Puck Block : A Brother’s Best Friend Hockey Romance (Bexley U)

I trace the line of stars above me and blow a puff of air out of my mouth, only to watch my breath disappear into the cool night. The roof is slanted enough to give me an adrenaline rush but still safe so I don’t fall to my death.

After wiggling my fingers a few more times and cursing the pain radiating to my wrist, I place it back on my lower belly and close my eyes, only to open them a second later when I hear a footstep against the shingles.

“I hate when you come out here,” he says.

“Leave me alone, Ford.”

He is the last person I want to see right now. I’m already frustrated enough from what happened tonight. I definitely don’t need his teasing jokes to add to it. But as always, he ignores me and plops down on the roof anyway.

“Here.”

I peek an eye open, and he’s holding a bag of frozen peas out for me to take. When I make no move to grab them, he takes my hurt hand in his warm grip and studies the swelling with an intent to diagnose me. After a few seconds, he places my hand on his lap, presses the cold bag of peas on top and says, “I’m gonna start calling you Nosebreaker instead of Heartbreaker.”

I let a soft laugh leave me by accident.

“What happened?” he asks. “One second, I’m demonstrating how to seduce someone, and the next, I’m looking at some guy with a bloody nose talking about how the goalie’s sister punched him.”

I turn my head to stare at his strong profile. Ford’s jaw is cut like a piece of stone, and there isn’t a single flaw on him. When he smiles, he’s everyone’s favorite guy in the room. When he’s serious, he looks like a perfectly sculpted statue. He’s always been painfully flawless, so much so that, when I was younger, I would stare at him from across the dinner table just to try and find at least one flaw.

Years later, I still haven’t found one.

“I’m surprised you noticed anything at all with your face glued to the lips of that puck bunny.”

Ford’s eyes fall to mine, and the air crackles. “Jealous?”

I’m quick to tell my lie. “Not even a little bit.”

He grins down at me and shakes his head. I turn away and continue to stare at the stars because I’m afraid he’ll know I’m lying.

“Well, are you going to tell me what happened, or do I need to finish what you started?”

“Nothing happened,” I say.

Ford grips me by the arm and pulls me upright from my lying position. My thick hair flies out of my face, and when our eyes meet, I know he’s being serious. I suck in my cheeks and force out a play by play for him, because if I don’t, I know he’ll run off and tell my brother—or worse, go back on his word and refuse to help me in the dating department.

“He deserved the punch, then.” Ford removes the peas to study my hand some more, and I wait with my lip tucked in between my teeth. “Well, good news is that I don’t think it’s broken.”

“And what’s the bad news?” I ask.

He looks me dead in the face. “Bad news is that you didn’t get laid.”

A sudden laugh erupts from me, and Ford flashes me his perfect smile. “Oh, and by the way…” He looks out into the darkness. “You suck at picking guys.”

I huff. “If my hand wasn’t in pain, I’d punch you.”

He turns toward me. “You’d never.”

I lean in close. “You know I would.”

Neither of us move. Our faces are inches apart, like we’re ten years old again and having a staring contest in the back of my parents’ minivan. He gulps, and I suck in a breath. When he opens his mouth, I drop my gaze, but my phone beeps before words leave his lips.

He flicks his chin to my open window. “Up you go. Time for insulin.”

My eyebrows furrow. “Who said I need insulin?”

He’s half in my bedroom with one leg still on the roof. “Because I know what that ding on your phone means.”

I follow after him. “How could you possibly know that? You’ve never even heard it.”

Ford is already washing his hands when I walk into the bright bathroom. He quickly wipes his wet hands on the pink towel before throwing it down onto the counter. “I just do.”

I eye him suspiciously and watch as he handles my insulin pen, putting it to the correct dose after looking at the sugar reading on my phone. I should be more shocked that he does everything correctly, but Ford is adept in everything he puts his mind to. He doesn’t do anything halfway. If he needs to adopt a new skill, he becomes an expert.

