All We Want For Christmas Is You Read online

  All We Want For Christmas Is You

  Copyright © 2017 by Anita Maxwell

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Sly Fox

  Dedication

  To all the women who fell in love with a star athlete xx

  All We Want For Christmas Is You

  By Anita Maxwell

  Hayden Halloway wants to see her name in print when she gets out of college, preferably in one of the big five newspapers in New York. She has everything lined up to make that happen, except for that one perfect story to finalize her portfolio.

  Christian, Vinnie, and Justin, first string forwards on the college hockey team, all have their sights, secretly, set on Hayden. But a situation involving her best friend and the Puck Games - the hockey team's sex rating competition - ends up setting them on a collision course that could leave more than their reputations damaged.

  Eggnog, coffee dates, and the Winter Wonderland all have Hayden losing bits and pieces of herself to the guys. Will Hayden sacrifice her integrity for her heart, or will she ruin the guys chances at going pro and any chance they have of being together?

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday 28th November – 27 days until Christmas

  Christian

  "C'mon man, get up. Everyone's probably already over at the old change rooms," I stated, dragging the blanket off Vinnie's sleeping form. At least he had put some boxers on before crashing out. The guy was lying face down, hugging his pillow; black hair pushed up and all over the place, a sight that people very rarely saw, since Vinnie was always dressed like he’d walked off the front page of a fashion magazine. Not that I could talk.

  Groaning, he cracked one eyelid and looked up at me with an unfocused green eye, "Is she gone?" He asked, his voice scratched with sleep.

  "Yeah, I just saw her out. You shouldn't have let her stay man, she'll get the wrong idea." I told him as I walked over to his window and snapped the curtains open, flooding the room with morning light.

  "Nah bro, not her, she just wanted her scores, Puck Bunny. Dude, close the curtains; I'm up I swear. Give me like five, and I'll meet you in the kitchen." Vinnie rolled over and threw his right arm over his face, trying to block the light out.

  Knowing better than to listen to him, I left them open and headed back down the hallway.

  I smiled as I heard Vinnie yell out "Asshole." Damn right. He needed to get his ass out of bed and ready for training. We all needed to impress the scouts this season, since we were all graduating at the end of the year and needed to be picked up by a National Hockey League team, preferably the same one.

  I passed my room, which was directly opposite Vinnie’s at the end of the hallway and then Justin’s room which was on the other side of mine, and headed towards the kitchen of our off-campus apartment. My parents had gotten me the apartment my junior year as part of our agreement; I had to major in business, and they would supply my lifestyle.

  What was left unsaid was that once I graduated, I would then be required to go into the family business. Fat chance that was going to happen. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk for the rest of my life going over sales figures for paper and online distribution. Pro hockey; that was my dream. Not paper cuts and glasses, I’d leave that to my older brother, thanks. And if that dream was going to happen, then that meant heading to every team training session as well as using the gym we had in the apartment building, every day.

  The hallway opened into the open plan living space of the contemporary styled apartment. On the right was the lounge room with its charcoal leather L shaped couch and heavy wooden coffee table, facing the seventy-inch flat screen that was hooked up to several gaming systems and our surround sound system. That was literally the first thing I had purchased when I’d arrived. There was nothing better than watching a close game of hockey, football, or anything really, with all of the sounds of the stadium and the fans flowing through the room, all from the comfortable confines of your apartment.

  The rest of the room was styled by my mother’s interior decorator. It was your typical built-in-the-last-five-years contemporary bachelor pad lay out. Polished floorboards, cream walls, furnished with black, floating shelves on the far wall covered in stuff the interior decorator thought looked good like shiny pineapple jars, abstract art and signed, sporting memorabilia. Dust collectors mainly. At the far end of the room was floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city of Boston. If you stood right up against the windows towards the right-hand side and looked out to the left, you could see the historical buildings that made up Boston College. Go Eagles.

  Heading to my left into the kitchen, I found Justin’s hulking form making a protein shake at the breakfast island. The guy was huge, taller than my six foot one by three inches and as wide as our goalkeeper with his pads on. His closely cropped hair cut was borderline military. The closed off expression he wore, almost permanently, didn’t make him the most approachable guy in the world, but I knew better. Justin was a teddy bear if he liked you.

  The huge bucket of protein powder was open, along with several smaller pots. He was pouring milk into the last shaker which was sitting on the digital scale. He already had my shake lined up, same with Vinnie’s, all that was left was to mix it all together.

  “Thanks man,” I said as I pulled out one of the stools on the opposite side of the bench and picked up my shake, capped it and gave it a vigorous shake, hearing the metal spring inside clinking around as it mixed all the goodness together.

  Justin gave me a nod in acknowledgement; the strings of his charcoal hoodie swung with the movement. Neither of us really said much as we finished our drinks. I hated these things, but the trainer I’d hired for all of us a year back insisted on them, as well as a meal plan. If it helped get me into the NHL, then I’d drink twenty of the frigging things a day. We all needed our best game this week since we all knew scouts would be at the game tomorrow night; the first game back since Thanksgiving break.

