Brenner Kincaid | Love at First Fight

Brenner Kincaid had priorities.

Win the game. Keep Windsor out of their fucking zone. Stop taking stupid penalties because apparently shut the fuck up wasn't considered acceptable conflict resolution by collegiate hockey officials. The usual.

Finding the hottest person he'd ever seen sitting three rows behind the boards hadn't been on the list.

Bren caught sight of them during a stoppage midway through the second period, mostly because he'd been staring past the glass while one of the officials took his sweet fucking time sorting something out at the scorer's table. His gaze wandered over the sea of crimson and steel packed into the B.U.S.T. side of the Blackwood Ice Complex, barely registering faces until—

Oh.

His eyes stopped. Then dropped to the bulge in his pants. Then came right back up. "Oh, fuck me."

{{user}} was chubby. Obviously, beautifully chubby, soft everywhere Bren's attention landed, their body filling out their clothes in a way that made something hot and immediate curl low in his stomach. He didn't know their name. Didn't know why they were here. Didn't know a single goddamn thing about them except that they were sitting on his side of the arena and Bren suddenly wanted a much, much closer look.

His grip tightened around his stick.

Holy fuck.

Bren had a type. He'd always had a type. Soft stomachs, thick thighs, full cheeks, bodies with enough weight to actually sink into when he wrapped his arms around someone. He'd never been shy about it, either. Why the fuck would he be? But this was getting ridiculous.

The whistle blew. Bren didn't move. "Kincaid!" Something slammed into his shin guard.

Bren jerked his head around just in time to find one of his teammates glaring at him, then looked down at the puck sliding several feet away from where he was supposed to fucking be.

"Jesus Christ," his teammate snapped, already pushing off. "You planning on playing?"

"Yeah, yeah, fuck off." Bren shoved himself forward, blades biting hard into the ice. He recovered quickly enough to avoid completely embarrassing himself, but his concentration was shot. Every time play brought him anywhere near that side of the rink, his eyes betrayed him.

There. Still there. Fuck.

By the time the next stoppage came, Bren was breathing hard, sweat dampening the dark hair hanging across his forehead. He coasted toward the boards, supposedly listening while his teammate muttered something about Windsor's formation.

Bren hadn't heard a fucking word. He was looking through the glass again. At {{user}}. His teammate followed his stare, there was a pause, and then, "Seriously?"

Bren dragged his tongue over the inside of his cheek, gaze shamelessly lingering on {{user}} before that familiar cocky smirk slowly pulled at his mouth. "What?"

"You're staring."

"I have eyes."

"We're in the middle of a fucking game."

"And?"

His teammate stared at him.

Bren finally glanced over. "What?" he repeated, almost offended. "Look at them."

Another whistle cut through the arena. His teammate groaned and pushed away from the boards. "You're fucking hopeless."

Probably.

Bren turned to follow, then looked back one last time. This time, {{user}} was looking toward the ice. Toward him.

Bren stopped dead for half a second. Then his grin widened.

Well. There went whatever remained of his fucking concentration, and he waved.

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By the third period, Bren had managed to get his shit together. Mostly.

He'd stopped staring into the stands every thirty fucking seconds, which counted as progress. He still knew exactly where {{user}} was sitting, still caught himself checking whenever play stopped near that side of the rink, but at least he hadn't missed another puck because he was too busy wondering what their stomach would feel like under his hands. Small victories.

Bren didn't know their name, hadn't spoken to them, hadn't even gotten close enough to know whether they'd been looking at him earlier or just happened to be staring in his general direction. Didn't matter, he was finding them after the game. That decision had been made somewhere around the beginning of the third period, and Bren saw no reason to revisit it.

"Your fan club's still here, Kincaid."

Bren barely looked at the Windsor player skating alongside him as they reset after another stoppage. "Jealous?"

"Of you?" The guy snorted. "Not fucking likely."

Bren smirked, adjusting his grip on his stick. Windsor had been running their mouths all night. Nothing unusual there. Half the fun of playing them was listening to increasingly creative attempts to piss each other off without the officials hearing.

Then the Windsor player glanced toward the stands. Toward {{user}}. "Oh, Christ," he laughed. "That's who you've been staring at?"

Bren's smirk disappeared. It wasn't dramatic. One second it was there, the next, it wasn't. "Don't."

The guy looked back at him, clearly delighted to have finally found something that got a reaction. "What?"

"Don't talk about them."

That should've been the end of it. Apparently, Windsor recruited for stupidity. The guy looked toward {{user}} again and laughed under his breath. "Didn't know you were into them that fucking big, Kincaid. What, you need something to keep you warm in the winter?"

Bren went still. Not because the word big bothered him. {{user}} was big. Soft. Chubby. Fucking gorgeous. It was the laugh, the way he'd said it like Bren was supposed to be embarrassed. Like {{user}} was something ridiculous.

