Galen

My brain is probably not responding well to the lack of sleep and the shock of the vicious spider attack I just survived because I'm standing in what I thought was the hallway in real life, but I'm looking at a human-sized bunny similar to Jax's cuddle buddy, and that just cannot be right.

This one is bright green and much cuter than his, and when I was pressed up against her, I felt the kind of curves that would really make Jax's girlfriend redundant if his grey rabbit had those.

The girl is shamelessly checking me out with pretty tiger eyes that take my breath away each time they look into mine. Her cheeks are flushed in a multitude of red shades, reminding me that I am buck naked, and that is probably against Hank's rules.

He told me to keep my mitts off his daughter – I assume this is her – and I just had way more than my mitts on her. In fact, my mitts were probably the only things that weren't on her... and I wasn't complaining!

Now she's trying to kill me, wrapping one of her fluffy long ears around her hand and twinkling up at me with an adorable smile, saying thank you. For what? Showing her my family jewels? Surely, she runs into naked guys a lot in this house. She must be very grateful all the time, then.

Still, I would love for my stay here to at least last an entire night before I get tossed out on my arse, so returning her grin with one of my own, I feel along a shelf of the nearest bookcase and pull a book free to cover the treasures she shouldn't have been introduced to in the first place.

The girl again lowers those stunning eyes - the same colour as her hair, with a touch of green at their centres - and when she sees what I'm using as protective gear, she bites into her lower lip, sucking in a deep breath and holding it.

Oh, bollox, I keep on making things worse!

She probably thinks she needs to burn this book now, but I've just scrubbed in a shower hot enough to burn my skin off. I'm clean and not even pressing the thing against me.

Her eyes lift to look into mine again, and I lose some more brain cells in a cocktail of hormones and adrenaline.

"Spider," I say the only word I can form right now and the expression on her face turns from suffocation due to her held breath to confusion, so I add, "in the shower. Big-ass spider."

"Really?" she frowns, releasing her breath in a huff. I expect the mocking jokes about a big yoke like me being afraid of spiders to begin now, but she's tilting her head as if she's trying to look past me to see if the monster bug is about to launch an assault from behind.

Shite! I hope not!

Hey! I've seen the kind of damage even the smallest spiders can do to bigger blokes than me. I'm not taking any chances with foreign spiders in a country I know nothing about.

"It looked ready to attack," I assure her, starting to feel more and more like an eejit.

"Let me see," she says, fearlessly brushing past me to face the danger, and I grab her arm, causing her to look up at me in surprise. Maybe she's not used to naked guys grabbing her in the hallway after all.

"It won't be any better if it bites ye instead," I point out. "Let's find weapons first." I instinctively lift the book in my hand, and before I hurry to lower it again since it probably shouldn't be multi-tasking right now, I catch sight of the title.

What's for Dinner? 20 easy sausage ideas to feed the hungry.

"Bloody hell!" I exclaim, my ears turning red, and I finally understand the girl's reaction to seeing me use the book as protection when she bursts into laughter, slips from my grip and ducks into the steamed-up bathroom. It's too late to stop her, and from the sounds she's making in there, it is hard to tell whether she is being attacked or dying by laughing her head off... or both.

I hear the shower turn off and then a surprised: "Oh." The weird sounds are back now. I'm about to enter the swirling, warm mist to protect her from the creepy monster and make sure she's not dying when she appears from the haze, holding her cupped hands out in front of her.

"You're lucky I came along," she tells me, earnestly gazing up into my eyes. "These ones are really dangerous."

"Yer holding it!" I squeak and she presses her lips together, holding her breath again, making me suspicious.

"Oh, that's okay," she chokes on a laugh, grinning widely, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "These spiders are extremely sexist; they only bite super hot, naked men. You should be safe!" she adds hastily, her cheeks flushing red again, but it's a bit late to try the insult; I've seen the way she looked at me before.

"To be sure, to be sure," I tell her with a smirk and she opens her hands, grabbing the thing by one leg, dangling it in front of her face, giving it a curious inspection.

"It's rubber," she says, holding it out to me, frowning when I shrink away from it.

"Very funny. Is this some kind of initiation?" I ask, a little irritated now. I'll laugh later. Right now, I'm tired and wet and starting to feel really cold. "Ye put rubber spiders in the shower to give newbies a scare, do ye?"

What else do they have in store for me before I can finally get some much-needed rest?

"No," she huffs, glaring at me, and I'm sorry, she might be trying to look intimidating right now, but she's still friggin' cute. She's a glaring green, fluffy bunny with a stream of reddish-brown hair flowing over her shoulder from under her hood. Her very slight over-bite gives her pretty face an extra touch of cheekiness that is slowly driving me off my nut.

