Guarding Garrett: A Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid MM Romance #1 (Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid Series) Read online

  Guarding Garrett

  A Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid MM Romance

  RJ Scott

  Contents

  A Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid MM Romance

  Guarding Garrett

  Guarding Garrett

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Linked books in the bachelor bid series

  Series currently in Kindle Unlimited

  Standalone books in Kindle Unlimited

  Newsletter

  Meet RJ Scott

  A Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid MM Romance

  Hot hockey players on the auction block...

  Win a date with a professional hockey player during All Star weekend in Chicago. From leading scorers to fan favorites to guys you love to hate, watch the players strut their stuff in support of the Hockey Allies charity. Place a bid. You just might find someone to keep you warm.

  One night. One bid. One hockey bachelor auction... could change everything.

  Guarding Garrett – RJ Scott

  Loving Layne – VL Locey

  Keeping Kyle – Jeff Adams

  Scoring Slater – Susan Scott Shelley

  Absolving Ash – Chantal Mer

  Guarding Garrett

  A hardworking, competitive, and skilled hockey player, Garrett is the cornerstone of the Burlington Dragons hockey team and one of the league’s most popular playmakers. Blessed with a face that delivers millions in endorsements, he has a legion of fans, and a future so bright that he is the envy of many.

  When his internet fame puts him in danger, and a stalker threatens his life, the team hires Jason, a quiet but deadly former marine, to protect him. Danger is always close, but forced proximity means sparks fly, attraction burns, and somehow, resentment turns to love.

  When Garrett’s stalker ups their game at a charity bachelor auction, there is a real chance it could mean the end for Garrett, but Jason refuses to leave his side whatever the risk.

  These two stubborn men will have to fight to walk away from this alive, but their newfound love is worth every sacrifice.

  Copyright

  Guarding Garrett – A Hockey Allies Bachelor Bid MM Romance

  Copyright © 2020 RJ Scott

  Cover design by Meredith Russell

  Edited by Sue Laybourn

  ISBN: 978-1-78564-201-2

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Always for my family.

  Chapter One

  Garrett

  In hindsight, I should never have done the naked photo shoot.

  Nor should I have agreed to use a bath toy to cover the parts they couldn’t show. I was only copying what another player had done before, but maybe using a plastic hippo had been a bad idea. Because I got toy hippos thrown at me on the ice all the time, and some of those suckers were big.

  Also I was the subject of a hundred hockey memes. Some of them funny, some downright weird.

  Of course, hindsight is a beautiful thing and not immediately handed out to wannabe hockey stars alongside their skills with skates and a puck. But, at moments like on my birthday, I regretted the Burlington Dragons encouraging me to do the ESPN Body Issue at all. Seven years ago, and I’d only been twenty and flattered, hell, I was young and fit, no scars, no bruises, I was fast and winning, and I had no cares that my naked body would form the basis for a hundred online memes and jokes.

  Take tonight, for example, and the fact that when I’d arrived for practice, my stall had been papered in printouts from the photo shoot, with crudely drawn genitalia where the hippo had been sitting. Then to top it all, the big sign which was crooked and held up with hockey tape read Hippo B-day Hooly. I turned to face the team, and none of them would look me in the eye, all apart from our goalie, who couldn’t quite keep a straight face.

  “Assholes,” I said, and as soon as I acknowledged what they’d done to my stall, some of the guys collapsed in laughter, or at least the older Burlington Dragons players did. The younger guys, the rookies, sat with their mouths hanging open and probably waiting for me to blow a fuse.

  Johan Dinquis, Mark Reid, and Graeme Stokes. Aka Dinksy, Reidsy, and Stokesy, were three big guys, two D-men, and a decent backup goalie, and they weren’t laughing at the display in my stall at all. They all seemed a little nervous, and I wondered if they’d been told to do this to my spot, being the newbies and all. I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my eyebrows, waiting for one of them to crack. It was Dinksy who made the first move; for some reason, he was the most terrified of me, which didn’t bode well for the team as he was often paired with me to work on his defense.

  “Loki made us do it,” Dinksy blurted, and then hid his face in his hands when he realized what he’d done. Not only had he broken the sacred code of pranking, being that no player ever admitted shit. But he’d also dropped his two teammates, plus one of the veterans and the most obvious suspect in all pranks, in it with him. Reidsy and Stokesy elbowed him from each side, and he let out an oof, but still didn’t peek from behind his hands.

  “You broke the code, dude,” Loki said in all seriousness.

  Dinksy went scarlet. There was silence in the locker room, so much that I could hear tape being dropped in the corner, and then the laughter started. I didn’t know where it began, but it was infectious, and finally, I gave the newbies a break and sat back in my stall surrounded by naked pictures of myself, and laughed until I cried.