A swallow works itself down my throat when he meets my gaze in the mirror, and before I know it, he’s pulling me closer by the fabric of my shirt. He lifts it up and winces at my irritated skin from the injections.

“Let’s do the thigh.” Ford’s voice is low and tender, but I swear there’s a breathlessness to it that wasn’t there before.

I look down and watch him trace my red skin around my usual injection site with the pad of his thumb before pushing the button of my jeans through its hole and unzipping them slowly. There’s a crease in between his eyebrows when he pulls my jeans down past my hips. I hold my breath when he grabs my thigh with his warm palm, and he probably thinks it’s because I’m bracing myself for the injection, but that isn’t the reason why. A shiver shakes down my spine, and I exhale, catching his hooded blue eyes briefly when he peers up at me while on his knees.

Whoa.

The scent of alcohol wafts around us, and I ignore the pulling in my lower belly when I feel his hand snake up my thigh and wrap around my butt to hold me steady. My cheeks flame when I realize his palm is on my bare ass, because of course I wore my most scandalous thong to the frat party where I thought I’d get laid.

He swallows loudly. “Nice choice of panties.”

I tilt my head to look at the ceiling because I’m both embarrassed and turned on.

“Though, I don’t know if I’d consider this scrap of fabric panties.” I snap my attention to him when I hear the roughness in his tone.

I scowl and decide to press his buttons because that’s clearly what he’s doing to me. “Jasper didn’t seem to mind them.”

Ford chooses that exact moment to dose me with my insulin. His fingers dig into my butt to steady me, and I watch his mouth silently count to ten before he removes the pen and flicks his steely blue eyes to mine.

“Breathe,” he whispers.

Goosebumps cover my flesh when his finger trails my thigh, circling the spot that has the tiniest bit of blood seeping. I breathe out of my mouth a few times, matching Ford’s steady breathing. Our eyes catch, and my heart flips. Instead of looking away, I keep my gaze on him and whisper, “Thanks.”

His eyes drop to my mouth a second later, and I’m frozen. The air in the bathroom is suddenly heavy with something unfamiliar, but before I can decipher what it is, my bedroom door flies open, and Ford and I fly apart like shrapnel.

I pull my pants up and turn around, putting my back to Ford.

Emory’s voice carries into the bathroom. “Taytum!”

“What?” I snap after flicking my eyes to the mirror and catching Ford’s stoic expression.

“Did you punch some guy tonight?!” he asks, stepping into the bathroom.

His tight shoulders and disapproving scowl are nothing new, so the only response he gets is an eye roll. I push past him and leave both guys in my wake before flopping onto my bed. I grab my English notes and pop in my Airpods to tune out Emory’s questions and Ford’s attempt to calm things.

I read his lips word for word. It’s the same reassurance as all the other times, but we both know it’s a lie because for once, Ford kept his word and didn’t interfere.

Professor Petit eyes me from across the stage, and I have to try my hardest not to sigh dramatically after doing an arabesque. I turn my back to her blank expression and try to push the annoyance away. Now that I’ve fainted at practice, she watches me far more than before.

I wish it were because of my skill, but it’s not.

It’s a precaution.

Sweat trickles down the side of my face, and I know if I just untie the purple wrap top and practice in my regular leo, I won’t be so hot, but it’s bad enough that the other dancers are already on edge that I’m going to faint in the middle of a show. I don’t want them to roll their eyes at the robot device on my arm, too.

Kate has already made a note to mention, rather loudly, that I need to wear a long-sleeve costume for our upcoming show because everyone in the audience will be distracted by the “thing” on my arm.

Speaking of the thing. A familiar beep comes from my bag off to the side, and I know it’s my sugar reading. It strikes a nerve—for more reasons than one as of late. Claire looks at me from across the stage, and I send her a reassuring nod. I’ll get it in a second. 

