Breaking the rules, p.1
Breaking the Rules, page 1
Table of Contents
Breaking the Rules
About the Book
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Epilogue
Bonus!
Game for Love
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
A Collection of Deleted and Bonus Scenes from the original Hot Jocks Series
Bonus Scene from Playing for Keeps
Bonus Scene from All the Way
Bonus Scene from Crossing the Line
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Breaking the Rules
Copyright © 2021 Kendall Ryan
Copy Editing by Pam Berehulke
Cover Design and Formatting by Uplifting Author Services
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
About the Book
The bestselling Hot Jocks series is back with a brand-new novella. In this much-anticipated return of the hockey team you know and love, you’ll see what the guys are up to now and meet the hot new rookie on the team. This series by New York Times bestselling author Kendall Ryan has been called . . .
“PERFECT!” – Modern Belle
“A TOTAL, UTTER MUST READ.” – Book Fanatic
“Delicious and steamy hockey goodness!” – New York Times bestselling author Elle Kennedy
“Sexy, smart, fun, and just a damn good time.” – USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn
Includes bonus material and deleted scenes from the original series.
1
* * *
BECCA
If my favorite romantic comedies have taught me anything, it’s that once you get married, you live happily ever after. You ride off into the sunset with your Prince Charming and live the good life. Cue the sappy music and roll the credits.
Except my reality is turning out to be so much different.
With a sigh, I smear peanut butter on a slice of bread and wipe a blob of jelly from the counter with a paper towel.
First of all, you should know I married my dream guy—my one-time best friend turned sex tutor, Owen Parrish—and things started off great.
When we got together eight years ago, he was the starting goaltender for the famed Seattle Ice Hawks hockey team. Life was filled with games and charity galas and private planes. We lived lavishly, completely in love, and enjoyed every stolen moment we could get. Each season was intense, and there was a lot of time away for games all around the US and Canada.
The hockey life was a good life. Whenever he got home from a particularly long trip, we’d basically maul each other with kisses and I love yous, and hump like bunnies until it was time for him to leave again.
Summers were spent traveling. At Owen’s urging, I left my job in public relations to be able to spend more time with him. We ventured all over the globe, visiting exotic locales like the Seychelles and Portugal, and even Bora-Bora. We ate and drank and napped and, quite frankly, had a lot of sex. Life was blissful.
And yes, I’ll admit, sometimes I missed my job, missed my old colleagues and having a purpose, but mostly I was happy. I was living a life most people only dreamed about. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to complain about the little things I might have missed. Even if sometimes I felt alone and sad.
Which brings me to the present.
My hair hasn’t been washed in four days, my T-shirt is stained with breast milk, and I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today, even though it’s well past noon.
Worse than that, though? I’ve kind of lost the ability to care. I’m in survival mode. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been there, but just getting out of bed in the morning feels like an accomplishment.
And the main reason why I’m so despondent? Well, I’m terrified to tell Owen that I’m pregnant. Again. He’s been so focused lately, and also so stressed out, I don’t want to pile any more worry on him.
Although Owen is still technically on the team at the moment, he’s not on the active player roster, which means he’s been home with us. Essentially, he’s retired. But lately, he’s been working with a trainer and has plans to play again rather than retire officially , something I have big, messy mixed feelings about.
I told him I’d support his decision no matter what, but the truth is, I can’t imagine us going back to the professional hockey schedule. The training and practices alone are brutal . . . not to mention his traveling for away games.
Owen hasn’t even decided yet if a return is possible for him at the age of thirty-five, but he’s been training harder than I’ve ever seen him train. Seven days a week, he’s at the gym before I’m even awake most mornings. He’s already added fifteen pounds of new muscle and replaced his dad bod with his professional-athlete body.
If he does return to the NHL, I know it will be harder than when he was playing before. For one thing, we’ll have four children under the age of six. Everything domestic will fall on me—cooking and cleaning and discipline. Yes, we have a cleaning lady who comes once a week, but she’s not here 24/7. I love having my toilets scrubbed and beds made every Tuesday, but there’s a lot of life that happens between her visits. I swear my house looks like a tornado passed through it only hours after her visit.
“Bishop! Your lunch is ready!” I call out.
Our six-year-old son, Bishop, is dribbling a basketball down the hallway, even though I’ve told him at least six thousand times not to do that. The sound bounces off the marble flooring and straight into my brain. I can feel a headache forming behind my eyes. It doesn’t help that I’ve had to give up caffeine.
The twins are crawling around at my feet, probably searching for any crumbs I might have dropped. I need to fix them lunch too.
“Soon, sweetie pies. Soon,” I tell them as I carry the sandwich and a plastic cup of milk over to the dining table. “Here you go, buddy.”
“Thanks, Mommy,” Bishop says, smiling sweetly up at me when he sees I’ve sliced the sandwich into four tidy squares, just like he likes.
