Page 38 of The Penalty

Colin pulls something out of his inside pocket before dumping pills into his hand. “Good thing I carry an emergency stash.”

Owen grumbles but throws them in his mouth, washing them down with his drink.

“Still okay with dinner?” Colin asks.

“The pills don’t work in five seconds and I’m not sure if they’d tell me it was a bad idea anyway. Why would I deprive you of that joy?” Owen says with a slight smile.

“Just more reasons to love you.” Colin kisses Owen hard before turning to Teddy. “I’ll call you with a date.”

“We will be there,” Teddy says before I can object.

TWELVE

TEDDY

Sitting in front of my cubby, I’m crocheting a hat to give to one of the guys before our first game. If I don’t finish it and give it to one of the boys, we will lose. It’s a fact of the universe. You can’t tempt the hockey fates by not doing what they demand.

I’m singingRoar by Katy Perrywhen the guys start showing up and Porter interrupts me.

“Uh, whatcha doing there, bud?” He drops onto the bench next to me, still in his street clothes.

“Tap dancing,” I say as I force my hook through the fluffy green yarn. The first hat of the season has to be a team color.

“This is a weird goalie thing I’m not going to understand, isn’t it?”

“Don’t blame me for you not understanding things.” I grab the yarn and pull it through to create a stitch, then move to the next one. Shit. How many stitches am I supposed to have?

One, two, three, four?—

“I’m not blaming you for?—”

“Five! Six! Seven!” I count loudly, so I don’t lose my spot and to hopefully make him shut up.

“What the fuck is happening in here?” Rizz, one of the second line defensemen, asks.

“Twelve! Thirteen!” I continue on in full volume. I swear if they make me lose count, I will stab them with my hook. Can’t they see I’m busy here?

“He’s doing goalie shit,” Porter says and gets changed. “You better get changed man, Coach is in a mood today.”

Everyone around us groans, and I lose my count somewhere around twenty-five. Fuckers.

“I’m about to be in a mood if you don’t fuck off.” I shove my crochet stuff back in the plastic bag, then into my gym bag.

“He’s not doing whatever that is naked, so I’m calling it a win.” Porter shrugs.

“Not since I got the yarn tangled around my dangly bits and got rope burn on my favorite buddy.” I shudder at the memory. It was horrible. A dark red line wrapped around my dick that burned like fire when I got hard or touched it. “Plus the teammate—who will not be given a name—refused to wear the hat when I was done.”

Rizz cocks an eyebrow. “I can’t say I blame him for not wanting to wear your dick yarn hat.”

“Wait,” Porter interjects. “Rope burn?” He looks pained and cups his own favorite buddy.

“It ruined my season!” I yell at Rizz, shoving him away from me. “I had to lube up to put my jock on! Do you know how hard it is to clean lube out of the goalie jocks? He’s dead to me. Everyone else wore the hats I made. Every. One.”

Rizz laughs while Porter covers his mouth but I know he’s laughing too. The jerks.

“Chick was desperate for it. Said she had a breeding kink,” Shredder sighs as he comes around the corner with his hands on his heart. “I might have met the one, boys.”

Breeding kink?

---