The Captain I Hate - A Steamy Forced Proximity Enemies to Lovers Hockey Romance

There are approximately seven hundred and fifty active professional hockey players in North America, which is a completely useless fact except that I happened to look it up last night while trying to convince myself that accepting this job did not automatically guarantee I would run into the one player I had spent the last eight years actively avoiding.

Thirty-two teams, hundreds of players, dozens of departments, thousands of employees, and apparently only one man on the entire continent capable of standing directly outside my new office at eight-fifteen on a Monday morning.

Beckett Hayes.

Of course it has to be him.

I stop at the far end of the hallway with my coffee still warm between my fingers and the confidence I'd spent most of the morning assembling disappearing by the second. Beck remains exactly where he is, one broad shoulder resting against my office door as though he owns the building and has personally decided this particular section of it belongs to him, and although he isn't technically doing anything offensive, Beckett Hayes has always possessed the unique ability to irritate me simply by existing in my general vicinity.

Eight years have passed since I last saw him in person, which should be long enough for familiarity to fade, but I recognize everything about him before I've even consciously finished looking. He's taller than I remember, or perhaps merely broader, and professional hockey has been unfairly kind to a body that was already causing me problems when I was nineteen. His navy suit fits across shoulders that definitely weren't that wide when he was twenty-one, while the crisp white shirt beneath it does absolutely nothing to disguise what years of being paid an obscene amount of money to skate into other large men at high speed have done to the rest of him.

My gaze drops before I can stop it, catching briefly on his thighs, and I immediately drag it upward again because there are some humiliations I refuse to experience before I've even unpacked my office.

His dark hair is shorter than it used to be and styled neatly enough that I suspect somebody somewhere charges him an embarrassing amount of money to make it look effortless. A layer of dark stubble shadows a jaw that used to be softer, and the boy who practically lived at my parents' house has disappeared beneath the polished edges of a man whose face is now plastered across billboards, sports networks, and the occasional underwear advertisement I have definitely never stared at.

He's older now, harder around the edges and far more self-assured, and the deeply inconvenient truth is that he's also considerably better looking.

His attention finally lifts from the phone in his hand, and those familiar dark eyes find me immediately. For half a second, nothing happens, and I wonder whether eight years have changed me enough that he doesn't recognize me; then one corner of his mouth rises, slow and knowing, and the expression sends irritation crawling over my skin because apparently some things haven't changed at all.

"Mercer."

I tighten my fingers around my coffee cup because crushing it against his forehead would probably violate several workplace policies on my first day. "Hayes."

His gaze moves over me with a slowness that sends an unwelcome shiver through my stomach, although there is nothing openly crude about the inspection, which somehow makes it worse. He starts at the black heels I spent far too much money on, lets his attention travel over the tailored pants and cream blouse I changed three times this morning, and finally returns to my face, where something subtle shifts behind his eyes before he smooths it away.

Another person might have missed it, but I spent too many years knowing Beck before I spent eight years hating him.

"Well," he says, drawing the word out just enough to annoy me before his smile deepens. "You're all grown up."

My stomach does something humiliating, but fortunately my mouth has always been considerably more reliable than the rest of me around him. "And you're still a dick."

His laugh is immediate, low and genuine, and I hate how quickly my brain recognizes the sound, as though there hasn't been almost a decade of silence between the last time I heard it and now.

"Good morning to you too."

"What are you doing here?" I ask, even though the question sounds ridiculous the moment it leaves my mouth.

Beck glances around the hallway before looking back at me with exaggerated consideration. "Working."

"Against my door?"

"Your door?" His eyebrows rise, and I don't bother answering because the silver plaque installed beside it yesterday does the job for me.

SLOANE MERCER

PARTNERSHIPS & COMMUNICATIONS

His attention moves to the plaque and remains there for a moment before returning to me, and when he gives a quiet whistle, I have to resist the urge to tell him exactly where he can put his congratulations.

"Look at you," he murmurs.

"Move."

"Congratulations."

"Beck."

The instant his first name leaves my mouth, something flickers across his expression, and I regret using it just as quickly. Hayes is safer because Hayes belongs to newspaper headlines, highlight reels, jersey sales, press conferences, and all the other pieces of the man he became after leaving my family's life. Beck belongs to my parents' kitchen, Sunday dinners, long summer afternoons, and the years when my brother's best friend was constantly underfoot.

Beck belongs to a life that ended eight years ago.

He pushes away from the door, finally giving me access to my office, but instead of leaving, he takes one slow step closer, and my body immediately remembers things my brain has spent years trying to bury. For one disorienting second, I'm nineteen again, sitting on my parents' kitchen counter while Luke and Beck argue about hockey; Beck is coming in after practice with damp hair and a T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, and I'm pretending not to notice when he reaches over my head for a glass.

Then comes the memory I hate most, the one I have never managed to explain away: looking up and discovering that he was already watching me.

I haven't thought about that moment in years, which is such an obvious lie that I don't even bother trying to believe it.

"Still hate me?" he asks, and although his voice is quiet enough that anyone passing us might mistake the question for teasing, there is nothing casual about the words.

Eight years collapse into the space between us, bringing Luke, the hospital, my mother crying in our kitchen, and my father standing in the front doorway telling Beckett Hayes never to come back. I remember my brother's career ending before it had properly begun, and more than anything, I remember Beck walking away without defending himself, as though losing all of us had been easier than explaining what he'd done.

I raise my chin. "More now, actually."

For some reason, his smile comes back, although this time there is something almost relieved beneath it. "Good."

"Good?" I repeat, staring at him because apparently professional athletes aren't screened for personality disorders during contract negotiations.

"I'd hate to think eight years apart made you boring."

"You really are unbelievable."

"So I've been told."

"Repeatedly, I'm guessing."

His gaze flickers briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. "Usually with more enthusiasm."

Jesus Christ.

I step around him, unlock my office, and push open the door, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing that the comment landed. "Enjoy your day, Hayes."