  Vinnie and Justin were my best friends. We’d met freshman year, pretty much on our first training day on the rink, all of us selected to play for Boston College out of high school. Both of them were here on athletic scholarship while I was on a full ride thanks to my parents. After a few weeks of living alone in my apartment, I’d invited Vinnie to move in with me since he was living with his family and commuting into campus every day. His Italian mother hadn’t been too happy with my offer until I had given her a spare key, so that she could come by whenever she liked.

  I grinned at the memory of the first time she had turned up unannounced. I’d just gotten out of the shower thinking I was home alone, so I’d walked from the bathroom to my room. As I had passed by Vinnie’s room she had been in their making his bed and tidying up. She had seen me walking passed buck ass naked and screamed a few swear words in Italian scaring the shit out of me. I had stood in the hallway apologizing, cupping my junk, while she had been in Vinnie’s room with her hands covering her eyes. At that moment, Vinnie had come home and demanded to know why I was flashing his mom.

  Once I had gotten clothes on, and we had explained the situation, Vinnie had spent a good few minutes laughing his head off. From that moment on he had declared us family, something about his mother having seen my balls and his balls so that made us family. At the time I had just smiled nervously, wondering if my new roommate was a little crazy.
r />   Justin had taken a little longer to move in. His scholarship had come with a dorm room, so for the first semester he had stayed on campus. When he had come home from winter break, he’d taken up my open offer of the third bedroom. Vinnie and I had tip toed around the big guy for the first few weeks, unsure of how to treat him, and to be honest we were a little intimidated. In the first few games of the season, he had done some serious injuries to opposing players from textbook body checks. The whole team was a little standoffish around him; his silent demeanor didn’t make him an easy conversationalist.

  One night, Vinnie and I had been playing NBA Live on the flat screen when Justin had asked if he could join in. He had heckled and ribbed us like we had been friends for years. Vinnie and I had been shocked initially, but once we’d gotten used to it, we’d realized that he clicked with us. He was just the strong and silent type, only speaking when he actually had something to say.

  I just rinsed out my shake when Vinnie made it into the kitchen, snatched up his shake, gave it a quick shake and started draining it. Shaking my head, I turned off the tap and dried my hands. I grabbed the keys to my SUV from the pile of crap that always seemed to accumulate at the end of the bench and turned to Vinnie, “Finish it in the car Vin.”

  He just looked at me over the edge of his shake; one eyebrow raised in challenge, as he continued to drink it all in one drag. He was done in a few mouthfuls, and just wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, “Na dude, all done.” While the cocky bastard stood there with a smirk on his face, I really just wanted to hit him.

  Instead, I just shook my head and walked off towards the front door. I wasn’t going to let him irritate me today, if he wanted to make himself sick with a hangover and protein high, that was his issue. I wasn’t his momma.

  We headed out to the elevator and down to the secure underground garage. Finding my black Escalade was easy enough since it was always parked in the back-corner spot, right next to Vinnie’s two-wheeler, black Ducati death trap and Justin’s blue Impreza. I jumped in the driver’s seat; Justin rode shotgun and Vinnie in the back, who reclined with his legs up along the back leather seat, with his sunglasses down, arms folded over his chest.

  The drive into the college was quick and quiet, everyone either still tired or hungover; I looked at Vinnie for that last one. I cruised through the campus streets of Boston until I pulled up outside of the stadium. I parked the car with the rest of the teams’ cars, lining us all up bumper to bumper along the curb as usual. It looked like we were the last ones to arrive. Crap, Davidson was going to be pissed.

  Jumping out of the car, we all grabbed our training bags from the trunk and headed in. We bypassed our actual locker room and headed deeper into the stadium, taking the additional left and right through the hallways towards the old change rooms.

  When we arrived, everyone already sat around on the bench seats that outlined three of the four edges of the room. Behind the benches were old school open wooden cubbies, with pealing name tags that had yellowed with age. The threadbare carpet still held the musty smell of perpetually wet fabric due to the lack of air conditioning in this area of the stadium, since it wasn’t supposed to be used.

  “Nice of you boys to finally join us,” stated Cameron Davidson, our captain and one of our first-string defensemen. He stood in his usual position, up front by a white board. Davidson was heavy set, with the type of frame that would be muscular but never cut. He was a good captain on the ice, but that was the only nice thing I had to say about him. He was my height and quick with his stick, but had an uninteresting face, with hazel eyes and mousy brown hair.

  “Yeah, late night, but we’re here so let’s just start yeah?” Justin grumbled as he moved to sit in our usual spots at the far right. He leaned back across the gap between the bench and the cubbies until his shoulder blades rested against one of the vertical joins between them, arms folded over his chest, legs splayed out in front of him, with an expression that said, “I’m bored” and “Hurry the fuck up” at the same time.

  Justin was literally one of the biggest mother-fuckers I had ever met. He towered over most of the team, and definitely weighed in over every single one of us at three hundred and thirty pounds. I had seen him bench almost double that, so I had no idea why Davidson antagonized him over shit like this.