  Dinksy was still scarlet when he showed his face, but he did smile when Loki came over and gave him a proud attaboy while rubbing his fine blond hair until it stood up with static. Nicki Lecour, or Loki as he was known, was the team prankster, and I wasn’t sure if the pranking had come first, or the nickname had, but he kept us on our toes.

  One by one, the guys paraded past me, a chorus of “Happy birthdays,” making me smile. Gotta love the Dragons as a cool place to come to work each day.

  The practice was predictable; somehow, I was involved in everything and got a face full of snow at every opportunity. Post practice, it was harassment as I showered and dressed, each individual just having to ask me loudly where we were going after, which they all freaking knew anyway.

  When I was dressed and ready to go, there were a few gifts collected there, and I opened them one by one. There was my favorite candy from five different people, a bobblehead of himself from Loki, a cool Canadian team Olympic puck from the captain, and a cranberry-colored sweater from the newbies. I pulled the sweater on, put the puck into my jacket, and threw the bobblehead back at Loki, who caught it mid-air and then snorted a laugh. Then I hid the candy in my bag and locked that zipper, because nothing was sacred in that locker room.

  Which left only one intriguingly wrapped gift in shiny silver paper, with a blue bow, and perfect corners. There was no card, so I wasn’t sure who to yell at when I opened it. The scent of flowers hit me so hard I had to hold the conten
ts at arm’s length. Inside was a scarlet shape, a bar of soap or something. It was the kind of thing that went into the bath, then melted, fizzed, and changed the color of the water. I picked it up, but it felt weird to touch, and my skin pinkened.

  “Is someone saying I stink?” I faced the team, but no one was staring at me as if it was a gift from them, so I rooted around and found a small card, pulled it out in triumph, and waited for someone to finally claim they left the gift.

  “This one is your blood,” I read out, and turned it over, checking for clues as to the sender, but there was nothing, and I shrugged. My fingers itched where I’d touched it, and when no one was looking, I dumped it and the card into the trash, washing my hands and hoping I wasn’t allergic. I had a photo shoot next week, and the last thing I needed was hives.

  “Beer,” Loki clapped me on the back.

  I glanced to see what he’d stuck on my new sweater, pulling off the post-it that said kiss me and slapping it onto his forehead. He pouted before pocketing the note, and I damn well knew I’d make sure to check my back throughout the rest of the day and into the evening.

  Birthday drinks, albeit lite beers, were at The Lair, a bar just down the road from the Dragon’s arena, and named as a connection to the team because the couple who owned it were huge fans. It wasn’t one of those bars that were trendy; it was rough, ready, and catered to exhausted hockey players and stray fans; precisely what I needed. Trendy bars meant attention, as Garrett Howell the player, the one who did the naked shoot, the one considered nothing more than a body, the gay one who was “like, so pretty.” But, in here, I could just be Garrett Howell, hockey player, tough, skilled, fast on his skates, a scorer, a team player, and most importantly, one of the guys. As we neared the back, Coach was already at what had become our table, a line of beers waiting, with a stern expression.

  There was no way he’d bust any of our balls for one beer, and the stern face was for the poor newbies who shuffled past him to sit right at the other end. Coach nodded at me, and then when we were all seated, we each took a frosty beer.

  “Happy Birthday, Hooly,” he declared, and everyone chimed in, taking a sip of beer, and that was it, my birthday celebration was a done deal, and talk moved on to current trade rumors.

  “You hear that Detroit is looking to reinforce their defense and free cap space?”

  The question was a general one, but everyone looked at me. My best friend Kyle played with the Detroit Arsenal, but he hadn’t mentioned cap issues in our messages. I’d known Kyle since I’d been billeted with his family, the Pressgroves, in Michigan. Only fifteen, I’d moved a thousand miles from Vancouver to live with them, and coming from having no family and a history of foster homes and landing in such a close-knit family had been unsettling.

  Befriended by the dark-haired hockey player who would be one of the other forwards on our Junior team went some way to let me experience what a real family was like. His mom, aka Mamma P, had taken me under her wing as if I was her third son, and to this day, I thought of her as my mom. She cared it was my birthday, worried about me, called me every week without fail, and I loved her. Also I considered Kyle and Bobby my brothers, maybe not by blood but certainly by love and shared experiences.

  “Kyle hasn’t mentioned it,” I said, and after a pause, everyone went back to chatting about trades, and moves, and how the Dragons were good right now and didn’t need any changes.

  Right on cue, as if Kyle knew we were talking about him, my cell vibrated with a message, and I opened the app as soon as I saw who it was from, then wished I hadn’t, because the phone’s volume was high. Everyone on the table heard the stripper song that accompanied one of the worst Garrett Howell memes out there.

  My face photoshopped onto a dancing hippo who was removing a skimpy tutu and revealing boxer shorts decorated with hearts.

