Goal Chaser
Goal Chaser
Las Vegas Vipers Book Five
Stacey Lynn
Goal Chaser
Las Vegas Vipers Series
Book Five
Stacey Lynn
Copyright © 2022 Stacey Lynn
Content Editing: My Brother’s Editor
Proofreading: Virginia Tesi Carey
Cover Design: Shanoff Designs
Goal Chaser is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, trademarks, and incidents are used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reprinted, reproduced, or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review passages only.
This purchased material is for personal use only and NOT to be shared. Thank you so much for respecting the author’s wishes.
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Contents
1. Kane
2. Emmersyn
3. Kane
4. Emmersyn
5. Kane
6. Kane
7. Emmersyn
8. Kane
9. Emmersyn
10. Kane
11. Emmersyn
12. Kane
13. Emmersyn
14. Kane
15. Emmersyn
16. Kane
17. Emmersyn
18. Emmersyn
19. Emmersyn
20. Kane
21. Emmersyn
22. Kane
23. Emmersyn
24. Kane
25. Emmersyn
26. Kane
27. Emmersyn
28. Kane
29. Emmersyn
30. Kane
31. Emmersyn
Epilogue
Thank you
About the Author
Other Books by Stacey Lynn
One
Kane
I stepped off the ice and tapped Ryder Bromann’s stick as he passed me. “You looked good out there today.”
Our new defenseman, traded from Florida to take Max Mikolajczyk’s spot on the team when he retired last month, was a good guy. An even better player. He played hard and clean but wasn’t afraid to throw his body around to protect his teammates when needed.
But he wasn’t Max, and we all felt that loss like a limb. Particularly the first line. Most especially, me, since I was named captain after he retired. We all liked Ryder, but there was still something missing. A flash of excitement, an expediency Max always brought to the game and forced us to rise up to meet. He’d been one hell of a captain and now that burden to lead, encourage, and excite fell on me.
And I wasn’t getting the job done.
“Thanks. Let’s hope I look as good when games start.”
I stopped him outside the locker room. Most of the guys were already in, but I pulled us to the side as Alix stomped up to us on his skates.
“Hey, Halvrick.” I shoved my hand to his chest, stopping him. “You know what we need?”
He took off his helmet and wiped sweat off his forehead. “Someone to kick our asses into high-speed gear?”
Definitely that. We were playing well. But not fast enough. Not good enough. We’d gone out last season in the playoffs earlier than we wanted, but as the previous season’s champions, we all wanted that cup in our arena long-term. The addition of Bromann, and the loss of Max, had stalled us.
“Clubbing night. Not a chill night at Joey’s bar, but a good night.”
Alix’s eyes gleamed. The man could party. Typically, not my gig, but hell. For the team, as their captain, I’d do it.
“Nine o’clock at Piazza Romana. I’ll let the team know.”
Leave it to him to know exactly where to go.
I faced Bromann. He’d been a loved player in Florida, and there were already several memes online with him wearing his new Vipers jersey and BRO-MAN stamped across it while he skated across the ice, on one knee, fist-pumping during one of our practices. The man could play to the crowd.
We needed him to play with the team. Accepted by everyone. End all chatter of his former bromance with fellow Florida player, Rudy Petrov, and hell, maybe solidify a new one here. We needed it to happen fast.
“You need to come,” I told him.
He looked warily at the open locker room door as Alix walked in, already shouting out the details of the required team event. Cheers echoed as the door closed behind him.
Yeah. Leave it to Alix. He’d make sure everyone was there.
“This shit takes time. I know that.”
“Yeah, but we’re also a family and the sooner we groove off the ice—”
“The sooner we find it on the ice. I got it.” He tapped his stick to mine. “Thanks, Andrews.”
“Doing my job.” But in truth, I needed this as much as the rest of them.
I’d always been a quieter guy, but life had thrown me a handful of curveballs over the last couple of years. If I was a baseball player, my batting average at those curves would be less than five hundred. I was also older now. Wiser. More serious. Perhaps, I’d also lost a bit of the fun edge I used to have.
I stayed in the hall for a minute after Bromann went inside and rested against the wall.