I tousle his hair and lean over to press a kiss to his forehead.
Our son is absolutely adorable. And it’s not his fault that I’m overwhelmed. I lean down and give him a sniff. He smells a little like cheese. Hmm . . .
I begin a mental list of all the things that need to be done later—dropping off a birthday gift for a friend, returning library books, bathing Bishop and then the twins. Just as I’m giving myself a pep talk, all hell breaks loose.
Bishop drops his sandwich on the floor, and when our naughty goldendoodle puppy snatches it, devouring the thing in two noisy gulps, Bishop begins to cry.
Charli and Bella are next—each of them sobbing along with their older brother. They’ve always been sympathetic criers. When one of them starts, so does the other, even though half the time, I’m convinced they don’t know why they’re crying.
Emotion wells in my throat. Keep it together, Becca.
I can’t let myself break down, even if the only thing I want to do is curl into a ball in the center of my bed and cry. For like a thousand years.
Later, I tell myself.
After I secure the twins in their matching high chairs and shush them with kisses, I replace Bishop’s sandwich with a new one and shoot our dog a death glare. The twins babble as I fix plates of sliced bananas and avocado for them and then collapse into a dining chair.
I should fix myself something to eat as well, but I’m too exhausted. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t been sleeping well or because of the pregnancy hormones. I’m only about nine weeks along, and I don’t recall my other early pregnancies being this difficult.
I’m so tired. All. The. Time.
But this will be the fourth baby my body has grown in six years, so it’s a lot. Especially on my petite frame. I’m convinced there will be nothing left of my boobs at all by the time I’m done nursing the twins. Which really needs to be any day now. They’re ten months old. I need to begin weaning them soon, but it’s another chore that I don’t want to deal with.
When he’s finished with his lunch, I get Bishop settled with a board game, and then wipe sticky globs of banana from between the twins’ chubby fingers with baby wipes before I put them down for a nap.
Exhausted, I curl up on the sofa in the living room, thinking I should check my email. Maybe reply to my mom’s text. But I’m too tired to move. I let out a huge yawn and have just closed my eyes for a brief nap when I hear the front door open.
“Angel? I’m home,” comes Owen’s voice from the hallway. “And I have great news.”
“Yeah?” I call from the living room.
“Yeah,” he says as his footsteps move down the hall. “My agent says Nashville is interested.”
My stomach does a weird little flip. It’s good news that a team is interested in him, right? That means his dream of coming out of retirement is one step closer.
But Nashville? Uprooting our entire lives to move to a city where I have no friends, no family, no connections? And more importantly . . . no childcare help? That thought is terrifying. I’ll have four kids soon. Researching new schools, pediatricians, ob-gyn . . . all of it.
Anxiety settles into my chest, making my heart beat faster.
“Becca?” Owen says, his voice closer now.
“That’s great,” I hear myself say, but my voice sounds far away in my own ears, like I’ve lost another piece of myself.
Too many more of them, and I fear there will be nothing left of me.
2
* * *
OWEN
“You ready, Barnsley?”
Kyle Barnsley is a freckle-faced kid with a bad attitude who would much rather be playing Minecraft at home than Little League at the park. He glares at me like I asked him to eat dirt.
Awesome. We’re off to a fantastic start.
It’s our last game of the season, and I’m thankful for that. When I volunteered to coach, I had no idea what a time commitment this would turn out to be.
I turn the baseball in my hand as I get into position to lob it less than ten feet toward Barnsley’s outstretched bat. In moments like these, I have to remind myself that some people aren’t cut out for team sports. But then I remember that these people are five- and six-year-old children. They aren’t cut out for much at all yet.
“Lift your elbows, kid.”
It’s a lost cause. Kyle lifts his arms way too far over his head, and the weight of the bat tumbles him backward. Soon, he’s flat on his ass, crying wet tears all over his freckled face.
“It’s okay, man. You’ll get it next time.”
I nod to Jordie, my catcher for the day. Normally, Grant is my assistant coach, with one of his own kids on the coed team. But he took the weekend off to celebrate his anniversary with Ana a month early in upstate New York, hiring a nanny to take care of their kids.
Becca and I really gotta do that. We’re due for a vacation. Somewhere with a warm beach and a great view and no rush to get out of bed. Christ, what I would give to spend the day in bed with Becca. But that means we’d need to find a nanny, and fuck if I know where to even start with that. Plus, the twins are probably too young to part with at this point.
There goes that thought.
“These kids suck, dude,” Jordie grumbles with zero remorse after helping Barnsley up and shooing him back to the dugout.
With a stern look, I say, “Watch your attitude around the kids.”
He rolls his eyes, still very much the rookie in his maturity level. “Whatever. Lemme pitch or I’m gonna die of boredom.”