I don't want to fall back into bad habits and knee-jerk responses that have, in the past, cost me dearly. Besides, I can tell, despite her lack of squeamishness about my nudity, that she is not the kind of girl a guy should just play around with... and there's the whole mitts-off thing hanging around, ready to punch me in the bake if I misbehave.

"It must've been Mr. Smith," she informs me, closing her hand over the spider, hiding it from my sight. "He tends to leave his rubber bugs and plastic snakes all over the place."

"Mr. Smith?" That's pretty formal. Even Hank, the master of this place, insisted on me calling him Hank and nothing else. "I'll kick his ass, mister or not!"

"That would be really mean," the girl says, shaking her head decisively. "Just ask him nicely not to scare you, or you'll be very unpopular here. Mr. Smith is an important member of this family."

"Oh, aye, I will, yeah," I grumble, and my mind has seized up, not telling me what my next move should be here.

"Well, get back to your shower," she says helpfully, running her eyes over me again, smiling almost too happily. "You're starting to get cold enough for your little book guard to become sufficient in hiding all your valuables."

"What?" She's not wrong. The small book I grabbed is highly inadequate for the task, but I'm sure I'm shrinking in height too, and I've started to shiver.

"See you in the kitchen, Galen," she giggles, giving me a saucy wink as she brushes past me. "Welcome to our freak show!"

Watching her sway her hips, manoeuvring her way through the hallway to the stairs, I chuckle, shoving the book back onto the bookshelf.

"Cheeky, wench!"

I hurry back into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. When I finally have hot water running over me again, I stop shaking and wash my feet with way more success this time. It's still a battle because I'm quaking under peels of laughter, making it hard to balance on one foot at a time.

What the hell was that?!

Jax was right; there's no way I will ever mistake this Hunter for the shite-talking moron I know back home. That Hunter is not half as pretty as the one I just ran into.

I think she's the girl I saw on the ice earlier. Jax never said her name, but he talked about her as if I were supposed to know who she was. I can't be 100% sure since I didn't get to see her face properly and she wasn't a green bunny at the time, but the hair is the same colour... and there's that laugh. I recognised her laugh as the gleeful sound I heard from the girl spinning and twirling on the ice.

IAmAnIceDick... It makes sense now, making me laugh again.

This is not good. I'm here to turn my miserable life around, not to complicate it even more by becoming all hot and bothered about my saviour's dotey daughter. Getting involved with her and mucking up her life - as I'm bound to do - would be rotten payback for what the man is doing for me. I might be a selfish bastard, but even I am not a complete git.

When I'm finally warm enough and have stopped laughing long enough to get the job done, I turn off the water and step from the shower. Standing on the bathmat, I put out my hand to grab the towel I'd brought with me and left on the shelf where the basin is beside the shower.

That's when I have my second near-death fright of the day.

To my credit, I don't squeal and run naked for the door this time. I just let out a stream of spicy words that would light the brains on fire of anybody close enough to hear it. Most of these words are made up on the spot and might not even be English.

Something attacked me when I touched the towel!

Thinking snake and polar bears, maybe a wolf or two - aye, I'm not being all that logical right now - I pull my hand back, pressing it to my lips, ready to suck venom, if I have to, while I skate from the shower to the opposite wall from where I can see the long shelf and the mirror more clearly.

I'm really glad I didn't go into attack mode and destroy the perceived danger because there's a thick white cloud lying on my towel, looking at me with large eyes, one blue and one yellow, and all it has to say to me is: "Meow."

While I lower my hand, checking it to see no wounds there at all, the cat turns onto its back and grabs its tail, nearly rolling to the floor in its spirited wrestling match with itself. I don't think it attacked me in earnest; it was just playing.

"Where did ye come from?" I ask, crossing the floor to pet its head, not surprised to hear it purring like a snow plough starting up while it wraps itself around my arm, scratching and biting playfully. It's wearing a blueish-grey soft collar with a heart-shaped tag, which I inspect, smiling when my suspicions are confirmed.

"Mr. Smith," I chuckle, picking the beast up for a snuggle. "Nice to meet ye. Ye do know that yer mistress is mental, right?"

I lower the cat to the counter and grab my towel to dry off. I want to get dressed before I need another hot shower to heat me up again. The cat swipes at the towel each time my activities bring a part of it close enough, and I spend more time removing his claws from the towel than I spend actually drying myself.

