The Boyfriend Goal (Love and Hockey Book 1)

Wesley

The fading scent of cinnamon drifts past my nose. That’s a real nice way to wake up. But there are even better ways to rise. I stretch an arm across the bed, reaching for Josie. She’s adventurous. Maybe she’ll be up for one more round.

“Hey,” I murmur, my voice gravelly from the last remnants of sleep.

She doesn’t answer. The room’s quiet. My hand makes contact with…a pillow. My eyes float open.

Pushing up on my elbows, I tilt my head, listening for any sounds of a shower perhaps. It’s dead silent. My shoulders slump, but I’m a glutton for punishment, since I swing my legs out of bed and pad to the bathroom. Just in case she’s, I dunno, quietly applying hotel lotion.

But it’s empty too. I take care of business, then hunt around the room for my clothes. I pull on my boxer briefs before sitting on the end of the bed, more contemplative than I like to be first thing in the morning.

Or, really, ever.

I drag a hand through my messy hair, missing Josie’s hands in it making it messier.

Fact is, I wasn’t just hoping for another round with her. I was hoping to get her number. To ask her to hang out again. Sure, we said it was a one-night stand. But some one-night stands should turn into two nights. Or three.

I’d been planning to suggest as much when we woke up. It’s been a while since I met someone I clicked with so easily. Someone who wasn’t into me for the number on my back. Or, on the flip side, someone who didn’t hate what it represented. Though hate may be a strong word for my ex’s feelings about hockey. Anna looked down on it, it turns out—and me. “You need a life beyond hockey. The sport won’t last forever, you know,” she’d said.

Really, it won’t?

“But you don’t like anything besides hockey,” she’d said. “You never want to discuss the world or ideas. You don’t even read the articles and think pieces I send you.”

No shit.

I’d rather take a puck to the chin than read a fucking essay.

And this trip down Romance Memory Lane was brought to you by The One-Night Stand That Ended Too Soon. But…it’s for the best. Just because Josie and I had one great night doesn’t mean we’d vibe beyond ice cream and the bedroom and random conversations that were—let’s face it—easy to have, given how we met. It’s not hard to talk to someone who’s wearing next to nothing as she bargains to gain entrance to a snooty art gallery.

Besides, my ex wasn’t all wrong. Hockey is my life. I eat, breathe, and sleep it when the season starts, and that’s what’s happening in a few more days. Resigned to not seeing Josie again, I push up from the bed, get dressed, and return to the bathroom to scrub some toothpaste on my teeth. After, I splash water on my face.

That done, I return to the room, looking for my wallet when I catch sight of a white notepad by the entrance to the room.

Huh.

I head over to it. The notepad is propped up next to the door. My name is on the first sheet, with an extra flourish on the Y. She left it there, so I wouldn’t miss it, and my chest pounds with excitement.

I grab it in record time, turning the page. Her handwriting’s neat, with plenty of space between the words, and I’m grateful for that.

Once upon a time, I moved to San Francisco. My first night in town, I met a guy who reminded me of a book.

No one has ever—in my whole life—compared me to a book before. That’s like comparing a truck to a blanket. They don’t go together. With some skepticism, I flip to the next page.

Because he fucked like a page-turner you didn’t want to put down.

And I crack up. A deep belly laugh first thing in the morning. That’s so her. You think she’s going to say something sweet, then it turns out she’s a dirty girl. With a genuine smile, I turn one more page.

Maybe I’ll see you around the city. It’s big, but it’s small too. You never know…

XO Josie

Is it just me or does this note feel a little like a clue? Like she’s a siren in a video game, darting down a passageway, saying come find me.

I’d follow her. I’d look for her. I’d chase her and catch her. Maybe that’s what this is. A little treasure hunt. A riddle, perhaps.

But that’s stupid. If she wanted to get together, she’d have left her number. Not a series of clues. It’s fine she didn’t. Just fine.

I take the three pages, rip them off carefully, and fold them in half, then quarters. I resume the hunt for my wallet so I can save these.

Wait. Where the hell is it? Did she take off with my wallet? Is that why she’s gone?

My skin goes cold. There’s no cash, but my ID and credit cards are in there. What if last night was some long con into identity theft?

You’ve seen too many movies, man.

Or maybe not enough. My pulse spikes as I search the room, but then it slams hard against my rib cage in relief when I spot the vegan leather wallet on the floor by my side of the bed.

I kneel to grab it when I catch sight of a swath of black fabric. Is that…?

I grab it from under the bed.