  “I love that one,” some unidentified asshole shouted, and my phone was lifted very quickly and passed to anyone who hadn’t seen this particular meme.

  “Fuck off.” I scrabbled for the phone and managed to get it just as it began to play the clip for what seemed like the thousandth time at least, and then I shot back a few typed curses to Kyle that he answered just as fast.

  Finally, he typed happy birthday, G, and we were done messing with each other for the night.

  “Hooly! There’s something been left here for you,” the tall skinny barman, Emmet, called over, waving a box and dropping it on the bar.

  I crawled over a couple of the guys who’d blocked me in, then ambled toward the bar, still smiling over the stupid hippo meme. I dropped onto a stool and ordered another round of the lite beers for everyone, plus the juice for Coach.

  “Who’s it from?” I asked him.

  “No idea.” He shrugged and went back to what he was doing.

  I pulled the small box toward me, and other than my name on the label, there was no indication of who the box was from, and I steeled myself for another Loki prank. The first of the beers appeared on a tray as I peeled back the tape holding the box together, and lifted the lid, then gagged. What remained of a dead bird was inside the box, brightly colored blue and green feathers, guts and blood and beak and eyes, it was a mess of maggots and gross. I immediately replaced the lid.

  “Jesus,” I gagged again.

  “You okay?” Emmet frowned at me over the tray of beers.

  “You don’t know who left this here?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, I expect Judy took it in before I got on shift, just saw it there with your name on it. What is it, because you look like shit??”

  “No, yeah, it’s… I’m good. On my tab, right?” I indicated the beers.

  “It’s all on your tab anyway.” He winked at me.

  I shook my head. Coach always implied he was treating the team, but in the end, it was us who funded our birthday drinks.

  “Not an issue when you’re earning millions,” he’d grouched at me the first year I’d commented about it. I didn’t like to point out I’d been on a rookie contract back then, anyway, the six million a year contract I had now could safely cover some beers. I took the full tray over, then went back for the box, placing it in front of me in the hope that one of the team would look at me a certain way and own up to this gag, which wasn’t that funny.

  “Fess up,” I encouraged with a grin. There had to be a reason why this prank involved a dead bird. Was it a comment on my golfing skills which were pretty shit? People were talking among themselves about hockey, Netflix, girlfriends, but not a single person caught my eye, or seemed off in any way. “Did you send this?” I expected Loki to grin at me, but he shook his head, and no one else seemed ready to own up.

  “What was it?” Coach asked after a while, and I caught his gaze steadily. Maybe Coach had sent it given our heated debate last weekend over the Calgary game. I’d had a nasty collision with a Calgary winger, which had left us both bleeding, him from a cut on his jaw, and me from one over my eye, which was only just healing. I’d been given the penalty, and yeah, it had been an accident, but he was pissed because I could have been hurt worse and lost playing time.

  Since when did blood stop a game? Only if it was an artery, and there was death on the horizon.

  “It’s gross,” I admitted, and some of those closest to me turned at my tone, and glanced at me strangely.

  “What is it?” Coach prompted.

  “A dead bird.” I waited for a confession that it was all a prank. Nothing. Not a word from anyone.

  “A dead what did you say?” Loki asked from right down the end of the table near the newbies.

  “A bird.”

  “What the fuck?” he commented and pulled a face.

  My thoughts exactly. I picked up the box and slid it under the table. Then all I could think was that I might kick it, and I didn’t want that shit all over the floor. My head didn’t feel right anyway after inhaling the scents of that bath bomb and now the mess of decaying bird. I needed some air, so I went outside.
>
  I held my breath, opened the garbage can in the alley next to The Lair, then threw in the box and the bird. After that, I had to tilt my head back, checking out the night sky and clearing my lungs.

  “This face needs fixing,” a grumble of voice called from behind me, and I turned to see what was happening, a gloved hand coming up covering my mouth, another gripping my throat, and a heavy weight pushing me back against the wall so hard my teeth rattled. “Fuck you, pretty boy,” he snapped again, and pulled the hand back, formed a fist, and hit me on the side of the head, then again, kicking me as I stumbled to my knees.

  “What the hell, man, what are you doing?” another person shouted, “I’m calling 911!”

  “Maggots will eat you when you’re buried face down in the dirt!” The low growl of a voice washed over me, the scent of flowers, and then one more kick, this time to the side of my head, and I hit the ground hard.

  And then there was nothing.

  Chapter Two

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said. Again.

  My soon to be ex-agent, Shaun, huffed and cursed under his breath.

  “They know it’s not your fault, but given how you’ve been recently maybe they’re worried about you.”

  “What do you mean how I’ve been?” I don’t know why I said this, because it would be opening a can of worms. He was still pissed that I’d decided to move on from his representation, and took every chance he had to let me know how much worse off he’d be without me.