The Legacy (Off-Campus Book 5)

Saturday morning, I step off the plane in Palm Springs with the other half dozen of my teammates who got roped into playing this two-day tournament. The charity people set us up at a nice hotel, to which we’re ushered by two private cars. Room service brings up some breakfast, while Logan texts me from the room next door to say that Happy Gilmore is on TV, if I want to glean a few pointers before we hit the first tee. I’m about to reply when my agent calls.

“I knew nothing about this,” Landon warns before I can say a word.

“What?”

I step onto the balcony where several stories below people are starting to gather for the tournament. The press is setting up. Staff running around, corralling spectators. It’s a sunny day. Not too hot and a slight breeze. Good weather for golf. Well, for people who are good at golf.

“When I got to the office, there was a voicemail from that producer,” Landon explains.

Christ. These people are incessant.

“The answer’s still no.”

“Right. I was very clear on that with them.” There’s a long and disconcerting pause. “Except apparently they’re under the impression Phil agreed for both of you.”

I damn near chuck my phone off the balcony. I rear back and barely stop myself from releasing, only finding the self-control when I realize there’s a good chance it’d knock someone below out cold.

“Fuck no, Landon. You get me?” My grip tightens around the phone, and I feel the plastic case start to crunch. “Tell them to piss off. He doesn’t speak for me. Ever.”

“Absolutely. I hear you.”

“They couldn’t get me on that set beside him with a gun to my head.”

“I get that, Garrett. I do.” Another unnerving pause. “I’ll make the call. Whatever you want.” He clears his throat. “Here’s the thing, though: As far as they understand, you’ve committed to this. If I go back and tell them you’re out, it doesn’t look good.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“No, I know. These are special circumstances. Only, they don’t know that. So they might start wondering if there’s something more to it.”

“Maybe they won’t,” I mutter through gritted teeth. I’m rubbing my molars down to nubs.

“I promise, it will raise questions. The kind that have a way of snowballing. Are you prepared for what happens when people start wondering if there’s bad blood there? Why you’d refuse to do an interview with your father? Because I’ll tell you what that looks like. They start calling your teammates and coaches and old college friends and some kid from your third-grade class to ask about your family and relationship with your dad. Can you be sure what they’ll say?”

I draw a shallow, ragged breath.

Screw. This.

For the sake of my career, I’ve been obliged to put on a front for years. There was no getting around it—Phil Graham is one of the biggest names in American hockey. It was either air all our trauma for the world to see or fake the happy family. I’d chosen the latter, because the former is too…Christ, it’s too humiliating.

The idea of the entire world viewing me as some sort of victim makes me want to throw up. Hannah has brought it up before, asking if maybe it’s time to let my father’s actions come to light, to let everyone know what kind of man they’ve been deifying. But at what cost? Suddenly I go from being “hockey player” to “the hockey player whose daddy used to beat him up.” I want to be judged for my skills on the ice, not dissected and pitied. I don’t want strangers knowing my business. I feel sick just thinking about it.

These past few years, I’d been fine playing along, putting on that front. Now, for some inexplicable reason, my dad seems intent on making my life especially difficult.

The last thing I want, however, is some nosy sports reporter snooping around in my life. If they track down Coach Jensen at Briar University, I have no doubt my old coach would have my back. Chad Jensen is tight-lipped on a good day. If someone showed up in his arena asking for gossip about a former player, he’d rip them a new one. But I can’t say the same for everyone in my life. I played with a lot of guys at Briar who knew I had a violent history with my father.

So despite the acid rising in the back of my throat, I have no choice but to do exactly what that asshole expected when he concocted this farce.

“Fine,” I tell Landon. Hating every word as it comes off my tongue. “I’ll do it.”

After we get off the phone, I pull up my father’s name on my contacts list. I can’t remember the last time I actually called him. But if he’s roping me into this, I’m not going quietly.

“Garrett. Good to hear from you. Ready to hit some balls?” he says, so goddamn unbothered, it spikes my already-heightened anger. He isn’t even involved in the tournament, but he makes it his business to always know what I’m up to.

“What the hell are you playing at?” My voice is low. The rage barely restrained.

“I’m sorry?”

He seriously has the nerve to play dumb? “This interview nonsense. Why?”

“They came to me,” he replies with feigned innocence. “Didn’t see a good reason to say no.”

“So you make that decision for me?” My hands are legit shaking. I hate this man so much, it causes a physical disturbance in my body.

“It’s the right one. You don’t turn down an opportunity like this.”

“I decide. Not you. Just because you can’t stand not being the center of attention anymore—”

“Garrett.” He sighs. So bored with my concerns. “I’d hoped you’d matured over the last year, but I see now I overestimated you.”

“Fuck you, old man. I’m not a kid anymore. You can’t pull this shit with me.”

There was a time the disappointed dad routine worked. Back when I was five years old, six, seven. A little kid desperate to impress his unimpressible father. It drove me into spirals of depression and self-doubt. I would do anything to gain his approval. Until I got older and understood the vicious manipulation at play. On a child. And realized what a bastard he is.

