Sugar and Ice - RJ Scott

Chapter One

Tate

My cancelled wedding day passed in a blur. I was drunk, obliterated, because I’d woken up this morning and decided it was the only way I could deal with the shit storm that was my life.

I knew I was at home, that was where the drinking had started, and I knew for sure both my brother and sister were there, but the rest was a haze of not caring what the hell I was doing, and reveling in breaking all the goddamn rules that guided my life.

Be nice to people. Always be nice. Don’t be a dick. Don’t let the money go to your head. Play the best hockey you can. Don’t fuck up. And mostly don’t fuck guys.

No one had told me the one about not hooking up with Lacey, my psychotic, murderous, cat-stealing, ex-fiancée.

Where was that in the how-to-be-a-perfect-hockey-professional rule book?

“IblimissaObi,” I slurred, and felt my sister’s arm on my shoulder. I did miss my cat, Obi, he was a good cat, a Maine Coon who was all fur and big woobly eyes, and he loved me.

Lacey wouldn’t let me take him when I left.

I could’ve bought a million cats if I’d wanted, maybe two, but it was Obi I wanted right now, all curled up in my lap, or riding around on my shoulder. Obi was my friend.

My best friend.

My only friend.

“LeeblissaObi,” I repeated some jumbled up mess of words.

“We know you do, little brother,” Josie murmured.

I tumbled sideways into her, but I must have misjudged because I sprawled onto my huge-ass sectional in my huge-ass front room, in my freaking empty-as-fuck mansion. I lived close to a singer whose name I’d forgotten but who’d won some show and did Insta shit, and opposite a championship boxer who was all bling and very little conversation, other than muted grunts. Millionaires’ row, exactly where I belonged with my twenty-million something sign-up to the Arizona something or other. I belonged here. Obi my beautiful Maine Coon belonged here with me, not down in Dallas with Lacey and her acid tongue, and her interviews, and her big eyes dripping tears on daytime talk shows.

Did he ever hurt you? they asked her, and fuck me if she just shook her head a little whilst dramatically looking down and left. People drew their own conclusions, Tate Collins, the Captain America of Hockey had hurt this cute, sweet young woman who loved cats.

My cat!

And then Dallas had told me to get the fuck out, they’d expected more of me, they’d told me things, vital things, and I’d told Lacey and now things were out there for everyone to know. Lies. It was all lies, but no one believed me. Not even the freaking Raptors with their rainbow shit, and their crappy games, and the fact that no one on the team liked me.

“FuckemRaptors,” I slurred, and snapped my fingers, sliding off the sofa and onto the thick white carpet, leaning to one side and then flailing as I ended up lying flat on my back.

“Jesus!” The voice was far away. Far far away, like a million billion miles from me. “What the fuck, Tot?”

“G’way!”

“Have you got him? Get his other arm… 911?”

911? Wasn’t that a television show? With like all these heroes doing hero shit and rescuing people? Important dudes who deserved to be called heroes. Not messed-up idiot hockey players who just play a game.

“He’ll kill us if we call—”

“Phnargle shump,” I blurted, which totally made sense in my head, telling whoever was here that I didn’t need the paramedics, because that would shatter any illusions left about the perfect guy everyone bought into.

“What did he say?”

“Hell if I know.”

I twisted to stand and smacked my head on something hard, and I opened one eye. Why was there a toilet in my front room?

Wait? The floor is hard. Where was the carpet? I wanted my carpet back. I gripped the porcelain, felt sick, lost whatever was in my stomach, which was basically any alcohol I had in the house, from vodka to alcopops, plus as many packets of the shittiest snacks that Josie had left on her last visit.

“Ja-hossseeeeeee,” I managed.

“S’okay, Tot, we got you,” Josie reassured.

“We have?” The second voice, decidedly male, belonged to my big brother Logan, who levered me to stand, and then I was wet. It was raining in my bathroom, tropically raining in a rainy kind of way, with pulses as if the clouds were squeezing themselves. I was so wet that I wish I wasn’t in