I massaged my bare shoulder with my right hand and gave it an experimental roll. Fuck, it hurt.

I'd pulled my left trapezius yesterday running the equipment raft through Box Car. Box Car was one of those rare class three rapids that was decidedly not fun. The monster suck-hole at the tail end of the rapid had a way of eating boats, lifejackets and people.

Doug, the Master Guide on our Deschutes River Adventures expedition, usually had us pull out at Wapinitia but one of the other hands had put a tear in the bottom of the equipment raft when he went right over Oh Shit Rock! in Whitehorse. Yup, it was a rock with a name, and, unless you were really good at reading the water, it's invisible until you are right on top of it. "Oh shit—rock!" was exactly what a boater screamed when they finally saw it.

Anyhow, Doug had wanted me to take the raft down to Maupin where we'd have more room and resources for repairs. I'd entered Boxcar with a boat full of water, a thousand pounds of gear and who knows how many millions of gallons of river trying to push me into the hungry maw of death. When I'd pulled my shoulder, not rowing had not been an option.

"Hell YEAH! Raaah!" some dude hulk roared at his teammates as he stalked back from the volleyball net. His celebration pulled my attention back to the game. Co-ed on a men's net. That meant if you had a dick you weren't permitted to jump when facing off against a chick. It was a significant handicap against the all-female team that'd dominated the last ten matches. That this dude had managed to score on them was borderline miraculous. It wouldn't change the outcome of the game, but I understood. Even one point was a victory when you were so terribly out matched. I hoped my housemates, and two of their right now girls, would fare as well when we got up.

I massaged my shoulder again and let my attention wander. It was the last Saturday before classes started and Looking Glass Lake had turned into an impromptu back-to-school party. Greek Row, the dorms and student housing were just across the old highway from the lake's volcanic pumicite beach. Most the year the beach would be shrouded in shadow during the afternoons, but right now, as the equinox approached, the sun found the gap between South and Middle Sister to shower the mountain lake with late summer warmth. It'd be a mosquito paradise if Cascade Pines University and the nearby town of Pining didn't wage a genocidal campaign against the little monsters. CPU had to have one of the most beautiful views of any university in the world.

But it was not the view of the four snowcapped peaks that blotted out the western sky that held my gaze. The Three Sisters and neighboring Broken Top were beautiful. They had nothing on college girls in bikini. There were so many. All of them different. All of them beautiful.

Take the one not ten feet away. She was catching the last rays of the summer on her tanned back, thighs and palmable ass while staring out at the lake and chatting with her friends. Her long brown hair had the barest hint of red and was nearly as dark as her black string bikini. I couldn't see her face but she seemed to be watching the antics of the fifteen or so jet-ski doing flips and tricks about the lake or maybe the piggyback water-polo game in the shallows. Fuck, from this side she was hot. I needed to see the rest of her. I needed to introduce myself.

I chugged the last of my Obsidian Stout, liquid courage, and stepped forward. The girl laughed at something one of her friends said.

I froze. Her laughter was an arrow to my heart. The melody was like a favorite half-remembered song from childhood. I knew that voice. I knew that laugh. I knew that chick, but I couldn't place her. Maybe if I could see her face? Ask her name? A nauseous, nervous energy pumped through my veins. It'd been years since I'd been anxious when approaching a woman.

"Captain, Collin, we're up!" A jolt of pain seared my left shoulder as Lucas clamped a hand over it. I probably shouldn't have agreed to play volleyball, but I'd powered through worse injuries on the ice. I took one last glance at the hotty in front of me, tossed my empty by the house cooler and jogged over to the court.

The tallest of us, Roman, Lucas and I crowded the net. I could touch the top of the barrier with my wrist while flat footed so there was a chance I'd get a spike past these women. Clara, Shannon and Owen dropped to the back.

Some short, blonde cutie in an itsy bitsy bikini nailed her jump serve. The volleyball made like a ballistic missile to our side of the net. By some miracle, Shannon got under the ball and sent it straight up. Clara lobbed me the perfect set.

A brunette bombshell got her fingers on my flat footed spike. Another brunette set and the first girl somehow got over the top of me. She hit the ball so hard it made meteorite tracks. Owen dove, barely keeping the ball in play. In a move for the record books, Clara tumbled over his back and bump-set the ball to Roman.

Roman killed it. The girls on the other side of the net dove out of the way.

Out of bounds.

One point.

Them.

Our opponents owned us. We claimed a few points with rocket launcher down balls but even when we put Clara and Shannon up front, they couldn't overcome the other team's triple team. With zero dudes on our opponents' team, it was like six on two. Our girls were working with a four dick handicap. How was that fair?

"Hey!" The tall chick that'd rejected my spike jogged up to me. I picked up my Deschutes Brewery tee from the pile by our cooler. "Good game!" She extended her hand.

