Rush the Edge: A Brother’s Best Friend Hockey Romance (Blue Devils Hockey Book 3)

I’m one of the first ones out of the locker room. After the practice we just had, I’ll be lucky if I can even walk to my car. Probably won’t stop me from going out later, but right now, my quads are twitching with exhaustion.

I swipe my finger against my phone screen and see a few texts asking me when I’m heading to the bar from my teammates and a couple from River. Ease slides into my tense shoulders when I don’t see a text from a random number. It’s not unusual to go months without a text with nothing but a dollar amount, but each day that goes by without one, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Instead of fucking around with a text back to River, I slide into my car and call him.

“What’s up, man?” he asks on the second ring.

“On my way home from practice. You’re not at the hospital today?”

River always was the smartest of our friend group, just like I was the most athletically inclined. Our senior class voted me the most likely to be arrested, which was their little joke after I was arrested, but they voted him most likely to become a doctor one day, and they were right. After completing his bachelor’s in half the time it should’ve taken someone, he’s in his first year of residency, and it turned out he was sent to the same city I play hockey in to complete it.

River snorts sarcastically. “You need practice. That last game sucked.”

“Fuck off,” I snap.

I’m still irritated that we lost our last game and that I wasn’t able to get a hit in when one of their players started getting mouthy with Volkova. Not that the grumpy vet of the team needed me to step in and fight for him, but if he wasn’t going to do it, let someone that will, you know?

“Hey, listen…” River starts off slow, and my hackles rise. “I have something to tell you.”

A certain someone pops into my head, but I quickly banish her like I’ve been doing for the last several years. River eventually caught on that I don’t want to talk about Daisy or care to know how she’s doing, but with his tone crawling with apprehension, I become fully engaged.

“I’m getting a roommate.”

I furrow my brow. “Uh, alright?” Why the fuck do I care?

River lives in the apartment below Malaki and me, so unless his roommate is planning to throw ragers the night before our games, I really don’t give a shit. Now, if he wants to throw ragers on our off nights, then cheers.

A steady breath leaves me when I realize there’s no talk of Daisy or anything like that. I sit back in the driver’s seat with my car idling and turn on my heated seat, hopeful it’ll ease the throbbing in my legs. “You worried I’m going to force your new roommate into my game superstitions or something?”

“Now that you mention it…” he jokes.

I shrug, although he can’t see me. “Better warn him. You know I don’t make the rules. If you’re up, and it’s the night before a game, we do what we need to do.”

“You’re fucking nuts,” he laughs. “Wait…are you still stepping left skate first when getting on the ice for warm-ups?”

I remain quiet because, yeah, of course I am.

“I bet you’re still wearing that hair tie around your wrist during games too. Aren’t you?”

My jaw clenches with the subtle reminder that comes with said hair tie, yet I still wear it.

“Alright, that’s enough. Did you really just want to tell me about you having a new roommate? Because I don’t care,” I say.

“It’s Daisy.”

I choke on utter fucking denial.noveldrama

My heart skips a beat.

I grip the steering wheel tightly even though my car is in park and swallow the bitter thought of her. I act unfazed—like I’ve had to do each and every time he’s brought her up—and repeat what he’s just told me. “Daisy is moving to Chicago?”

Please tell me this is a fucking joke.

“Yeah, and I’m helping her out a little until she gets on her feet. Thought it would be a plus having you in the apartment above in case she needs anything and I’m at the hospital, you know?”

No. I do not fucking know.

I can assure you that Daisy Sullivan will not be calling on me to help her with anything. It’s been years since I’ve come face to face with her, and I’d bet my life that she remembers our last encounter as well as I do.

Before I can say anything that would deter River from having his sister move into the same apartment complex that we live in, he’s rushing off the phone.

I sit in silence for so long my legs grow numb. Four texts have come and gone, asking if I’m heading out for the night. Part of me would rather go home, pull my laptop out, and look for a new place to live, but the other part of me knows I can’t do that. I still owe Malaki for all the rent he covered when I couldn’t—thanks to my inability to deny certain people.

And deep down, I secretly crave to see her face again, just so I can refresh the hazy image of her inside my head to fuel my loathing for another six years.

She was the girl I was never supposed to look at, let alone touch.

Except, I did, and I haven’t been the same since.