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

The entire drive to the casino, Reese and I conjured up a million and one plans on how I could tackle this issue.

The issue being Kane.

Evidently, I don’t know Kane at all anymore, because the guy I once knew would never dare fall into the same habits of those who precede him.noveldrama

Gambling?

How could he? After everything he’s been through with his mom and brother?

Is this why he hasn’t made it back home in six years?

My stomach twists. I’m not even angry that I’m standing in a crowded casino, breathing in thick clouds of smoke. Instead, I’m concerned.

I shouldn’t be, especially after his conniving game of strip poker, but old habits die hard, and though he’s a man now, it’s hard not to remember who he was before.

“Hey.”

I perk up when a guy edges his way past my peripheral vision. I turn and slide a smile on my face. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here all alone?” The guy looks me up and down as he smiles. “Are you lost?”

I glance at my outfit. I was in such a rush that I didn’t care what I was wearing, but I’m clearly not in casino clothing.

I’m wearing a baseball hat. Could I look any more out of place?

Another guy steps forward. He’s tall and handsome but way too sloppy for my liking. Amber liquor sloshes out from the top of his drink and spills onto the floor between us. “She’s not lost,” he slurs. His arm winds up around his friend’s shoulders, and I think it may be keeping him upright. “She was on her way to my room before you stopped her.”

His friend chuckles. “Even if you could score someone as beautiful as her, I don’t think you’d be able to get it up right now, bud.”

My cheeks warm from the compliment.

“Move over.” Another guy with broad shoulders and a half-unbuttoned dress shirt slides in front of his two friends. I back up immediately because he’s just as drunk as the second guy. “Want a drink, LA?”

“LA?” I move back every time he sways in my direction. I take the drink he hands me before he spills it on my shirt.

He points to my hat with a cheesy grin on his face.

Oh, right. Dodgers hat. Reese found it in the backseat of her car and placed it on my head in case I needed to be incognito while sneaking up on Kane.

“I’m more of a hockey fan myself, but I can get down with a girl who likes baseball.”

Hockey fan? He’d lose his mind if he knew that Kane was a few tables down.

He’s actually probably losing his mind right now.

Or maybe not.

Maybe he doesn’t care that I’m over here surrounded by a group of hungry men with a drink in my hand. If anything is for certain since coming to Chicago, it’s that I still have no idea what’s going through Kane’s mind.

“Who said I only like baseball?” I ask.

“Ohhhhhh,” the guys yell in unison. “She likes hockey?”

I grin.

I did like hockey, until I was all but forced to be a mascot.

“Who’s your favorite team, blue eyes?” I turn toward the first guy only to see his expression shift.

My drink falls, and the casino spins. An arm slips around my waist, and I’m turned swiftly so I’m blocked from whatever is coming for me. My face hits the hard back of someone, and it only takes me a split second to know that it’s Kane.

With one of his arms behind him, keeping me steady against his firm backside, the other is shoving the drunk guy off to the side where his friends catch him.

“What the hell⁠—”

Silence fills the group.

“Holy shit. Are you Kane Barlow? The one who plays for⁠—”

Kane stiffens. “Yes.”

I attempt to free myself, but his grip tightens around me.

“And you almost knocked down my girl.” He drags his words out slow, as if he wants them to hear every last one.

The audacity.

“I am not your girl!” I hiss behind his back.

As if rehearsed, the group of guys leans around Kane and stares at me in disbelief.

“You’re with Kane Barlow?” one of them asks.

I open my mouth, having every intention of calling Kane a liar, but then I get a glimpse of his sharp jawline angled toward me. “Say yes, and I’ll leave right now with you,” he whispers to me.

Why is he so good at winning these little games we keep playing? I remember a time when he used to let me win.

My head screams with a refusal, but then I remember seeing him at that blackjack table, and I just can’t do it.

“Yes,” I say.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” The group of guys scatters like marbles.

Except for one.

The same one who almost fell into me before Kane swooped in like a hero to save me—anti-hero, that is.

“Can I have your autograph?” he asks.

Kane’s spine straightens, and the grip he has on me tightens.

He exhales deeply. “You almost crushed my girl, and you’re going to ask for my autograph?”

My girl.

I both hate and love the sound of that. The smoke in this place must be clouding my thoughts because what?!

“Well, yeah.” The guy snorts. “You’re Kane Barlow.”

Kane’s laugh comes out menacing. “How about I autograph your face with my fist?”

“Kane.” I tug on his shirt. “Stop it. I’m fine.”

He scoffs at me. “I’ve heard that before.”

Thankfully, the guy ends up being a lot smarter than I gave him credit for, because he takes off in the direction of his friends who have completely left him to fend for himself.

I let go of Kane’s shirt as he steps away from me. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until air slips in between us. It cools me right away, but I’m right back to feeling warm when I find him staring at me.

I fix my clothing from being whooshed behind him. “Was that necessary?”

His lips flatten. “If I would’ve let it go on any further, I would have ended up in jail. So yeah, it was.”

I’m mid eye-roll when Kane’s fingers wrap around my wrist. He pulls me through the casino, as if I’m the one who needs to be dragged out.

I rip myself free from his grip when we end up at Malaki’s car. Kane makes no move to get inside after I unlock it.

“Are you crazy?” A vein pops out of Kane’s neck as he runs his hands through his hair angrily. “Were you going to take a drink of whatever that guy gave you?” Kane crosses his arms, his forearm muscles bulging with anger. “He could’ve been trying to date-rape you.”

“Careful, Kane,” I say. “You’re starting to act like you care.”

He snaps his head to me, and I jerk backward. “You’re a damn fool if you think I don’t care.”