Max retired. Two years younger than me, and he was out of the league. Yeah, he’d gotten injured, had some concerns about the number of concussions he had. But we were both getting old.
I had five years max left in the league, and as a center, chasing after guys twenty to twenty-five, five years was a long shot.
What did I have to show for myself?
A failed marriage. A townhome in a luxury community.
Millions in the bank I’d never be able to spend at this rate, a few investment properties, and no family to leave it to.
Fuck.
I was getting old. And grumpy.
Already my head was hurting at the thought of all the noise to follow later tonight.
If it hadn’t been my idea, I’d bail.
But our team needed this. The guys did.
And they were all I had left.
As much as I’d already failed at so much in life, I wouldn’t let them down.
By the time I got to the locker room and stripped out of my gear, my phone was buzzing like a beehive.
I grabbed it.
Four missed calls from Heather.
Six texts.
My little sister was five years younger than me, living the high life with her job as a personal chef for the uppity, richest people I could ever imagine.
Yeah, I had millions, but there was a difference between having money and being rich.
Those who hired live-in personal chefs topped the list.
Fortunately, Heather loved her job immensely.
I went to call her when I was jolted from behind, and my phone fell to the floor.
“What the hell?”
“You coming out tonight?” It was Joey, our assistant captain and one of the best guys I’d ever met. Hell, his whole family was.
“I’ll be there.”
“Good. Good. It’ll be good to see you let loose a little bit.”
“I let loose frequently.”
“Sipping one drink when you show up at my house isn’t letting loose.”
He had a point. But the guy was smart.
“Gabby coming out with us?”
“Nah. She said she’d get the girls together, watch the kids so we could enjoy it.”
He scanned the locker room, eyes stalling on Bromann. “Team is different this year. I mean, we always have new guys. They come and go, but…”
“Max is gone.”
“Yeah. For such a loud asshole, he was the glue.”
I couldn’t argue. Max was the life of the party. The guy was always ready to pump someone up and cheer them on. Until his most recent injury, I’d never seen the guy not smiling. Life moved on though, and we had to adjust without him. Hell, based on his most recent text, he was loving his life out in California with his new girlfriend, Kimmy.
We’d still see him. Just because he wasn’t on the team didn’t mean he wasn’t still part of the team.
“Bromann will click soon.”
“He better.” Joey sighed, ran a hand through his already showered dark hair, and shrugged. “We’ll figure it out later. Who knows, maybe all we need is a night to act like idiots together to bond.”
I’d prefer a round of golf or a boating day. My ass was too old for clubs with the constant flashing lights and ear-piercing music.
“Maybe,” I agreed. Because hell, we’d already tried everything else.
I picked up my phone and headed for the showers. Heather was known to have a crisis a day, and god love her for it, but she could wait.
My team, on the other hand, could not.
“This round’s on me!”
Arlo had to lean in and shout over the massive table Alix had somehow secured in the VIP section of Piazza. An Italian-style dance club sat atop one of the casinos on the Strip, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been here. Yeah, when I’d first been traded, the Strip was cool to visit. Back then, I’d had Ava with me, though, and at twenty-five, we were growing out of the constant clubbing scene. We’d been talking about having kids, starting a family once I got settled in Vegas and with the team.
Then she left. I couldn’t blame her for it, not now, not when I took the time to look back, but God.
I fucking missed her.
I grabbed one of the shots one of our newer players, Calix Weekes, bought. Recently turned twenty-one and excited as hell to finally be able to buy his team a round, he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face all night long. Bromann threw his arm over his shoulders, and they took a shot together.
Apparently, Operation: Bond Bromann to the Team required tequila.
The entire team was out, including Dominick Masters, who’d only really started opening up to our team last season. Seth McCabe and Braxton were there, taking a rare night out from their wives. Didn’t blame them though. They both had young babies at home.
The only guy missing was Garrett, but he’d called and said one of his twins was throwing up and he didn’t want to leave his wife, Lizzie, to deal with it alone. Even if I heard her screaming in the background that she’d be fine.
Understandable. Fortunately, the rest of the team was here, tossing back drinks and trading battle stories of our time in the junior and minor leagues. The mood was light, and I was probably the only person sitting there with regret lining my stomach.
