Power Play - A Fake Dating Ice Hockey Romance

Episode 6

Alex

Inside no matter how gorgeous Madison Lane is, I’m livid, fuming, f*****g pissed off. I don’t need some snoop around me and certainly not for 24/7. Jeez-us it’s a real spanner in the works not to mention she’ll be in the way. Sure, I like going out like any other guy my age and I like p***y, who doesn’t at my age? Girls are the same. We have high s*x drives, well most of us in any case.

Tough s**t, she’s going to have to tolerate it. There is no way I am making out she is my girlfriend. No. f*****g. Way. I throw my keys in the aquamarine ceramic bowl that sits on the top of my mahogany table in the hallway. Mom bought it for me on one of her trips to Mexico. It’s the only dash of color in the hallway, hell practically in the whole house since I prefer whites, blacks, charcoals, and neutrals.

My yard is masculine, and I like it this way. From the large stainless-steel fridge in my kitchen, where I have to admit I do the minimum amount of cooking, I grab a diet coke. I guzzle down half a bottle in one go. Yeah, I know at this time of night it’s not the right thing to drink with the caffeine but I’m a night owl in any case. Sleep always eludes me, I go to bed thinking about the games I just played, how I can be even better on the ice and how much I want to help our team bring home the Stanley Cup.

It's been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid. I have signed posters up in my gym all housed in stainless steel frames of some of the great names in hockey, who’ve bought home the cup. Henri Richard, Jean Beliveau, Yvan Cournoyer and Claude Provost adorn the walls of my stark gym. I look at them when I work out, they make me want to be a better player. I want to be the best that NHL has ever seen. Right now, I’m their golden boy but I know it can’t last forever.

What will I do after that? I’d probably coach and help kids get to live their dreams. Mine was a hard slog, trust me. I didn’t always have it this easy. My dad left my mother when I was four. They argued all the time; my memories are of them always fighting. He liked to spend money and mom wanted us to have a better life. She worked hard as a secretary and long hours. What she earned my dad used to drink away. He worked as a mechanic here in our hometown, but the wage was low and after work he'd go to the bar then come home drunk like a skunk. He was never mean to my mom or laid a finger on her, their rows were about money. Always the f*****g money. I knew then that I never wanted to have these kinds of issues when I grew up and now I don’t. I work my damn ass off to make sure I’m secure and one day, maybe in my mid-thirties, I’ll meet someone who blows me away enough to settle down with and have kids. They will want for nothing.

My mom eventually kicked my dad out, she paid the bulk of the mortgage in any case. Eventually after much hard work she got to make it to assistant level then finally became an executive assistant for a CEO in a finance firm here in Aspen and she loves it. Mom still works there now.

When I was six, she met a guy called Lenny and a couple of years later they got married. I like Lenny, he’s a solid kind of guy. It was him who always took me to the ice and bought me my first hockey stick. Boy was I obsessed after that. He took me to the games, sometimes mom would join us, but it was our thing. From the moment he came into our lives, I liked him.

Lenny works in the same company as my mom, he is the finance director and is stable. He doesn’t drink, he likes the odd barbeque with friends over and cooks a mean burger. He’s a good guy. My sister, Apple is his kid but we’re tight as can be. I love the way she looks up to me as her elder brother and even though she is now in high school, she still calls me on a regular basis to chat about her life and boys. I want to kill every one of them because I am fiercely protective of my kid sister, but I have to let her live her life. She knows she must be careful.

It's just gone ten thirty now, so I decide to go put on a movie on Netflix whilst I try to calm down thinking about some sports journo coming to intrude in my life and having to pretend to date her. WTF is all that about anyway? I think my manager and my coach have lost the plot. How am I supposed to get myself some hardcore s*x with a fake girlfriend?

Ground rules, there’s going to have to be some stringent rules in place. Most of all for her not to get in my face. Only, I’ve known about Madison Lane for a while now. She’s blood thirsty and hungry to be at the top of her field and what she wants she usually gets. No different than me then, maybe tomorrow I’ll have a word with coach and see if we can’t at least put her in a hotel.

I get they want me to clean up my image but I’m telling you all now, that ain’t going to happen. I’m not about to become a monk. Sure, the fighting and getting pissed up so much can be trained, even I’m getting bored of getting drunk all the time. I get how my online image is looking pretty s**t right now too, so yeah, maybe I can curb that but not fake dating.

No. f*****g. Way. Or can I?