One

ONE

REN HO

This game is brutal. I try my best not to glance up at the clock as I drop to the bench and Zenia Talmage takes my place on the ice. Minnesota is playing for keeps tonight. With three minutes left, we're tied 5-5.

My eyes flicker to the board anyway, because I can't help myself. The shots attempted are ridiculous. Minnesota is at forty-eight, and we've attempted nineteen. On the one hand, that means our score vs. attempt ratio is much better. On the other hand, we can't make a score we don't even attempt.

I reach for the water bottle in front of me and take a long drink as I watch the puck in our defensive zone. It's Marion Arivitis in the net tonight. I glance at Felton Badcock, our other goalie. Coach rotates our goalies somewhat regularly. His thought behind it is that both need to be in top form in case one needs to be out for injury or whatever. So both need ice time.

Generally speaking, I don't disagree. But as a rule, Felton does better against Minnesota, so I think it's smarter to put him in when we play them. His style of play is just more effective against theirs than Marion's.

I don't point this out. The last time someone pointed out something like this, they ended up doing mad hustle at practice. Which might have seemed cruel at the time, but their agility on the ice next game was incredible. I saw several teammates repeating his ‘punishment' for questioning Coach.

Zenia raises his stick as he skates our way and Willits Hopland trades out. I take another drink and scooch down the bench, wincing when Zenia gets slammed into the boards right outside our box. The crowd roars its displeasure when there's no penalty called.

"That should have been boarding!"

"Open your eyes, ref!"

"You're supposed to be watching the game, ref, not drying your nails."

I snort. Next to me, Denny Willow chuckles. "Seriously. Where do they come up with this shit?" he asks, his eyes tracking the puck.

Most of the time, I don't even hear the crowd. I'm too focused on the puck. But that one was right behind the bench and for whatever reason, I tuned in just then.

Minnesota shoots and I'm nearly off my seat as Marion practically tackles the puck. His momentum has him sliding and one of Minnesota's players falls over him. The whistle blows since the goalie has the puck hidden under his body.

Defense doesn't switch out as the refs move the game back to puck drop, but the offensive does. I tap sticks with Denny as he climbs the half wall and sets skates on the ice. There's fifty-one seconds left. Denny is a power forward and a super strong puck handler, so we typically try to get him back on the ice toward the end when we're tied, or the game is close.

"We're going strong in OT," Coach Shively says behind us.

I press my lips together. That's a mistake. All you have to do is look at the shot attempts to see that we need a defenseman to protect the net.

No one argues as we watch the fast back and forth of the puck. In those fifty-one seconds, Minnesota manages two more attempts. Then the end of regulation is called, and our team returns to the bench. Glancing up at the clock, I see five minutes.

"Willow, Ukiah, Jordan," Coach says. "You're up."

The two defensemen and one wingman step into the box as Dasan Ukiah climbs out. Denny meets my eyes and I know he's thinking what I'm thinking.

No one says anything in argument. We all take our seats, catching our breath and hydrating. I glance up at the luxury boxes. Though I can't actually see anyone from here, I know that the new owner is almost always in attendance when we have home games. I wonder how much he knows about hockey.

Honestly, I love the new colors. The logo is a little… strange—snowy trees and a swooshing puck—but I like the mellow blue. It's not all that common for a team to get a makeover when they're staying put. If we'd moved cities, that would be understandable. To date, I haven't heard an explanation for why he changed the team name.

We have a year under our belt with Edries Franklin owning the team. It's been interesting since the moment he showed up in our franchise. He immediately changed our name and brand and then his wife filed for divorce soon after. Yep, it's been wild. I've never seen an owner in the headlines as much as Winnipeg's.

The puck drops and there's a scuffle trying to get it. At first, Dasan manages to grab it but it catches on his blade and stalls, allowing Minnesota to knock it to their side. There's a chase and their offense takes it behind the goal and Denny cuts the chase short to swing back around in front of their crease, heading toward our end to cut the puck off.