“I won’t entertain your tantrums, boy. One day you’ll understand everything I’ve done to give you a career in this sport.” Condescension drips from his tone. “Maybe then you’ll appreciate how lucky you are to have been born my son.”

I’d sooner eat my own foot.

“In any case,” he says, with that smug drone that makes my eye twitch. “You will do this interview. You’ll sit for the cameras, be charming and personable, and just maybe be smart enough to reach for that next level to become one of the greats. It’s what a professional does.”

I hang up on him, because if allowed, he’d keep talking to jerk off to the sound of his own voice. Anyway, I’ve heard this speech before. Be the Michael Jordan of hockey. Fame that transcends the sport.

Which is all well and good, but if Phil Graham is standing beside me when it happens, I can’t see myself ever enjoying any of it.

As it is, I can’t shake the conversation or the dread of the interview during the tournament and our team finishes the day dead last. I’m double-digits over par and spent most of the afternoon up to my knees in the rough. Logan didn’t fare much better, setting up shop in numerous sand traps while the spectators had a good laugh. Which is a bummer for our teammates who paid to play with us, but they were good sports about the whole thing. Keeping them plied with drinks helped, as well as the ribeyes we inhale at a nearby award-winning restaurant after the tournament wraps for the day. The two men are brothers from Texas and own a cattle ranch together, so I trust they know their meat when they tell us this is the best steakhouse in the entire state.

By the time we return to the hotel after dinner, it’s quarter past nine and all I want is to shower and get out of these sweaty clothes. I don’t bother turning on the light as I stride into my room, tugging my shirt over my head before the door even closes behind me. I’m about half undressed when something suddenly moves in the mirror.

On instinct, I grab a glass water bottle from the desk and spin around, ready to chuck it at whatever is behind me.

“Don’t shoot,” a female voice drawls in response.

I lower the bottle. Quickly stick an arm out to slap the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light. My heart’s pounding and the adrenaline is still pumping hot through my veins, so it takes me a second to comprehend the naked woman lying in my bed, only partially under the covers.

With an unbothered smirk, she raises her hands in surrender. “I’m unarmed.”

I draw a calming breath. “Who the hell are you?”

“Your present,” she teases before shimmying the rest of the blanket off her to reveal the two red bows stuck to her nipples. “You’re welcome.” Then she rolls over and flashes me her bare ass, which has my name written across it in black Sharpie.

Garrett on one cheek, Graham on the other.

I can’t.

I just fucking can’t.

Without a word, I turn on my heel and stalk out of the room. Pulling my shirt on as I get into the elevator still carrying the bottle of water. Swear to Christ the next person who messes with me is getting clobbered.

Downstairs, my mood gets darker and more turbulent as I get into it with the manager at the front desk, who seems to have mistaken me for someone with patience to spare. Like, dude, we could talk about your woefully inadequate security that let a naked chick in my room with my name on her ass like she’s looking to put my skin on a stuffed animal on her bed, or you could just give me a new room so I can go to fucking sleep.

While I’m waiting for them to finally get their act together and move my stuff, I text Logan.

ME: Hockey gods decided to spare you tonight. Just found a groupie in my bed. Bows on her tits and my name in Sharpie on her ass.

HIM: Bahahahaha. You go girl.

HIM: Permanent marker, eh? Wish my stalkers had that kind of dedication.

ME: Getting a new room now, so don’t shout random shit at my door. Won’t be there.

HIM: Why didn’t you just come crash with me?

ME: Cuz I’m a grown man who doesn’t need his hand held every time I’m assaulted by a pair of strange tits?

HIM: Your loss. We coulda cuddled.

Snorting, I exit the chat thread and find Hannah’s name. With all the press crawling around this hotel, I’d expect the rumors to hit the web within the hour.

ME: Don’t look at any of the sports blogs. Maybe stay off social media altogether.

HER: You shank a ball and kill an endangered egret or something?

ME: Nah. Found a crazy naked lady in my bed. Hotel is trying to argue that’s a feature, not a bug.

HER: Lmao at least I wasn’t in the bed this time.

Guilt settles like a rock in the pit of my stomach.

ME: I’m sorry. I wish the pro athlete life wasn’t so goddamn intrusive. Just didn’t want you to get blindsided.

HER: No worries. I trust you not to cheat on me with some random puck bunny.

Not that I expected anything else, but Hannah being chill about this feels like the one win I’ve had today. She’s the single thing in my life I don’t have to stress about. We’re just good, always, no matter what. When everything else is out of control, this woman grounds me.

ME: I mean, if you want to be a little jealous, that’s cool too…

HER: Oh, I’ll cut a bitch. They don’t want to try me.

I catch myself smiling for what feels like the first time in days.

ME: Miss you. Can’t wait to get home.

HER: Hurry back. Love you.

It’s times like this I remember why I fell so hopelessly hard for this girl.