Page 111 of Home Game

“I noticed you took my advice with the sparklers.”

“It was good advice.”

“Jensen is in there like a dirty coat.”

I eyeballed the table where Jensen stood helping Zoey distribute the cake. She smiled up at him in a way that gutted me. That whole thing made my stomach tight.

I spoke to a waiter who walked by. “Can you grab me a scotch, neat?”

I looked at Mica who nodded.

I took a deep breath, “So how did you get everyone to come over?”

“I’m good at PR.”

“That you are.”

He slapped my back. “No one on the team wants to fight. Not with you or with anyone else. They all know you’re valuable on the ice.”

My smile felt tight. “I don’t want to fight. I want to play hockey.”

I couldn’t keep my eyes off Zoey. She stood beside the GM’s daughter, Rory Ashford, and chatted with her like they were old friends. Jensen stepped up and said something that made them both burst out laughing.

Mica drained his glass. “Come on. Now let’s make you some friends.”

The party feltlike a fucking job interview. Mica and I worked our way around the room where I did my best to connect one-on-one with every member of the team. I smiled until my face hurt, laughed at everyone's jokes and found something to connect me with every single player and his plus one.

It was exhausting. Mica never left my side, going down in history as the best wingman possible. He seemed to have a relationship with everyone and they all respected and liked him. By proxy, because of him, they were giving me a chance.

I knew this was my big moment to try to gel with the team, but fuck if Zoey wasn’t distracting me.

When I got a glimpse of her, she was often laughing and talking to various people, all the time with Jensen glued to her side like fuzz on velcro. Why did she have to look so damn cute with her blonde hair and her short skirt?

Krista stood in the middle of the living room and clapped her hands. Someone had pushed the furniture to the walls, and in the huge center, was 15 cushions in a circle.

Everyone fell silent.

Krista’s voice rang out clear. “So, tonight, we are going to play a party game, called musical cushions with a partner. The men travel in a circle in one direction around the cushions, and their partner travels in the opposite direction. As you already can guess, there is one more couple than there are cushions. So, you must grab your partner, land on a cushion and the couple that doesn’t get a cushion is out. The winner gets this 50-year-old bottle of scotch.”

I watched as players grabbed their girlfriends and wives and tugged them towards the cushions. I knew how competitive my teammates were. This game could get rough and there was only one way to make sure that Zoey didn’t get hurt. I made a beeline towards Zoey. A moment before Jensen turned towards her, my arm snaked around her waist, tugging her hard against me.

“Be my partner.”

Her blue eyes sparkled and the cutest giggle escaped out of her. “Okay.”

Jensen looked at me with a hard expression.

“One more thing to make this game more exciting. We will remove the last woman seated from the game, so there will always be one guy without a partner. He can grab any woman to sit on hislap and that means the partnerless guy will have to leave the game.”

The men eyeballed each other.

“Everyone ready?”

Sixteen couples lined up in a circle and the music started. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Zoey. Her face was flushed, and she was laughing. The music stopped. She screamed, and I charged over the pillows, nearly colliding with four of my teammates. I grabbed her and pulled her onto a cushion.

She leaned back against me, giggling.

“We’re safe,” I said into her ear. She shivered.

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