When I'm ready to pull on the sweats I'd brought to the bathroom with me, I let the cat have the towel, but of course, playing with the towel when I'm not part of the game is no fun. I'm soon fighting to free my clothes from its clutches.

"Yer a bleeding melter, aren't ye," I laugh, lifting the animal in my arms again when I'm finally dressed. It agrees with a soft meow, licking my hand. I hold him a bit longer, enjoying his friendly weight in my arms. It's comforting to snuggle him despite the fact that he is now trying to eat the hand he'd just cleaned so enthusiastically.

Mr. Smith jumps from my arms and rushes to sit at the door when I pick up the hair dryer hanging from a hook mounted on the wall beside the mirror and turn it on to dry my hair. Once my hair is dry and combed, I restore the bathroom to the state I found it in when I came in for my shower. I hang the towel and floor mat on the contraption made for it and dry the floor with the flat-head microfibre mop in the tall cabinet in the corner.

Ready to go meet my housemates, I pull on the plush slippers Emmy picked out for me when I was buying some stuff I would need for this trip. They're pink with tiny blue, yellow and purple flowers and butterflies among green leaves embroidered all over them. My sister loves anything with flowers and butterflies on them, and the more colourful it is, the happier she is.

Looking at my big feet shoved into them, I suddenly feel miles away from my family. I know Dex will look out for my mam and Emmy, but it still drags at my heart, and I hurry to find the cat where it is sitting on the closed washing hamper, where it had fled to watch all my activity.

"Come here," I tell him, picking him up again. "So, please don't leave yer spiders and snakes and shite in me bed and the shower and other places where they will make me swallow me heart. Okay?"

I think we have a deal because he curls into my arms and purrs again while I leave the bathroom with him. I'm suddenly nervous, struggling through the furniture obstacle course to the end of the hallway and going down the steps to the living area.

A murmur of voices and laughter is coming from the direction of the kitchen. I'm sure Hunter already told the guys assembled there all about my freak-out about a rubber spider, and I'm not really looking forward to them taking the piss. Normally, I wouldn't care, but tonight I'm too damned knackered.

Sure look, it's unavoidable, and I brace myself for the barrage of mockery when I cross the foyer and step into the kitchen.

Mr. Smith jumps from my arms the moment I cross the threshold, dashing past the table to where his filled food bowl is set up near the sink. The table is alive with faces; all turned to look at me expectantly.

"Ah, Gan!" Hank says from the other end of the table, lowering his fork and waving me over. "I'm sorry we didn't wait for you," he begins and is quickly interrupted by a guy with blond hair and dimples sitting beside the tiger-eyed bunny.

"Nah, he's not sorry. We never wait for stragglers, or we will starve," the boy informs me, grinning amicably. "There's still plenty left, though. If you hurry, you can get some, and tonight it's not half bad."

"That's true," Hank grins. "Denny is right; we don't wait, but we always make sure to leave enough for those who cannot join us right away. Sit, sit," he says, indicating the empty chair beside him, the last one on the lefthand long side of the table, next to Jax and I'm about to move towards him when someone speaks behind me, making me jump. 

Seriously! Enough with the jump scares already! 

To be clear, I'm not usually this jumpy. I'm completely out of my comfort zone tonight.

"Sumimasen," the young man says, and I respond automatically with "gomen", which startles both of us. Me, because I didn't know I spoke Japanese and him because he didn't know it either.

"Ah! McKenna-san! Nihongo ga jouzu desu ne!" the new guy exclaims, grinning happily.

"Īe, zen zen!" I hurry to assure him. "Nihongo jouzu janai!"

Telling a guy in funky Japanese that your Japanese is not good is apparently not very convincing because the one standing in front of me with his head tilted to the side is frowning at me in confusion, which is understandable. It also doesn't help that the rest of the eejits assembled in the kitchen are oohing and ahhing and making stupid comments.

"I've watched the Rouroni Kenshin movies too many times," I explain. "And me mate and I like watching Japanese anime... I've picked up some things, but I don't speak Japanese."

"Your Japanese is better than my Engirish," the man, about a head shorter than me and probably Japanese, considering our current awkward conversation, says politely, and he is full of shite. I barely know two words in Japanese.

"Dude!" Jax pipes up. "Your Japanese is better than your English," he informs me, turning his head to address the others. "Seriously, I spent a couple of hours with this guy and only understood half of what he said. Kame, I understand the Japanglish you sometimes throw around better than this guy's English."

"Ah! Dry yer arse!" I tell Jax, and he laughs happily, rising slightly so I can see his lower body wrapped in a towel over his jeans.

"I'm way ahead of you, buddy," he says. "I've come prepared."