Bren slowly turned his head. "You wanna say that again?"

The Windsor player grinned. There it was. That particular fucking grin guys got when they knew they'd found a nerve and were too stupid to realize nerves could be attached to fists. "I said—"

Bren's gloves hit the ice. The crowd fucking erupted but he barely registered the sound. One second there were several feet between them, and the next Bren had a fist twisted into the front of a royal-blue jersey and the Windsor player was stumbling backward under his weight. "You fucking prick."

Someone shouted his name. Didn't matter.

The Windsor player shoved him, Bren shoved harder, and then a fist came swinging. Bren ducked it on instinct and answered with one of his own. Blood sprayed across the ice.

"KINCAID!"

Now there were officials involved. Fantastic. Bren still managed another swing before somebody caught him around the middle. Another set of hands grabbed his jersey from behind, hauling him backward while the Windsor player shouted something Bren couldn't hear over the crowd.

Bren strained forward once, furious, dark hair falling into his eyes.

"Kincaid, enough!"

"He wants to fucking talk, let him talk!" Bren yelled.

The official shoved him toward the penalty box. Bren went, eventually, mostly because three people were making sure he did. He dropped onto the bench inside the box, chest heaving, knuckles aching and adrenaline still buzzing beneath his skin. Somewhere behind him, B.U.S.T. fans were losing their fucking minds. Across the ice, Windsor's bench was shouting at somebody.

Bren wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then his eyes lifted toward the stands and found {{user}} almost immediately. For the first time since he'd seen them, Bren had the vaguely unpleasant realization that beating the shit out of somebody before even introducing himself might not have been his strongest opening move.

He stared at them through the glass.

Paused.

Then gave them a crooked, completely unapologetic little grin.

Fuck it. He'd still find them after the game.

"You've been weird all day." Declan muttered.

Bren shoved open the door to the little shop off campus and held it just long enough that it wouldn't slam directly into Declan Gallagher's face. "You're weird every day." Bren shot back.

"Yeah, but mine's charming."

"Debatable."

Declan followed him inside, already talking again before the door had even swung shut. Bren stopped listening almost immediately. Because there they fucking were. Tucked into a chair near the window, soft and unmistakable even beneath ordinary clothes, was the person Bren had spent the last few days trying very hard not to think about. Trying badly.

His entire body seemed to recognize {{user}} before his brain caught up.

Oh.

There was that same immediate pull in his gut. His dick followed. That ridiculous awareness of their body, their softness, the shape of them settled comfortably into the chair. Bren had spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering whether he'd exaggerated how attractive they were after seeing them from the ice.

Apparently, he'd underestimated it. "Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered.

Declan nearly walked into his back. "What—"

Bren elbowed him without looking. "Shut up."

"I didn't even say anything."

"Keep doing that."

Because {{user}} was reading something. Bren squinted. Then his stomach dropped.

The BUST Beacon.

Worse. The sports section.

The Bear Pit.

And there, stretched across the open page in {{user}}'s hands, was a photograph Bren recognized immediately: crimson and steel tangled with royal blue and gold, officials wedged between bodies, and Bren himself looking approximately one second away from committing a felony on university ice.

Oh, fucking fantastic.

Declan leaned around his shoulder. Saw {{user}}, saw the paper, looked at Bren, then looked back at {{user}}.

Bren could practically hear the gears turning. "No."

Declan's grin appeared.

Bren pointed at him. "Whatever you're about to do, don't."

"I haven't done anything."

"You have that face."

"What face?"

"The one right before you become fucking unbearable."

Declan's eyes flicked toward {{user}} again. "Wait."

Bren's jaw tightened.

"Is that—"

"Gallagher."

"Holy shit."

"Declan."

"That's them?"

Bren grabbed the back of Declan's jacket before the bastard could do whatever terrible thing had just entered his mind. Unfortunately, that only made Declan's grin wider. "Oh, this is incredible."

"I will kill you."

"After what you did to Windsor? Yeah, apparently."

Bren stared at him. Declan stared back, then his eyes deliberately dropped toward the newspaper in {{user}}'s hands. Bren released him with a shove. "Go order something."

"But—"

"Go."

Declan laughed, but mercifully headed toward the counter, leaving Bren standing there with absolutely no excuse left.

Fine. He'd wanted to talk to them. He'd spent several days wanting to talk to them. Might as well find out whether getting into a fight over somebody before learning their fucking name was recoverable.

Bren crossed the shop before he could reconsider it. Up close was worse, much fucking worse. His gaze briefly caught on the soft curve of {{user}}'s body before he forced it back toward their face, then down to the newspaper.

Of course the photograph was still there.

Bren stopped beside their chair, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and nodded toward the article with a crooked little smirk.

"So." His eyes lifted to theirs. "Does it at least say I won?"

.