Page 10 of Game Misconduct

Jesse was nowresponsibleand afamily man. Again, cute but kinda barf-inducing.

Tanner loved the kids though. Maura and Evie reminded him of his sisters, who he didn’t get to see often enough.

Tanner suddenly realized he was slowly being crushed to death in a pile of big, sweaty men—not all bad!he thought cheerfully—but he did actually need to breathe at some point. He shoved his way out of the celly, gasping for air.

“You were right there, Clayton,” Crawford said, palming Tanner’s helmet and shaking him until Tanner’s teeth rattled. “You sure do know how to get under Leif Rasmussen’s skin.”

“Told you,” Tanner said smugly as they skated toward the bench. “I know how to make the ice princess melt.”

Connor snorted. “More like spontaneously combust. The dude looked fuckin’ pissed. What did you say to him?”

Tanner smirked, slipping onto the bench and scooting down to give the other guys room. “I just reminded him of the moment we had in Chicago last summer.”

Graham frowned. “What moment? I thought he spent the whole camp more or less ignoring you. That’s what it looked like to me, anyway.”

“Yeah,moreor less,” Tanner pointed out. “This was when we were heading back to the hotel after the farewell dinner.”

“Oh, isthatwhy he disappeared that night?” Graham asked.

“Yup.” Tanner shot him a bright grin. “He had to take a few cooldown laps.”

Not that Tanner had been in a good mood after their hookup either. The shit Leif had said about his family was so fucking uncalled for.

What the fuck? Who the fuck said shit about a guy’sfamily? Theirmom? Scumbags. Total scumbags, that was who.

Because, yeah, fine. Maybe Leif had some valid reasons for being pissed at Tanner.

They’d never really gotten along.

Tanner had tried, God knows, he’d fuckin’triedto be friends with the dude back when they’d played together in Belmont, Massachusetts, but Leif was always so snooty.

Always with his nose in the air and convinced he was God’s gift to hockey.

Always looking down on Tanner for having fun. Telling him he should be more serious. He should practice more and screw around less.

Always acting like the only reason Tanner had made it on the team was because his stepdad was the coach.

Which was total bullshit of course. Jeff wouldnever.

Tanner didn’t really remember the details of his tryout anymore, but he definitely knew there had been some outside person overseeing it or something. All above board.

And dude, there were tons of players coached by theiractual fucking bio dads.

Honestly, if anyone had the advantage, if was fucking Leif.

Leif with his Hall of Fame father to teach him everything. With a bajillion fucking dollars from his dad’s NHL money and his supermodel mother’s career to spend on equipment and private fucking coaches and all that shit.

Tanner was the one who had to work twice as hard because his bio dad had fucked their family over, running off with some chick he was banging along with most of the money when Tanner was fourteen.

Tanner’s mom had worked her ass off to pay for his used hockey equipment and shit, but she hadn’t started sleeping with Jeff to get Tanner on the team when he turned sixteen.

Sure, they’d met through Tanner’s hockey about a year after Tanner’s dad left, but she’d fallen in love with him because hewas a nice fucking guy. Because he was there for Tanner when he needed to talk to someone. When he was mad at everything in the world. Especially his dad.

So Leif had it all fucking wrong.

But he’d been Tanner’steammateon the Belmont Furies and Tanner wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, so hetriedto brush it off and treat the guy well.

They’d been playing together for two years by the time shit really hit the fan.