“Okay, what could it hurt? How do we do this?”

“I took the liberty of sending for kits. They’re on the desk.” She smiled gratefully at me, and the guilt lines on her face softened. “Mark would want this.”

I nodded agreement. I didn’t know what Mark would want, but he wasn’t here to tell us.

Chapter Two

The Puck Brothers

~~Easton~~

We were the young guys.

The guys with our entire NHL careers ahead of us.

We were cocky. We had the world by the tail, and nothing and no one could stop us. Our mutual love of partying and women had brought us together, along with our complete and total disinterest in long-term relationships. It was safe to say that every one of us had been burned before and learned our lessons. I knew I had. I might’ve been a one-woman man before, but now I played the field, didn’t stay with one woman more than a week, and didn’t get attached.

We were also wasted drunk and worried as hell about who would make the final cuts tomorrow, but none of us expressed our doubts. After all, we were invincible.

The regular season started the first week of October. We’d battled for a spot through the last two weeks of preseason games in September. Now it was showtime.

Axel raised his glass and grinned at us. Half of his beer sloshed over the side and soaked our nachos. We didn’t care. We raised our glasses for our tenth toast of the night.

“To the”—Axel paused, deep in thought, mostly because his inebriated brain was soggy with alcohol—“the Puck Brothers! Long may we puck and fuck and have lots of luck.”

“Hear! Hear!” we said in unison.

“The Puck Brothers. I like that.” Ziggy burped and bumped fists with Axel. “And as the first official meeting of the Puck Brothers”—Ziggy held up his right hand, and the rest of us followed his lead—“we’ll hit our pucks in the net, keep our dicks well exercised, and live life to the fullest.”

“Hear! Hear!” I slurred.

Steele, who rarely said much, raised a hand like he was in fucking grade school. All heads turned to him, because raising his hand was just plain weird, even to our alcohol-muddled brains.

“What?” Axel, our self-appointed leader, asked over the rim of his beer glass.

“We might not all make the team.”

Axel frowned and narrowed his eyes. “We’re making the team. All of us. We’re inseparable.” His gaze swiveled to two women walking by in tight dresses so short a guy could see the bottoms of their delectable asses.

Steele blinked a few times, as if confused, and shook his head. “If you say so.”

“I say so.” Axel’s eyes stayed glued to the blonde’s ass.

“Skate and party till we drop. We’ll play the field and enjoy every minute of it. We are the Puck Brothers,” Kaden shouted and raised his glass. Answering shouts of agreement and clinking glasses solidified our Puck Brotherhood.