  Davidson stared back at Justin for a second while Vinnie and I sat down either side of him. I slouched forward slightly; hands gripping the edge of the bench and tucking my feet under myself. Vinnie had straddled the bench and then reclined so he was lying on his back, arms folded under his head. Once we were seated Davidson turned to the whiteboard at his side. Well what looked like a whiteboard, until you flipped it around, then its primary purpose displayed and the reason we were all sitting in this dank room.

  The Puck Games Score Board.

  Damn crudest thing I had ever heard of, but participation was mandatory for the entire team and was a tradition that had been running for decades. The only way to get out of participating was if you declared yourself as a Whip, A.K.A. gotten a girlfriend. Then you were exempt from putting any Puck Potential’s names on the board. Any girl’s name that did appear on the board made the girl available for the whole team to go after. It was like the green light to bang her with no strings attached.

  The rules of the Puck Games were simple:

  Rule # 1: She must be a 7/10 on the hotness scale

  Rule # 2: No take backs. You fuck her, you Puck her.

  Rule # 3: Teammates cannot go after another's Puck Potential.

  Rule # 4: Once a Puck is on the board, she's fair game.

  The board actually opened up like a dart board, two dark wooden doors that covered the scores from prying eyes. Once they were opened, you could see that the board was actually black instead of white, and someone had gone to the trouble of putting a dark wooden frame on it, the design giving it an elegant edge. There was an emblem at the top, an eagle with an actual puck in its mouth, and then below that was a gold grid, fifteen rows deep and twenty columns wide. The first column was labeled Pucks, with the rest having the initials of all the guys on the team. The inside of the left door had the rules of the Puck Games with the current list of Whips – only two right now – below it. The right door had a history of the Puck Queens since 2000, basically the girl who had scored the highest last season.

  Under the Pucks heading was a list of names, all girls from our college who were in the running to be crowned Puck Queen, which in my opinion wasn’t something any girl wanted to be called. But hey, these girls knew what they were getting themselves into when they got with the hockey team. Most of us didn’t want a girlfriend, not if we planned to go pro; especially since, we didn’t know where we would end up if we did get drafted.

  Right now, I had two numbers below my initials, a seven and a six, both of which I had written up in the first couple of weeks of the season. I only participated enough so that I didn’t get hazed by the team for not getting some numbers on the board. I’d learned that the hard way in my freshman year. Participation was mandatory.

  I wasn’t going to turn a girl down if she threw herself at me, which was what those two had done, but I wasn’t going to actively hunt them down either, not like the majority of the team did. I was kind of over the whole thing to be honest, but since I had no plans to declare myself a Whip, then I had to participate in the Puck Games or deal with the consequences. Participating was the better option.

  “Okay, so we only have two slots left does anyone have any Pucks to declare?” Davidson called out.

  Damian Walker smirked from across the room, straddling the bench, “Yeah I got a new Puck, Stephanie Harris, got her number when we were at the Coffee House, the café by the library before Thanksgiving, then sealed it last night. She was a solid seven in bed,” he declared as he leaned forward and high fived Edwards.

  Dickhead.

  “Anyone else?” Davidson asked as he turned his back on the room to write on the board. Whoever
that Stephanie girl was, she was about to be hit with a shitload of attention from the hockey team. I hoped she knew what she’d gotten herself into.

  “Yeah, Tori Schaefer.” Vinnie declared as he sat up and moved his sunglasses to his head, pushing them into place, his thick, black, Italian hair was shaved on the sides and longer and styled to spike up on top, framing his silver aviators.

  Nodding, Davidson found her name on the board and followed it out to Vinnie’s initials, “Score?”

  “Eight.” Vinnie, Justin, and I all stated at the same time.

  For a split second, there was silence in the old, change rooms. Then the noise level ratcheted up to party volume with wolf whistles, cat calls and a bunch of questions.

  After writing the number eight on Tori’s line under each of our names, Davidson turned around and eyeballed us. “So, what did you guys do, all three at once or tag team?”

  The room went silent, waiting for our answer. I felt like I was an animal in an exhibit at the zoo the way they all stared at us.

  Vinnie grinned playing it up, “Tag team. I picked her up at The Sports Bar, took her back to our place, and just as we were getting into it she whispers to me,” Vinnie changed his voice to attempt a husky girly voice, “so, your roommates are hockey players too, right? And I was all like, yeah baby they are, want me to call my boys in here and you can knock a few off in one night. The chick looked me straight in the eye and was like, yeah, that’d be great. So, being a good bro, I called them in.” There were hoots and hollers from all around the room at that.

  I shook my head at the story from last night. Not that it was any excuse, but I wouldn’t have participated in that if I hadn’t already coped crap for not adding any scores since the first week of the season. I had been in a dry spell since I hadn’t been willing to be the reason another girl had gotten her name on the board – if she was already up there then that was a different issue. Last night was the first time we had ever shared a girl. Interesting experience, especially watching her as Vinnie and Justin had changed over, Vinnie finishing off from behind while she’d started to blow Justin. Just the memory had me adjusting in my seat uncomfortably.