Fuck it.
Three shots and two drinks in, I was ready to forget Ava for a night. Hell, maybe I’d find someone else. Life had been too busy to date much in the years since she’d left, and it took me a full year to even consider it, but I’d never met a woman who measured up.
Doubtful anyone would. Ava had been made for me—and I’d screwed that up nice and well.
Fuck. A night of drinks and friends was what I needed. Not a night thinking about my ex-wife, who was getting married over Thanksgiving weekend. Some asshole with three first names or something or other she’d met shortly after moving back to her family’s house on Long Island.
Whatever.
“Dance!” Alix cried and jostled my arm.
My head spun, and yeah… I was good and drunk. Maybe I could grab a woman for a night of barely-satisfying sex for the first time since my wife left me. Maybe that was what I needed.
A jolt to get back into the game.
Better than going home alone.
“All right, all right.” I shoved off the chair and waited a minute to make sure I was steady.
Goddamn. Thirty and too old for this shit. My body was probably as sore as my dad’s after a day of working the cattle. Except he was fifty-five and had been hauling hay and cattle and horses and hogs since before I was born. He had an excuse.
But damn, I felt old as I followed Alix and Ryder down to the dance floor. I squinted to block out the glare of the lights and almost stumbled on one of the steps on the way down.
Shit. I was drunk. Alix turned back, smiling like a jackass, clearly catching my near fall. My cheeks were numb. Must have been smiling.
Yeah… good and drunk.
Now to find a barely dressed chick on the floor, perhaps one from the trio of blondes Alix was leading us to. Two of them had been smiling up at the second floor where we were perched all night. Neon-colored, skintight dresses, with slashes of fabric missing at their sides, above their hips, the necklines dipped low, showed off ample cleavage.
All blonde. All wavy, curled hair. Barbie triplets. All grinning at Alix as he made his approach.
The fucker was never turned down.
Could be the Swiss-French accent he had. Probably the tousled blond hair and cut jaw with a scar. More than one random he met brushed their finger against it. How in the hell women found facial scars attractive was something I never figured out, but hell if they did. I’d had the same questions asked.
“How’d you get that scar by your eye?” “And your nose? It looks like it’s been broken?”
Puck Bunnies-R-Us were a dime a dozen once you hit the pros, and their lines were as manufactured as their tits.
But they were tits up for the offering tonight. A vile taste rose in my throat and I fought it back.
I wasn’t this guy. Not anymore. Hell, I didn’t want to be this guy ever again.
My phone buzzed in my pocket again.
Shit. I’d never called Heather back. I declined the call. No way I could talk to her now, but as I did, I noticed missed calls from my neighborhood’s security office.
What in the hell?
“Hey, there,” one of the blondes practically screamed in my ear.
Her hand slid up my arm, and an icy, sick feeling spread all over me.
Yeah.
I was out.
“Sorry,” I shouted back and turned.
Left the dance floor.
Left the bar.
The younger guys could entertain Bromann. As soon as fresh air assaulted me, I stumbled back on the sidewalk. Throngs of people lined the area, screaming and shouting as a few people followed me out.
Damn it. It was midnight my time.
If Heather was still calling…
I grabbed my phone and called her back, barely got out a “Hey,” before my sister blurted out her own response.
“Thank God you finally called me back.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh. Nothing. Well, not with me, anyway.”
“So help me God, Heather. If you called me in the middle of the damn night to talk about some vegetable or herb plant of yours that is dying—”
She laughed. Had to be, what? Three, four o’clock in the morning, her time? She needed to be working in a couple of hours, for fuck’s sake.
“No. It’s not that. Remember my friend Emmersyn?”
Heather had dozens of friends. Was always bringing them out to catch a game or taking me out to meet someone when I was in the New England area. Girl was the reigning social butterfly and had been ever since elementary school when she proudly came home carrying a “Talks too much” warning note from her teacher.
“What about her?” It was late, and I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to start a guessing game of who was who. A taxi pulled up, and I flagged it down.
I slid into the back seat as she said, “Well, the thing is, she’s in trouble. So I sent her to your place. She should be there…”