His insult is a slap to my face.

“A fool? How could I think otherwise after the last couple of weeks? You’re so bent out of shape over the past and clearly holding a grudge against me, something that you have no idea about.” I storm around the front of the car with fury and slide into the driver’s seat.

Kane stands with his back to the passenger side. After a few seconds of trying to calm myself, I roll the window down. “Get in.”

He spins around, the dust of the parking lot kicking up in his wake. The door flies open, and he begrudgingly sits down. The door slams, and I speed out of the parking lot in hopes I’ll get us home sooner so we can go our separate ways.

There’s so much tension between us I could suffocate at any given second.

Silence fills the inside of the car, and my heart aches with every angry beat. My fingers squeeze the steering wheel, and before I know it, I’m giving Kane an explanation that he doesn’t deserve.

“I wasn’t going to drink it,” I snap.

He scoffs, like he doesn’t believe me.

“Do you think I’m lying?”

He’s staring at the side of my face, his angry gaze starting a fire on my cheek. “Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve lied to me.”

I stare at the blurring yellow lines out the windshield. The truth is on the tip of my tongue, ready to be unleashed just so I can stop this animosity between us, but what good would that do? It’s not like it’ll change anything. What’s done is done.

“Don’t act like you’ve never lied, Kane. Because we both know you have.”

My claws descend when I sense the shift in the car. The tension lessens. Kane’s tightly balled fist stretches out, and he places his palm on his thigh. “You lied to get me to take your virginity. That’s called being selfish.” He stares out his window. “I lied for someone else. There’s a difference.”

His version of that night stings, even if it is partly my fault.

“You think I’m a fool?” I turn into the parking garage and park. “Well, so are you.”

Instead of getting out of the car when I turn it off, Kane leans back in the seat and gets comfortable. “Name calling? That’s what it’s come to?”

I angle myself toward him, prepared to keep up with our arguing, but then I really look at him. His dark eyes, glossy from drinking, are hiding something within their depths that I beg to find.

My voice softens with a concern that I can’t pretend I don’t feel when it comes to him. “Gambling? That’s what it’s come to?”

His forehead furrows, and I can tell he’s about to throw up some type of wall to block me. Instead of letting him lash out at me, I take a different approach.

Unpeeling my fingers from the steering wheel, I gently place my hand on top of his. There’s a spark of familiarity there that unburies itself from the back of my mind.

Instead of flicking my hand off his, he lets it stay, which only confuses me.

He’s so hot and cold, but I’m not taking the moment for granted.

“Since when do you gamble, Kane? After everything?” I ask.

He slowly turns toward me. The hatred we’ve found ourselves in is slowly disappearing inside the small space we’re tucked away in.

“I didn’t go there to gamble,” he admits. “I was…” His explanation lingers, and it doesn’t take long for me to put two and two together.

“You were checking to see if Miles was there.”

Kane looks away abruptly, confirming my assumption.

“So you two do still talk?” I ask.

Just like a rubber band, the air is tight again. Kane opens the car door with force and slams it shut in my face.

I jerk in the driver’s seat, regretting that I tried to find some normalcy between us. I know I should heed the warning he’s giving me, but I don’t. Instead, I open the driver’s side door and follow him.

The truth starts to crawl through my blood. With every quick step after him, I become more and more outraged.

“You don’t get to do that!” I shout.

Kane straightens when I follow him onto the elevator. The door slides shut, and he spins around to level me with a glare. “Do what?”

Why is he so much hotter when he’s angry? His jawline sharpens, and his navy eyes darken.

“Act like I’m nothing but an annoying little nuisance to you but then get angry when you think I’m jeopardizing my safety. You’re hot and cold. One second, you’re acting like you care, and the next, you’re slamming the door in my face. That isn’t fair, Kane.”

His nostrils flare, and I keep going, too riled up to stop.

“In case you’ve forgotten, you didn’t put up much of a fight when we went our separate ways. Remember?” The elevator doors close us off from the rest of the world, and it’s all the push I need to keep driving my point further. “If we could go back to that night, I never would have asked you to take my virginity! You clearly hate me for it.”

Kane storms me, and I lose my footing. His arm winds around my lower back, and he pins me to the front of his firm body. His close proximity steals the rest of the thoughts from my head.

“Don’t get it twisted, Daisy.” His alcohol-scented breath wafts down into my face, and I inhale it like he’s a drug. “I don’t regret having you in bed, even for a second.”

The elevator pings, and the door opens up on my floor.

He makes no move to let me go.

When the elevator door closes again, it’s like he has a grip on my heart, and he’s squeezing it until I burst.

“Fine!” I shout frantically.

Kane’s eyebrows shoot down with confusion.

“I lied to you.”

His eyes narrow. “Yeah, I fucking remember.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You don’t get it.”

I suddenly feel dizzy.

“When you came back to my room that next morning. I acted like it meant nothing to me, but I lied.”

Kane, the most stoic of them all, jerks backward with shock.

The elevator door opens to his floor, and I gulp in a breath.

“If I would’ve said yes to there being an us, you wouldn’t have left, or you at least would’ve come back to visit. So much would have been at stake…” Unable to meet his eye any longer, I turn and press the button to my floor. I grab onto my stomach when nausea hits me and keep my back to him.

We say nothing when the doors open again.

I step off and turn before the door closes us off from one another.

“You had to get away from Miles. The only way for that to happen was to cut off all ties…including me.”

I rush into my apartment with my stomach rolling. Exhaustion hits me, and I shake all over.

I’m not much of a gambler, but in the spirit of things, I think I just laid all my cards out on the table for Kane.