I am not responsible for the smile that takes over my face. Fate is. Because yeah, it’s a motherfucking clue. This scarf she left. This note she wrote.

This scarf is a glass slipper, and I’m taking it. I know where she lives—in that yellow building on the block by the record store.

I check out of the hotel and walk several blocks to my car, which is littered with tickets, and I don’t even care.

I’ve got a damn good excuse to see my Cinderella again.

That afternoon, I’m racking the bench press next to Asher in the Sea Dogs’ weight room when Max comes in, all glower and attitude. The grumpy goalie travels with his own storm cloud. “You missed last night, Newman.” He grunts as he passes me, heading for the free weights.

At the start of practice today, Asher gave me a hard time for being a no-show at pool, even though I texted those jackasses last night while I was waiting for Josie outside her place. Told them I wouldn’t make it. But Max is wired to give me a hard time. And to use that awful nickname.

“I wouldn’t really say I missed it,” I remark as I add one more plate.

Like a dog who just heard the dinner bell, Asher sits up on his bench, pausing his preacher curls. He’s suddenly more interested in a story than a workout. “You ditched us for Hannah, again, Newman?”

I roll my eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Is that what you told Pamela last night?” Max goads as he grabs a couple barbells, pronouncing it like palmella.

“Yes. That’s exactly what happened last night. I told my hand to fuck off.”

‘And your hand said oh, oh, oh,” Max says, pumping his hips, because we’re all immature like that. But it’s also impressive he can do it while holding weights.

Still, I scratch the side of my face with my middle finger, then lie on the bench, briefly flashing back to the convo with Josie last night when I said, I work out a little.

For a second, a sliver of guilt wiggles through me. Was it rude not to tell her what I do for a living? I mean, she didn’t really tell me what she did. Just said she was in the book business. Probably works for a publisher or at a bookstore. But still, I talked around my job way more than she did.

Was that misleading?

Of course it was misleading.

But was it wrong to hide it the way I did? Well, I can rectify that if she says yes when I figure out how I’ll return the scarf.

As I settle in and wrap my hands around the bar, I nod to Asher. “Spot me, Callahan,” I say, using his last name, rather than his nickname—Pretty Boy. Not that it isn’t fucking amusing to call him that. I’d just like them to stop calling me Newman for being the new guy. The less I say Pretty Boy, maybe the more he’ll call me by my last name—Bryant.

Asher comes behind the bench, standing watch. “I got you,” he says. He’s a winger, and he’s ferocious on the ice. The opposite of how he looks off it. He has the kind of smile that gets him all sorts of sponsorship deals.

As Max shifts into flies, his blue eyes scan the room, clearly looking for someone. “Hey, where’s Winters?”

That’s a good question. “I didn’t see him on the ice.”

“Me neither,” Asher remarks.

“He never misses practice,” Max adds, then his brow knits, like maybe he’s figured out the mystery of our missing captain. But he says nothing. I don’t either as I lift the bar again.

“Too bad you didn’t make it last night, Newman,” Asher remarks as I lift. “Max was off his game big time. Huey and I cleaned up.”

That’s Hugo, one of our top defenders. I saw him earlier when I arrived, but he hit the athletic trainer’s room after practice.

Max scowls. “It’s all part of my strategy. To take you for everything next time.”

I scoff. “Keep telling yourself that, Lambert,” I say as I lift the bar one more time, my muscles straining.

“So how was your night, Bryant?” Asher asks. Thank fuck we don’t use nicknames all the time.

“Don’t tell me a miracle happened and you actually found a woman in this city willing to sleep with your ugly ass,” Max says dryly as he sets down his weights.

Breathing out hard, I put down the bar, then sit up and meet my jackass friend’s eyes. I smirk like a cocky fucker as I think of last night. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

Asher gives me an approving look. “Nice, man.”

Max just shrugs. “Even a broken clock gets lucky once in a while.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “Dude. The saying is even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“That too,” he says as the slap of sneakers in the hallway grows louder. A teddy bear of a hockey player fills the doorframe.

“Give it up for Daddy Winters,” Hugo calls out, then strides into the weight room, wielding his phone like it’s Simba. He brings it to us and we crowd around it. There’s a picture splashed across it. It’s our team captain, Christian Winters, looking overjoyed as he holds two of the tiniest people I’ve ever seen.

“Holy shit,” I say, smiling at the sight of one very happy new dad. That’s why he’s not here.