I shake out my limbs and clear my head. I press up onto the ball of my foot and throw my back leg out behind me, trying to lengthen my arabesque as far and as gracefully as I can. The stretch rips down my torso and then I quickly drop my leg back down.

There. That felt better. 

“Taytum Elizabeth.”

My head whips toward the familiar smoothness of Ford’s voice, and my pulse quickens.

What is he doing here? 

His one eyebrow is raised beneath the hood of his Bexley U hoodie from the front row, and his jaw tenses the second he knows I see him.

“Excuse me, do I know you?” I ask, acting confused.

I put my back to Ford and slowly make my way over to Claire, pretending he isn’t there. She laughs under her breath when I pretend to engage in a full-on conversation with her, but I feel his glare against the back of my head like he’s forcefully tugging on my hair.

Claire’s eyes widen. “He’s climbing on stage.”

“He better not be,” I seethe.

“Are you forgetting something?” His breath is warm against the back of my neck, and all it would take is one step back, and I’d likely run into his chest.

I peer behind my shoulder. “The stage is for dancers only.”

Ford grins mischievously, and I spin around quickly to put my hands on his arms. “That was not an invitation for you to start showing off your dance skills.”

“Afraid I’ll be better than you?” he asks, lowering his voice.

I sigh. “What are you doing here? Professor Petit is going to scold you in a few seconds if you don’t get off this stage.”

She won’t, because she loves Ford. But I threaten it anyway.

Ford unpeels my fingers from his arms and crosses them against his chest. “Your meter went off.”

Yeah, I know. There is a perfectly valid reason as to why I’m not rushing off to inject myself, but that isn’t something he needs to be privy to.

“I know,” I say.

His eyebrows crawl to his hairline. “Well?”

I fumble with my explanation. “I was just practicing one more–”

He cuts me off. “Your arabesques are amazing. You don’t need to practice them or prove yourself to anyone on this stage. Now go check your sugar level and do what you’re supposed to do.”

My lips clamp shut. I sigh with frustration and attempt to irritate him. “You may be the only hockey player that knows what an arabesque is.”

It doesn’t work. He steps closer to me. “And you may be the only female at Bexley U that doesn’t know how to get a date.”

I gasp. A smirk slowly curves onto his face, and I’m pretty sure every ballet dancer in our vicinity is fanning themselves at the sight of it. I go to smack him lightly, but he catches my sore wrist in his grip and holds it steady.

“Don’t you worry,” he says through a smile. “I’ve got a plan. I said I’d teach you how to date, and I’m sticking to my word.”

“A plan?” Great. “Every single time you’ve ever said you’ve had a plan, it ended badly.”

Ford doesn’t let go of my wrist. “That’s not true. Give me one example.”

I put a finger up with the first one that comes to mind. “The time you said you had a plan to replace my dad’s tequila that we drank, and you put water in it, which turned to ice…”

Ford’s lips flatten. “How was I supposed to know that liquor didn’t freeze? I was twelve.”

A laugh bubbles in my throat, but I hold it in.

“Plus, I distinctly remember Emory and I taking the fall for it so you wouldn’t get in trouble.”

My smile fades because he’s right. When I think back on the other examples I was going to list, I shut them down one by one because with every plan Ford has ever had that hasn’t gone right, there was another plan brewing so he could protect me from getting in trouble.

He finally lets my wrist go, and I sigh.

“Fine. What’s the plan?”

Ford starts to make his way over to my ballet bag, and I follow him reluctantly. “First, take care of this.” He has my insulin pen in his hand and shoots me a sideways glance. “And then I’ll fill you in, lil’ lady.”

I stare at him as he backs away toward the end of the stage. “Lil’ lady?”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

He winks. “It’s all part of the plan. Now giddy up.”

I try to figure out what he’s up to, but he gracefully jumps off the stage and seemingly tips an invisible hat in my direction before taking his seat to watch the rest of our practice.