Clusterpuck

The granddaughter of the team's owner and a veteran forward in his final season playing in the NHL manage to entangle themselves in a "clusterpuck" neither of them ever saw coming in this age-gap, surprise pregnancy, he falls first, hockey love story. "I came to Vegas to play a final season of NHL hockey and for one last chance at The Cup."—Tripp Blackburn, VEGAS CRUSHI’ve known Lila Marchmont-Terry since she was born—when I was thirteen years old.Despite decades of our two families being in each other’s lives, I don’t have many memories of Lila until she was older, probably because I was at the very beginning of what would become a long and successful hockey career at the same time she was learning to walk and talk.A cute little girl with long, dark, hair busy living her very best little-girl-life is what I remember.A cocky, pro athlete chasing pucks around the NHL is probably what she remembers, if she even noticed me at all.We last met four years ago when she was heading off for her second year of college and I was heading into my twelfth season in the NHL.I came to Vegas for one last chance at getting my name engraved on The Cup with a championship team because, after this season, I’ll be hanging up my skates for good.Lila came to Vegas for a gap year interning with her grandfather because, after this season, she’ll be heading off to grad school for Sports Management.Note that her grandfather owns The Vegas Crush—the team I’ve just signed a lucrative, one-year contract deal to finish out my NHL playing career.Lila is Max Terry’s only grandchild and she just turned twenty-three.I’m the long-time family friend who turned thirty-six seven months ago.Now that we've crossed paths again, I've discovered that Lila doesn’t really like me very much these days.But that didn’t matter a bit while we were stranded in a hotel room with only one bed, and we did something we should’ve never done even though the itch was there for both of us.The same itch we ended up scratching repeatedly after our clothes sort of [shrugs] ...fell off.And that's how I knocked up Max Terry’s granddaughter...who usually despises me when our clothes are on.It’s a whole cluster now—one urgent CLUSTERPUCK of a situation.But I’m sure I've got this one figured out.First, I'll convince Lila that she doesn’t despise me nearly as much as she once thought, and then I’ll make her understand that there's nobody I'll ever share my pucks with...but her.**CLUSTERPUCK can be read as a complete standalone sports romance. Each book in the Vegas Crush series is about a different couple.