Page 37 of Riding the Pine

I keep my head down during the first period or at least try to. A two-minute boarding penalty for a gentle shove was a bit of embellishment to say the least. If you ask me, the ref is sending the wrong player to the box. Give that fucking Snow Pirate an Oscar for his performance.

While I’m sitting in the box, that asshole Finn O’Brien skates past and blows me a kiss. Under normal circumstances I’d flip him off and let it go, but today’s not a normal day, is it? Today, I’m Scott Raine, nephew of a criminal, cousin of criminals, fuck, I bet my absent father’s even rotting away in a jail cell.

A growl rattles in the back of my throat as I punch the glass in the penalty box, O’Brien chuckling to himself as he skates away.

Bastard.

My two minutes in the box becomes four, then eight. And after O’Brien and I drop the gloves and beat seven shades of shit out of each other, I get a ten for misconduct, and my ass is riding the pine.

After each penalty I try to rein it in, try to calm the indignant rage charging through my body. If I stop being an asset to the team, my ass will be on the line. Coach will bench me if I’m a liability. I can’t lose my spot. If I do, I’ll lose everything. My scholarship, my housing, my ability to buy myself new socks.

Gone.

Sitting with my head in my hands in the box, I ignore the son of a bitch in the box next to me who busted my lip making the blood trickle down my chin and drip onto my shirt.

A small piece of me is puffing out my chest that he’s sporting a similar cut above his eye and had to get some Vaseline on it to stop it getting into his eye. He’s a good fighter, we went toe-to-toe and gave the crowd something to cheer for, but Coach’s glare scorches my face through the clear plexiglass of the sin bin.

After the game, I don’t talk to anyone, don’t look anyone in the eye, and am summoned to Coach’s office tomorrow morning where I’ll face my penalty for daring to have an off night. The de la Peñas can fuck around all they want because they have the wallets to buy their way out of trouble, but us mere mortals need to be above reproach at all times.

Athena’s waiting outside the rink as I exit. The flutter in my heart tells me I want her to be here for me. I’m on my way to my car, and she’s leaning against the wall of the building looking beautiful with her hair tossed casually on top of her head. Or at least, that’s how it looks. I’ve seen her put her hair into a ponytail. And often, what looks like it took thirty seconds to do tends to take an hour.

She’s sporting jeans and a hoodie, a rare but glorious sight. There isn’t a pair of pants this woman can’t wear the fuck out of. The curve of her ass looks spectacular in denim.

Stop staring.

Stop.

Staring.

I give myself another couple of seconds imagining skimming my hand over that perfectly peach shaped ass before she seems to sense my presence—wishful fucking thinking—and turns my direction.

She gestures to my face. “We’re almost matching.” Her tone lacks any humor. “Want to talk about…” She opens her palm and circles it in my direction. “That?”

“You watched the game?” Part of me hopes I look half as fly in my game night suit as she does in her jeans and hoodie.

She waves her phone at me. “Kept up with it online. I was hanging with Savannah.”

“Came to scold me for dropping my gloves?”

She snorts. “Would that keep you out of the box?” She arches her brow. She knows me so well.

“Probably not. He deserved it.”

“I believe you.”

I take a step toward her, not for any reason other than I want to be closer to her. “You going to tell Ares about Mathias hurting you?”

“Ares, God of war?” She laughs. “Not likely, Gizmo. He’ll be the last person I tell. With his hot head and this.” She points at her cheek. “He wouldn’t give Mathias the benefit of the doubt. He’d beat him into a coma for daring to bruise his big sister.”

I grunt my agreement, because part of me still wants to beat the guy for being too rough with my girl.

My girl.

I almost burst out laughing because as much as I want her to be my girl, for now and forever, it’s never been clearer to me that that can’t happen. She deserves more than a low life from Keystone, Iowa.

She deserves a big city billionaire with a loving family, an immaculate reputation, and annual family Christmas pictures where everyone’s wearing matching pjs. I almost laugh out loud, Ares threatened to get us all matching pajamas for Christmas this year. Now that he’s got himself a sensible woman by his side, he’s gone from taking his clothes off, to wanting us all to wear matching Christmas sleepwear.

It's kind of adorable, and while I’d love Athena to be matchy matchy with me, I just can’t see how she’d ever want to tie herself to my shitty life, shitty family, and likely shitty future.

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