My Hockey Alpha

Chapter 305

Bonus 5: The Tease

Enzo

Dust and sweat clung to my skin as I wrestled with the new living room furniture.

It was a final touch to the renovations we’d been slogging through for months, transforming our once dull house into a vibrant home. Despite the exhaustion tugging at my muscles, a sense of satisfaction washed over me as I looked around the house. Our house.

Just as I was finishing up on the final bench for our massive dining room table, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

A picture of Nina lit up the screen, her smile making my lips curve in response. “Hey, love,” I answered, using my cleanest elbow to press the speaker button.

“Enzo,” she started, and I could already hear the hesitation in her voice.

“I… uh… had a little run-in with a raccoon. I maybe… sort of… kind of got myself stuck in a ditch.”

The last part of her sentence came out all at once like an avalanche. I could tell immediately that she was embarrassed. And I was a man; it was my job to capitalize on her embarrassment. What good would it be if I didn’t tease my fiancee a little?

A raccoon?” 1 chortled. “Are you telling me you swerved off of the road because of

didn’t wanna hit it!” Nina huffed on the other end of the line. I

and independent woman who pretty much single-handedly saved the entire town of Mountainview from the Crescents, survived on her own with a bullet hole

tease as

pick me up,” she said, ignoring my jabs.

took on a more serious tone. “I’m on my way. You’re okay though,

relief. “Just artnoyed, both at myself and that

leave. Just as I was heading out the door, however, a glint caught my eye. I frowned as I approached

photograph of my mother in a cracked frame, forgotten in the whirlwind of renovations. I picked it up gently, tracing the image of her smiling face. I missed her. It wasn’t fair that she wouldn’t be there for my wedding with Nina, for

bastard sometimes after my mom died, I still missed him. I wanted nothing more than to make up for those lost years, to finally come

have liked the renovations we made on this house; my mother likely would have loved the bright colors and the eclectic furniture. I think that my father would have liked it, too, although he seemed to pick up a fondness for the color

ever actually liked the color gray. I think that it was really just a way for him to punish himself, a way to convey

I placed the photograph down and made a mental note to pick

a last, satisfied look around the nearly

down the road, I spotted her. As I pulled up next to

my concern, her sulky expression struck me as comical,

versus the raccoon,” I quipped as I climbed out of my pickup truck – it was really my father’s truck, but I decided to use it rather than let it sit in the garage and collect dust. It was a nice

followers didn’t bother to steal it, but then again, they didn’t seem to steal much of anything. The act of ransacking my dad’s house was more of a way to show their disrespect than anything else. They may as well have spat on his grave. But I supposed that it was a good thing that they didn’t know where he was buried. “I think we can safely declare the raccoon the winner,” I