Tomboy

The Biscuit Mistress: And I’m shutting down comments because too many assholes seem to be trolling here.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Zach had no interest in answering his door. Too bad that didn’t stop whoever was on the other side from pounding on it. It had to be Stuckey. Zach never should have given him the code to his security gate. It had just seemed easier, though, since his fellow defenseman had been picking him up for practices. He should have stuck with Uber. Now he had to deal with whatever bullshit was on the other side of his front door when all he wanted was to sit at the card table in his kitchen and play solitaire.

“Open up the door, Blackburn,” Stuckey hollered. “Otherwise Petrov will just pick the lock.”

“Go away,” he yelled through the door.

“No can do,” Stuckey said. “We have a delivery.”

We? What the fuck. Why in the hell were there enough people for a “we” on his front porch, and what kind of delivery was it? He yanked open his door and all but snarled at Stuckey, Phillips, Petrov, and Christensen, who were all crowded around his front door.

“About fucking time. It’s cold out there.” Phillips marched inside carrying an ottoman.

Too confused to stop him, Zach watched as the other man walked over to the absolutely barren living room like he had every right to be there. “What are you doing?”

“Delivering your furniture,” Petrov answered as he and Christensen carried in an oversize chair that looked like the vibrating kind in the mall and followed Phillips into the living room. “My old man owns a store south of here.”

What. The. Fuck. “I didn’t ask for this.”

Stuckey shoved a second ottoman into Zach’s arms. “Yeah, and yet it’s coming to your house anyway.”

He opened his mouth, but Stuckey gave him a glare he normally saved for opponents on the ice. “Just shut the fuck up and help us carry it all inside. Then it’s customary after your friends help you move your stuff in to tell them ‘thank you’ and offer them a beer.”

Now there was some bullshit. These guys strong-arm their way into his house with a bunch of furniture he didn’t ask for and couldn’t pay for and Stuckey wanted him to give them beer? Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.

“I don’t—”

“Dude.” Stuckey picked up a box labeled TV stand that had been leaning against the door and pushed past Zach. “I told Peppers I wouldn’t punch you out if you were a pain in the ass about the furniture. The front office is already talking about trading me to Nashville. Do not increase the chances of that happening because I had to break your nose.”

That stopped him cold. If anyone on the team was going to get traded, it was gonna be him. Stuckey was a phenom, destined to have his name on the cup. “Why would they trade you?”

“Because we’re a great team that is playing like shit and they want to shake things up,” Stuckey said as he strode into the living room, set the box down, and started opening it.

That made no sense. None. What did make sense was getting rid of him. He set the ottoman down next to the one Phillips had already brought in. “Then they can trade me.”

“The ego on you,” Petrov said as he and Christensen passed by him on their way to the front door, no doubt for whatever else was in the back of Stuckey’s truck. “Blackburn, no one wants you but us.”

“What does that mean, but us?”

“In case you missed it, the team has your back,” Phillips said, walking in with a rolled-up rug. “We always have, even when you ignored us.”

Zach opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again, but nothing came out. He couldn’t wrap his brain around what the hell was going on. Four of his teammates, whom he’d all but ignored or growled at for the past week and a half, were delivering furniture that he hadn’t ordered. And putting it together. He watched Phillips unroll a dark blue rug and center it in the room. They were even decorating. He had nothing. None of this computed.

Once all of them were back in the living room, Petrov and Christensen carrying in a huge couch, he turned to the group and asked, “Why?”

“Fuck if I know,” Stuckey said, flipping through the directions for the TV stand. “I’m kidding. Because you’re good people. The fact that you miss that half the time isn’t my problem.”

“So the furniture?” he asked.

“It’s our way of saying we lurve you,” Christensen said in a mocking voice. “No, really it’s so we have a place to sit while we watch the playoffs, since it looks like we won’t be making it. We voted this as the team gathering house.”

“I’m so lucky.” He said it in his best I’m-an-asshole voice, but it didn’t seem to have an impact on the other men in the room, who went on with what they were doing as if he hadn’t said anything.

“I’d say so,” Phillips said. “I wish I had someone who’d go to the mat for me like Fallon did for you.”

Now, that did stop them. That same heavy silence from the locker room hit Zach like a gut-punch. “She wasn’t supposed to do that.”