He slings it toward our side and the players on the ice converge. They pick it up and though Jordan is on him, actively pushing for the puck—his stick even connects several times—as they round in front of the goal, Minnesota shoots and fucking gets it in.

The crowd bellows. Since this is a home game, it's more boos than cheers. I groan and let my head fall back. Fuck.

Zenia sighs as he gets to his feet. "Bullshit," he mutters as we climb out of the box and head for the locker room.

At least we're home tonight. I can go home and wallow in my own bedroom.

On my way out, I pause as Felton crosses the ice toward the other team. Dasan stops next to me. More of our teammates slow their progress when they see Felton moving across the ice.

I'm not at all surprised as he gives the scorer a congratulations with a big Felton grin. They talk for a minute and end in a bro hug before Felton turns back toward us. He's smiling because this man is always smiling.

"Did you really congratulate him on his win against us?" Willits asks, incredulously.

Felton nods, shrugging. "This is Lynch's first NHL OT score, his second score in his NHL career. I thought it was worth congratulating."

I shake my head, but honestly, that's exactly the kind of guy Felton is. We all love that about him. He's quirky as most goalies are, but he's kind, thoughtful, and genuine. Even though most of the time, he pretends to be an arrogant asshole when the camera is looking, around the team, he's a really good guy.

And during moments like this when a rookie scores something big, he's a fucking amazing guy. There aren't many players on rival teams that would do that, though I wonder if he'd feel differently if he'd been the goalie Lynch scored against.

"That's cool, man," Dasan says, clapping his shoulder. "Now let's go drink our misery away."

Felton follows, his bulky frame hobbling down the chute. It's remarkable how goalies manage to move as agilely as they do on the ice. They're basically wearing as much gear as they weigh and somehow can almost outmaneuver all of us.

Off the ice is a different story, though he moves easily enough.

Felton is a beast off skates, so on skates he's practically a giant. I think he's closing in on seven feet, so those extra few inches of skate truly make him incredible and he practically fills the net. I often wonder if he was a big kid. Was that why he ended up in the net?

The locker room is quiet while Coach talks. His speech and tone aren't overly disappointed. I think he can even admit that we should have had me or Willits on the ice for OT. He ends with telling us we had a very good game, and how our stats are much better than theirs in attempts vs. goals, which makes me smirk because I had been thinking that too.

Once I go through the shower, taking extra care to scrub my hands, I dress and wait for Zenia and Denny. We head for the club to let the music and sweaty bodies take us out of the bad mood. After parking our cars at Zenia's, we take a rideshare to the club so we can all drink.

"We getting a girl tonight?" Denny asks.

I glance at the driver. His eyes remain on the road.

Sometimes, we do that to celebrate a win. There's something erotic about a gang bang.

"Carson and Kroy meeting us?" Zenia asks.

Denny nods. "Yep. Kroy's on his way. Carson's already there."

A shiver of anticipation slithers down my spine. The first time we did this was an accident. I'm not sure how that accident happened, but the five of us somehow ended up in a hotel room with this girl and took turns fucking her for hours.

She was totally into it too. And completely sober, which is always a must for obvious reasons. We also try to make sure they don't recognize me, Zenia, and Denny. Non hockey fans are typically one of our criteria, because this is just one of those things that the news would love to share. It's a precarious game we play—more often than we should—but we're relatively careful and have a tremendous amount of luck, if I'm honest.

"We'll see what we find," I say.

As a rule, I'm usually pickier on who we share. It's an unspoken rule that we only share together. The five of us. Never when one or more is missing. I don't even know why. Bonding exercise, I guess.

I don't have a preference for a particular body type or race or anything; it's more about personality for me. Eager but not draping themselves over us. I need to get the vibe that they're excited at the prospect of being fucked five ways. Nerves and anxiety are fine. I don't expect many people we casually run into being down for a gang bang, but I don't want to get the feeling that they're unsure.