"Eejit!"

Laughing, I shake the hand the Japanese guy holds out to me.

"Kamenashi Tatsuya, yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

"Yoroshiku," I say automatically, answering his bow without even thinking about it. Maybe I should cut down on my anime intake. I don't want the guy to think I'm mocking him or something. "I'm Galen McKenna," I smile when he bows again, though he probably already knew that since he called me by my surname just now.

"Now you've met Kame, and I know you've met Tucker and Jax," Hank says, looking over the faces at the table. Tucker is sitting across from Hank, each at the end of the table, and pointing to Tucker's right, he indicates the guy I think I saw skating with Hunter this afternoon.

"Meet Robert; he is Hunter's skating partner and sometimes finds a home here," he tells me, confirming my suspicions and I shake the guy's hand while Kame slips into the seat next to him. Robert barely glances at me; he just grabs my hand and lets it go, returning his attention to the food on his plate. I do not like the bruised look of his eyes in the quick glimpse I get.

Is he sick? That could explain his timing issues during practice.

"Next to Kame, we have Dennis; he is in the same year as you and Jax; you should be playing together a lot at the Farm."

"Nice to meet you," Dennis smiles, rising to give me a shake-hug combo and from the decisive way he handles me, I can tell that this guy is probably a pretty good enforcer on the ice.

An enforcer's job is to stop violent or dirty players from the opposing team. They protect their team members by responding aggressively to threats. Sometimes, they fight or check the offenders. They are expected to react particularly harshly to violence against star players or goalies.

Dennis doesn't look especially violent or thuggish, but I know how to recognise players with a talent for that role. I've had to fill it on occasion, but it's best that I don't because, with my temper, things always turn too ugly.

"This is Hunter," Hank says, stroking a big hand over the head of the only girl in the gathering. She is sitting beside him on the last seat on this side of the table, and I'm pretty sure everybody already knows we had a run-in - literally - and is just waiting to let me have it.

Any minute now.

"Welcome, Galen," the lass smiles, offering me her hand as if she's a princess expecting it to be kissed, and I almost do.

"Cheers," I say and turn the awkward gesture into a vigorous handshake - which makes her giggle - before I hurry back to Tucker's end of the table to shake the hand of the Indian guy on his other side. He is clearly a couple of years older than the others and probably about to graduate from the Farm, going off on his career.

"Naresh Kumar," the man introduces himself, and I'm told that the guy sitting next to him with light brown hair and a strong Dutch accent when he greets me is called Jeroen Vermeer. He pronounces his name Yeroon.

It's like the UN in here, with all the different races, nations and accents, my own included.

"They are both on their way and will only be here for a couple more weeks," Hank tells me, looking proudly from one man to the other. "Exciting times are waiting for both of them."

I expected to hear that about Naresh, but Jeroen doesn't seem to be older than Jax, Dennis and me. He must be really good to be drafted so soon.

"You should just speak Japanese all the time," Jax tells me when I'm done shaking hands and saying hello and reaching my seat next to him, I pull it out to sit down. "It will be really helpful."

"Ara be whist," I snort, making him laugh.

"I rest my case!" he chuckles, messing up my hair with one of his hands. I swear, this guy is worse than Kyle! Actually, he's even worse than Hunter Drake.

Speaking of Hunter, the one sitting across from me with her hoodie pushed off to reveal her cinnamon brown hair glowing in the kitchen light, is grinning at me with a hundred devils sparkling in her eyes, and I wonder what the hell she's up to now. Was she waiting for me to be present and introduced before she told everybody about the vicious attack I'd suffered by a rubber spider?

Pure evil!

"Don't you dare change the beautiful way you speak," she tells me, her eyes looking straight into my soul. "Jax is just sour because you gave him a hard time on the ice."

"I will neither confirm nor deny that," Jax laughs happily.

"I'm on cooking duty tomorrow," Hunter tells nobody and everybody when there is a lull in the general chatter while everybody is eating the somewhat sweet stew. Tucker's hand was a wee bit heavy with the apricot jam.

"You are? I thought it was me," Jeroen says, sounding very happy about the news.

"No, no, it's definitely me, and I'm really inspired by the menu I've come up with for the day," Hunter grins, winking at me, and I purse my lips, probably turning a nice shade of puce. I give her my fiercest enforcer look, which only makes her giggle.

"We'll be having scrambled eggs and sausages for breakfast, bangers and mash for lunch and sausage rolls for dinner."

I close my eyes, forcing down the laughter bubbling up inside me, and then she destroys my self-control.

"It's going to be a grand sausage fest all day long!"

~~~