“He has two little boys. Looks like we’ve got some Sea Pups,” Hugo says, and he’s the softie of the bunch. Probably because he’s already a dad. He and his wife have a little daughter.

“We need to get them skates, stat,” I say.

“And helmets,” Hugo adds.

“And sticks,” Max puts in.

“The pucks are on me,” Asher adds.

Hugo lowers his phone. “And he said he deputized me to handle any problems. So, guess I’m acting team captain.” He puffs out his chest. Power-hungry teddy bear. Which means we need to give him hell.

Asher must feel the same way since he shoots him a doubtful look. “Shouldn’t Weston be the acting captain?” Asher asks.

Weston is Chase Weston, a center and the former captain who stepped down right before I joined the team. He’d been captain for a few years though, earning mad respect from the guys for his calm, focused, and outgoing style. But he’d said he wanted to spend more time with his wife and their dogs. Which I get. If I had dogs, I’d spend as much time with them as I could too. But it’s hard when you’re on the road to have a pet.

“Dude, Weston said Nacho had an agility tournament. He said it like an hour ago when we left the ice,” Hugo says to Asher, shaking his head.

I can see the play before the puck even comes my way. I lunge for it, clapping Asher’s shoulder as I say, “Remember? Weston said he was taking off for the tournament, but that Winters had planned to take us all to dinner tonight. To our favorite hot pot place.”

Asher’s eyes twinkle. “Right. That was it.”

Max strides over, then in his deep voice adds, “The one in Japantown.”

What a beautiful, clever bastard. That’s the priciest hot pot.

“For team morale before our game,” I add with my nice guy smile.

Asher flashes Hugo a satisfied grin. “He told us to round up the other guys.”

My brow pinches, like I’m momentarily confused as I ask, “So that would mean dinner’s on you, right Huey?”

Hugo snaps his fingers. “Dammit.”

When I leave that afternoon, I check my phone on the way to the players’ lot. There’s a message from my sister.

Natalie: Dude, you’re in trouble. I heard you didn’t get any artwork. How could you refuse the chance to decorate your walls with a skeleton horse?

Ah, hell. I’d nearly blocked that art gallery out of my head. I’d also gone almost a whole day without thinking about my dad. But I’m back to my meal plan, my workout routine, and everything else. Which means I’d better order mushroom broth, veggies, and lean chicken tonight at hot pot. But really, I can’t complain.

Wesley: What’s even more mind-boggling is that he told you.

Natalie: I was caught in the crossfire when he called me today about his trip here at the end of the week when the season starts. Anyway, I think Frieda was devastated that you didn’t buy something from her gallery, so she gave Dad an earful, and Dad gave me an earful. But enough about them. WHO IS THE WOMAN IN THE T-SHIRT?

Wesley: Shit. She told you?

Natalie: Well, she told Dad. And Dad told me. And now he wants to know who you’re dating.

I groan as I click on my seat belt. Of course he’d try to get it out of Natalie first. He’s not a shrewd guy for nothing. Natalie loves all things romance, so…

Wesley: Is he asking to see if he thinks she’ll be a distraction or an asset?

Natalie: Well, it is Dad. But this is me, and I want to know because I love you. Details!

Wesley: There’s not much to tell, Natalie.

Natalie: Liar.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

Wesley: I swear. We’re not dating.

Natalie: Really? Frieda made it seem like you guys were together.

Shit. There is that issue to contend with now. The I lied to Dad’s girlfriend issue. But maybe it won’t be such a lie soon enough.

Wesley: I’ll explain it next time I see you. But trust me, we’re not dating. I gotta go.

She says goodbye, and I set the phone down, then pull out of the lot while mentally revising that last statement. We’re not dating yet. When I get home, I flop down on the couch, fire up my laptop, and pay my parking citations. Happily.

Do I walk past Better With Pockets a couple times this week? Yeah, I do. Do I hope on some off chance I’ll run into Josie there? Abso-fucking-lutely. Do I? No, I am not that lucky.

But men who rely on luck don’t get far in life. Dating is like hockey. You need a plan. You need a strategy. You need to know what you’re doing. On Thursday I head into a store on Fillmore Street called Effing Stuff. The place sells little tchotchkes, mugs, coasters, and magnets. I walk up to the counter where a woman with box braids and a nose ring says, “What can I help you with?”

“Hey there. I need a gift bag. For a girl.”

“A girl you like?” the woman asks.

“Yes.”

“What’s her favorite color?”

“Black and white,” I say, feeling a little smug that I know the answer. Hoping the answer leads me to another yes from Josie with no last name.