The guys are less concerned with this which is why I need to have the final say. I will never allow a time when someone comes back and claims that they were coerced into being with us.

There are places to participate in this kind of kink in a safer environment than what we're doing. I've even suggested it. But having our names on record feels a little… unsettling. That shit could leak. While people shouldn't care, they will, and that's not the kind of attention we want hanging around as a pro athlete.

The images of Max Latham on a St. Andrew's Cross two summers ago are still fresh in my mind and likely will be for the rest of my life. The shit show that came from that. Not just for him, but the surge of compromising images of athletes was wild.

It trickled through other industries too—music, television, even some big-time law firms and politicians. The entire thing was freaking wild. Not going to lie—the three of us hockey players held our breaths, waiting for a claim. A whisper. Anything at all.

Perhaps it gave us a small sense of security when the entire thing eventually smoothed out and we could get back to the usual level of scandal in the world. But it made one thing crystal clear—anyone who recognized us in any capacity was a flat-out no. No discussion. No bartering, begging, or bribing would ever change my mind.

As we step out of the car, I could admit that maybe we could do with a little pick me up tonight. Tonight was a rough game and ended in a stupid situation that shouldn't have happened if we had a damn defenseman on the ice. It wasn't even a stupid ref call, but a stupid coach call. It could have been avoided.

That's not to say we wouldn't have still lost. But we wouldn't have lost fifteen seconds into overtime! I'm confident about that.

Whatever.

The line wasn't long tonight, and Carson's by the door when we step inside. Kroy follows less than a minute later. Without a word, we head to the bar to get a drink and scope out the selection tonight.

It's easy to tell who recognizes us. You can see them staring and pointing as they tell someone else. It's a fifty-fifty chance whether they'll come over and ask to dance. We like to see who they go to. Over half the time, it's Denny. Apparently, he's a hottie. It's pretty equal between me and Zenia after that.

Kroy and Carson keep tabs on it. They find it amusing. I'm glad that they don't get offended when it's not them being approached. The boys understand that it's not anything other than our celebrity status that gets attention. And our bank accounts. Thankfully, they just ride with it.

"That one?" Kroy says, nodding his head in the direction of a high-top table.

There's a single girl there, her finger tracing the rim of a glass that doesn't look like it's been sipped from at all. Her chin is on the palm of her other hand as she stares, bored, at the bodies on the dance floor. If there's ever a posture that says ‘I don't want to be here,' it's that one right there.

I swallow back the rest of my drink and set the glass on the bar. As a pack, we approach. She doesn't notice us until we're maybe a dozen feet away. Then she's wary.

Which is fine and I like that expression. She should be wary of five men approaching her. I'd be more concerned—and just as likely to nix her as an option—if she wasn't wary. But what I'm really looking for is a glimmer of recognition as she scans our faces. Her eyes dart between us as she sits up straight.

"Hey," Kroy says and her eyes land on him. Since he's probably the most charming of all of us, he's often the one to break the ice. He can flirt with you, and you'll be sucked right in before you even know it. He does it to us just to see if he can and the smug look he gives us when we realize says it all. "We'd love to dance with you, if you're interested."

Her eyes widen. "All of you?"

Kroy nods, smiling. "All of us."

She shivers. It's subtle, but we don't miss it.

Dancing first is mandatory for no other reason to gauge how much she's had to drink. Not whether she can dance. It also gives me enough time to watch her, making sure she doesn't recognize us and to see if her interest grows.

However, she has to agree first.

The woman isn't quick to do so, but eventually, she nods, and we even earn a shy smile as she gets to her feet, abandoning her drink entirely.

I glance on the dance floor and nearly stop when I think I see Felton. Which is ridiculous. He wouldn't be here. No, it's just the guy's massive frame that made me think it was him. Shaking my head, I follow my friends and the girl to the dance floor, pushing Felton from my mind entirely.