Page 1 of Lucky Laces
Prologue
Diana
I fell for a hockey player.
How could I not?
And, despite my best efforts, the world found out every juicy detail.
One
Diana
We’retwo minutes into the first game of the season and we’re down a goal.
This is not where I want my team to be.
But it’s part of hockey.
It’s not all breakaways and top-shelf goals.
Sometimes…it’s fucking up early and clawing our way back.
Tonight, that fuck-up is on me.
I’m the head coach—itallcomes down to me.
My job, my choices, my…
Fuckups.
Sighing softly, I start to tear my eyes from the jumbotron overhead, from the replay of the shitshow that just happened on the ice.It’s changed to a video of the Eagles’ mascot—which is, no surprise, an Eagle—striding down a hallway near the luxury suites overhead.
He’s probably going to go torture the team’s owner, Jean-Michel Dubois.The notoriously grumpy billionaire is in attendance tonight, and the last time Wings, the mascot, invaded his box, he glared the overgrown bird into submission before escorting him from the room.Meanwhile, his unofficially adopted daughter, Rory, stole the mascot’s T-shirt gun so she and his bio daughter, Chrissy, could shoot the prizes into the stands.
The crowd loved it.
Mostly because Jean-Michelisgrumpy and has little patience for bullshit.
But also because the grump aside, Jean-Michel is a known softie, especially for the women in his life.
So I have a feeling the T-shirt cannon thing is going to become a regular event.
Only as I start to focus back on the ice, the commercial break winding down, the players from both teams slowly moving to their positions at center ice, I realize it’s not merch giveaways that are going to happen tonight.
It’s heartbreak.
Because right there on a forty-by-thirty foot screen for all to see?—
(Or maybe just me).
There’s a couple in an alcove.
A couplecanoodlingin that alcove.
And I recognize the tattoo on the man’s arm, which is currently looped around a curvy brunette whose face I can’t see, his hand splayed, fingers wide as they cup…well, thosecurves.
I don’t have an ass, not like that.
