Page 2 of Rule Breaker

Fuck, not another one.

But unlike Kayden, Silas didn’t smile at me.

“It’s like a fucking frat party out here,” he grumbled as he skated past me. “Jesus, can we get on with the playing already?”

Now, Silas, I could relate to. He looked older than the rest of the guys, with a thick blond beard. There was a quiet intensity about him. And his sarcastic outburst had me biting back a grin.

Hey, I’m an asshole, but not totally without a sense of humor.

More guys skated out onto the ice. Ethan Walker and Colin Goring, two forwards whose reputations I was also familiar with. Both guys were top scorers. Then I spotted more defensemen, Julian Hudak and Finn Baran, and finally, Sean Virtanen, another goalie. He’d had an injury or something at the end of last season. I’d looked up his stats. He was good. But I wasn’t satisfied with being good. It was best or nothing.

Last up was our coach, Damien Banning. A former professional d-man who’d been coaching college hockey for the past four years. This was his second year at Sutton.

He joined us on the ice and whistled to get everyone’s attention. I tapped the bar one last time and then I did my final stretches.

“Are we gonna stand around looking pretty for the freshman or get this game going?” Silas yelled out.

Coach Banning replied that he was in charge, not the other way around. When Silas rolled his eyes, I caught Coach’s ensuing glare. Banning was a guy who didn’t bullshit—he didn’t give it and he didn’t take it—and I could respect that.

He was especially blunt when it came to his expectations for me this season.

“Second place isn’t an option,” he said to me yesterday when we sat down in his office.

No shit.

Sutton U Cougars had ranked third in the college hockey standings last season, Banning’s first coaching the team. The team ranked tenth the year before that. This year, the goal was to overtake Langston College for the top spot. If there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that I wanted to win. And, yeah, I had no choice but to work with my teammates. But, for the most part, I did my own thing.

My only concern was the hockey scouts that were starting to take notice of me. I knew my cranky attitude wouldn’t mix well with my aspirations. Still, I did what I wanted—smoked, drank, and enjoyed the occasional spliff—and said whatever was on my mind. I didn’t care to hear anyone’s opinion about it. Or censor myself. I made my own rules.

Everyone else could, you guessed it, fuck off.

But, for real, I wasn’t the only player with a smart mouth. There were plenty of those to go around.

And it wasn’t just trash-talking on the ice. Most guys my age couldn’t shut up about who they were banging and how often. Times like that, I realized how different, how odd I wascompared to the norm. The only thing I didn’t do was sex. I guess if I thought about it, that was its own kind of rebellion. Not by choice. Sure, I was curious. But I didn’t think about sex the way other guys did. There was a disconnect inside me I didn’t fully understand yet. And letting a stranger touch me was not in the cards. I wish I could screw all my frustration away, but for now, my fist would have to do.

Then again, I wondered, who’d want to be near me? On the outside, I’d pass for any college student. But on the inside, I had a lot of fissures. At this point, I had nothing but my hockey net holding me together.

Coach suddenly blew his whistle and the high-pitched sound startled me out of my head and back to the moment. Shoving my anxieties away, I focused on the players in front of me. Out here, I wasn’t fucked up. I was in control.

Dane separated the team into two groups, and next thing I knew, he was facing off against Axel for possession. When the captain himself got hold of the puck and started barreling down the ice in my direction, everything clicked into place.

I was ready for this. College. Hockey. A new life. All of it.

Or, so I thought.

CHAPTER 2

KAYDEN

“What did you think of the game? And the new guys?”

Sitting in front of my stall, sweaty and padded up, I glanced up at my friend Dane and thought about his question. I was thrilled to be out on the ice again with my team. Even if it was a practice game.

But I wasn’t so happy about meeting our new goalie, Maddox Rocher. Number two. Kind of an odd number for a goalie to pick. Usually, it was one. Whatever. Goalies were always strange. But this one was grumpy as hell. No, that word didn’t even begin to describe him. When he told me to ‘fuck off,’ I was stunned. I’d never experienced that kind of hostility from a teammate before. He didn’t even know me, and already, he hated me?

Those smoky eyes of his sliced deep, like catching my skin on a freshly sharpened blade. And I was pretty sure I was still bleeding.

Dane had cautioned me about Maddox’s acidic attitude, but as usual, I stumbled forward. Then I thought about the other guys that were new to the team; Silas and Axel—a defenseman with a smart mouth and a cocky forward with a wicked slapshot.