“Isn’t Harper here?”
Nonchalant, he shrugs like I don’t know how head over heels he is for his wife.
I glance over at the bleachers, catching Becca’s eye. She waves to me with a weak smile on her face.
Ever since I told her about Nashville, she’s been distant. And for Becca—sweet, brave, love-of-my-life Becca—that’s out of character, and I’ve felt a weird sense of dread ever since. I don’t like her being distant. She’s always been my biggest cheerleader, my most vocal supporter. We need to find the time to have an actual conversation.
“Be nice,” I say firmly, tossing the ball to Jordie as I turn toward the bleachers. “Fisher, you’re up! Parrish, you’re on deck.”
Bishop is tucked away in the shadowy dugout, but my kid’s face lights up like a damn beacon at the sound of our last name.
He rushes toward me, latching onto my leg. “I want you to pitch!”
“I will, bud. I’ll be right back.”
I ruffle his dark hair before carefully detaching his strong little hands from my leg. This kid is a force of nature, even at six years old. He’d be a killer goalie, I think, grinning at the thought.
Now, where the hell are my other kids?
Becca had dressed them in matching yellow onesies and blue coats this morning when I came home from my workout—our team’s colors. A quick scan of the bleachers reveals that Elise has one of the twins in her lap, and Justin is carrying the other, fast asleep on his shoulder.
Elise has been an amazing aunt, filling the role naturally with her big heart and her background as a preschool teacher. I always think that I know Justin better than anyone—he’s my best friend, after all—but it still surprises me how good he is with kids. After that one chick from bumfuck nowhere tricked him into thinking he was a dad, I assumed Justin would be scarred for life. But no, he’s totally comfortable with kids, great even. They’re holding off on having offspring of their own, which I respect. It’s hard work.
I jog the rest of the way and sit next to Becca, cracking open a bottle of water from the cooler at her feet. She has a cup of tea hanging limply in her hands while she zones out, staring at the diamond with an empty expression.
“Earth to Becs. You doing okay?” I ask, nudging her knee with mine.
“Yeah,” she says quickly. “You?”
I nod. “Just needed a break. Jordie’s good with the kids.”
We watch Jordie face-palm as the Fisher kid tries to swing the bat like it’s a golf club.
“You think?” Harper says, sounding a little skeptical from where she’s sitting on the other side of Becca.
I don’t blame her. Jordie isn’t the most mature of our group. But maybe I’m wrong. Harper and Jordie have been going strong for years now, and I’m sure she knows him better than I do.
Still, the frown on her face gives me pause. Is something up between the two of them? Guess that’s something I’ll have to investigate later.
“Good enough for Little League,” Becca says, and we all chuckle at that.
Soon, Bishop is up, kicking the plate dejectedly and staring back at us on the bleachers as Jordie tries to coax him into swinging.
“That’s my cue.” I drop a kiss on Becca’s head before I head back down.
“I want Daddy,” Bishop whines to Jordie, who forces a grin.
“Of course you do. He’s the Little League expert, after all. A decade of professional hockey is basically the same thing on a résumé.”
“What’s a rezz-you-may?”
I pat Jordie on the shoulder and give him a look that says, Thanks, but fuck off. And fuck off he does, tossing me the ball and grumbling to himself. Someone’s got his panties in a twist.
“You ready, bud?” I give my little guy a smile.
Bishop nods enthusiastically, his face set in the familiar determination of a Parrish at work.
Man, I love this kid.
The first pitch results in a swing and a miss, but that doesn’t distract Bishop from the task at hand. I give him a proud grin. It’s hard not playing favorites when your son is so damn cool.
“All right, buddy, you got this one. Bend your knees. Just like we practiced.”
A simple adjustment later and Bishop taps the bat against the airborne ball, sending it wobbling toward third base like the champ he is. He looks up at me from under his loose baseball cap with a wide, toothy grin.
“Run, man, run!”
With that, he turns and takes off, his little legs pumping as fast as they can, all the way to first base. Our friends holler from the stands like they’re witnessing history in the making. Hell, it’s the best any of these little goons have done all day.
The kid knows how to make his old man proud, that’s for sure.
• • •
The game ends up a well-earned tie.
While parents retrieve their kids, I exchange a firm handshake and a tired look of relief with the other team’s coach. There were no meltdowns today, so that’s a win in any Little League coach’s book.
While Becca and I are packing up our kids in the car, Jordie slaps me on the shoulder. “You seen Harper anywhere? I can’t find her.”
Becca frowns slightly, which would be invisible to anyone who hasn’t memorized her facial expressions like I have. “She said she was going to wait in the car. Headache, I think.”
Jordie exhales out of his nose sharply and shakes his head. “Right . . . thanks. See you guys.”
“Thanks for your help today, Jordie,” I call to his retreating back.
