t move a muscle. His stare hardens.

Brooks must sense the tension. He slides his headphones down, letting them fall to his neck, and surveys all of us. “What’s going on?”

War raises a single brow. “Waiting for Aiden to tell us what he was reading.”

A bead of sweat drips down my spine, and my throat gets tight. Feigning a cool I don’t feel, I shrug. “Why are you all being weird?”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” Daniel says, swinging a leg over the bench so he’s facing me. “What’s on that phone of yours?”

My brother swipes it from my hand and clutches my chin, forcing me to look at the screen. “ Ow ,” I yell as the phone unlocks, and my home screen appears.

He tosses it to War before I can grab it from him.

“What do we have here?” War mutters as he thumbs across my screen. My ogre of a brother holds me in place with just his damn hands on my cheeks. It’s embarrassing, if I’m honest, but even his muscles have muscles. There’s no competing with them.

“Holy shit,” War groans, dropping his head back. “This is worse than I thought.”

Stomach sinking, I close my eyes. Shit. I’ve been outed.

“You cloned her phone?” he hisses. “This is psycho-level shit, Aiden.”

Brooks’s grip on my face tightens. “He what ?”

“It’s not what you think,” I say, though since I can barely open my mouth, the words are jumbled.

“Let him go. We need that pretty face to take on New York,” War mutters, tossing the phone back at me. “Now speak.”

I roll my eyes as I lock my phone and toss it into my bag. Nothing to hide now. “It’s not a big deal. I just like knowing what Lennox is reading so I can act out her fantasies for her.”

Brooks scowls. “Does she know you do this?”

Biting back a grimace, I shrug. Okay, some may call it stalkerish to clone a person’s phone, but I don’t read her text messages or anything. I just follow along with what she’s reading using her Kindle app. Makes me feel closer to her when we’re apart. And we’re going to be apart a lot now that the season has started.

“That’s fucked,” Camden murmurs.

War nods, but his look is appraising rather than condemning. “Truly fucked.”

“Is it because of Lukov?” Brooks says, his tone soft. “Trust issues after what Jill did? You know Lennox isn’t like that. It’s clear she’s crazy about you.”

It’s clear she’s done a great job of making everyone believe she’s crazy about me. Sometimes she even has me convinced.

“I don’t read her messages. I’m not stalking her,” I defend, gripping my phone tight.

Brooks cocks a disbelieving brow.

“It’s like half stalking,” I amend.

War snorts and kicks at the bench leg closest to him. “Half stalking. I like it.”

“You should tell her how you feel,” Brooks offers.

My chest tightens again. He means well, but Lennox and I aren’t like him and Sara. They were best friends when they started fake dating. She never rejected him.

If I tell Lennox how I feel, she’ll call the whole thing off. Then she’ll marry someone else to get her inheritance—someone who isn’t hopelessly in love with her—and I’ll lose my chance at convincing her that we could be more than fake. That we could be forever.

“I will,” I lie. “I do. All the time. Seriously, this isn’t about Jill. I do it to feel closer to her. But I’ll tell her I did it. She’ll probably find it hot. She loves stalker romance.” I grin, hiding my emotions behind my go-to funny guy mask. “Now, it’s time to unveil the new team song I’ve been working on.”

War’s lips twitch. “New song?”

“Yeah, I figure new captain, new season.” Hopping up onto the bench, I raise my hands. “New song!”

“Fuck yeah.” Camden and Daniel launch themselves up onto the bench on either side of me.

The room grows quiet. Why wouldn’t it? This is a sacred part of our game prep.

I start with the beat, stomping my foot twice and following it with a clap. Camden and Daniel catch on quickly, mimicking the movement and sound. It only takes a couple of heartbeats for the rest of the team to catch on to where we’re going with this and break out in cheers as I start my own personal rendition of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

“ Brooksie, you’re our guy, make a big save,

Defense got your back, gonna be a great game today

With Halls to my left and Cap to my right

Sliding the puck right into the net, chanting

The Bolts will, Bolts will win it.

The Bolts will, Bolts will win it .”

The chants grow louder as I lead the team in our new anthem, giving each man attention, calling to their strengths, reminding them that, as a team, we’ve got this.

By the time Gavin comes in to give his pregame pep talk, we’re energized, focused, and ready to take New York down.

Starting the season playing on another team’s turf isn’t ideal, but it happens. Tonight, though, is so much worse than any old away game. New York fans hate us. They’ve welcomed Seb with open arms, seeming not to mind that he’s a cheating asshole who cares about no one but himself.

I keep my eyes averted from New York’s bench so that I don’t inadvertently make eye contact with the fucker. I try my best to stay grounded during warm-ups as Daniel and I circle one another, slapping the puck back and forth, then as we move into stretches. The music in the arena is loud, but War is quieter than normal, his gaze drifting to New York’s bench often. Unlike me, he’ll gladly make eye contact with Seb, and every time he does, he shoots daggers.

Brooks skates out of the crease and taps me on the back. “You ready for this?”

I throw my weight into him, wrapping him and his bulky gear up. The guy doesn’t even budge. “I’m good, bro. Let’s fucking do this.”

Brooks releases me with a laugh and skates backward, gloved hand pointed at me. “Let’s go.”

War is by my side an instant later. “Remember, let him come after you first. You can’t make the first move.”

“You can’t either,” I remind him.

War’s grin is devilish. “Don’t you worry.”

“You remember your lines, right?”

War rolls his eyes. “To the wall—yeah, I got it.”

I smack him against the chest. “Don’t fuck with the songs, War. It’s how we win games.”

He skates away from me. “No. We win because I toss you the biscuit, Lep.”

I’m readying a quip when I catch a glimpse of pink behind his head. “Move,” I yell, waving wildly and tilting to one side to look around him.

He does a little dance, blocking my view, but when I charge toward him, he skates out of the way.

She hasn’t spotted me yet, so I speed toward the plexiglass and stop with a twist of my ankle, icing the boards. When she still doesn’t see me, right the fuck in front of her, I bang on the glass.

Lennox finally turns my way, her pink lips turning up in a big smile. “Hey, Hockey Boy. Fancy seeing you here,” she yells.

With a twirl of my finger, I motion for her to turn around, but she just raises her eyebrows coyly, as if she has no idea what I want.

Tease.

“Princess,” I growl. I need to see my name on her back. Though I’m loving the way the jersey fits snugly across her breasts. How the Bolts blue makes her irises more vibrant. As I take her in from head to toe, my jersey, a pair of white jeans with slivers of her thighs peeking out beneath the ripped fabric, I catch on a flash of blue in her hair. Amidst the pink, she’s got a tiny blue braid on each side of her head. As she slowly turns, she reveals that the braids meet at the back of her head with a blue ribbon. And she’s wearing my fucking name and number. As I take it all in, the Langfield emblazoned across her shoulders and the 12 beneath it, my cock thickens beneath my gear.

Just as my gear gets a little uncomfortable, she turns around and winks. “Now go win the game. If you’re lucky, I’ll still be wearing this when you get back to our room tonight.”

I’m a simp for this girl. Despite how focused I am on winning tonight, it’s incredibly hard to skate away. So I don’t. I watch her continue on to find her seat until War literally drags me by the back of my jersey to center ice.

I’ll probably be a meme tomorrow, and I couldn’t give two fucks.

My girl’s in my jersey, I’m smiling, and we’re about to kick New York’s ass.