I wasn't so sure about that. They'd killed us. I tugged the washer thinned material of my shirt over my chest as she openly checked me out. I returned the compliment as I shook her hand. Despite the "rug burn" on her elbows, stomach and knees—pumicite didn't make the softest beach—the woman was hot enough to melt a glacier. Besides, I could appreciate a girl who played hard and wasn't afraid to get dirty. "Yeah, you too."

"I'm Michelle."

"Collin."

"I was wondering if..." Her eyes flit away and her cheeks turned red. It was cute.

As the star center of a Division-I hockey team, I was used to puck bunnies hitting on me. But puck bunnies were bold—predatory. Michelle's hesitation was a breath of fresh air.

"Sure, you seem chill, I'd be happy to hang sometime." I fished my phone from a pocket in my cargo shorts. "What's your number?"

Michelle smiled and, oh yeah, this girl was hot. She reached for my phone so I unlocked it for her. She plugged in her number and snapped a quick picture.

"Shelly!" The blond in the teeny weeny bikini hollered. She urgently waved Michelle back towards the net. Michelle glanced over her shoulder, handed me my phone and then bounced on her toes. "I...uh...it was nice meeting you, Collin." She was waiting for something.

"Yeah, you too, Shelly." I gifted her one of my crooked grins. More than one chick had told me it looked cocky. Many of those same chicks had jumped on my dick. "I'll call after classes start. Wednesday or Thursday." I meant it. I would call—on Wednesday or Thursday.

I got plenty of tail. I'd been accused of being a player. I probably was but I'd hurt a girl real bad once and I swore I'd never do that again. Not intentionally. Not if I could help it. I didn't care if women were manipulative bitches. If I told a woman I was going to do something, I did it.

"Okay" Michelle flashed me another smile. She really was beautiful when she smiled. I'd regret dumping her when our relationship ran its course. But it would. The manipulative bitch thing got in the way of long term—at least with me. She ran back to the volleyball court. She glanced back when she arrived, caught me looking and gifted me a shy wave.

I smiled and nodded. I didn't wave. I fished another brew from the cooler, snatched up the empty I'd abandoned earlier and tossed it in one of the recycle bins someone had proactively hauled down to the beach. Oregon had a bottle rebate and there was probably fifty bucks in there already.

Roman snagged the beer in my hand.

"Get your own, asshole." Despite my words, I rooted in the cooler for a second longneck.

Roman was a finger shorter than I and equally ripped. He was the best defensive-man on our team. He talked a lot of smack on the ice. Off the ice he was pretty chill. "You goin' to tap that?" Clara, Roman's flavor of the month, rolled her eyes. I glanced at Michelle who'd just done a layup for another meteorite spike.

"Yeah, probably."

"Do you guys have to be so...gross." Roman handed her one of the raspberry ales she liked. "She's a person, not a blowup doll."

"It'll be her choice." I liked Michelle. "Won't take anything she doesn't freely give." That was true. I didn't ask for sex. I made sure a woman knew I desired her and she offered. If she didn't offer, I didn't press. I wanted her to want me as much as I wanted her. Otherwise it was a no go. Clara knew that.

"You know you can go out on more than three dates with someone." Clara poked me in the chest. "Give her a chance. You might like her."

"I won't," I said, meaning dating. I already liked Michelle, right now, but hockey came first. I'd make sure she knew the score, but the first hint that she was going to try and take over my life, I'd dump her. Every woman always did. My Mom had ruined my Dad with her narcissistic demands. I had this girl back in high school that cost me my best friend. Never again. "Besides, I don't have the time."

I was telling the truth. I didn't have time. It'd taken a decade but Coach Wilson had lifted Cascade Pines' hockey program out of obscurity. For years Cascade Pines University's athletic programs had focused on cross country, alpine and free style skiing. It wasn't like the school sank tones of money into football because there was zero chance of making headway against teams like UCLA, the Ducks or the Huskies. But at Coach's insistence, the school was pumping more and more money into hockey. Last year we'd clawed our way all the way to the championship elimination. If, no, when we won the Frozen Four we'd be the first Westcoast team to ever grab the crown. Last year one of our freshman d-men was taken in the draft. Rumor was our goalie, Casey O'Brey, had recently been approached by the Maple Leafs. Not the best team, but fuck, he would be playing professional hockey. I'd give anything to do that, so after school started my life would be practice and classes. It was already practice, every day. Even when I was on the river I'd run wind sprints every morning until I puked. Rowing a raft, battling the river, with a thousand pounds of gear was better than any rowing machine.

Clara gave me sad look. She and I had chain dated, for two months, nearly a year and a half before she'd hooked up with Roman. She'd started trying to weasel under my skin for more than I'd agreed to give so I cut us off. For Roman's sake we'd made friendly again but I didn't see them lasting long. Clara was just another woman who was convinced her "truth" was the only "truth" that mattered. And I'm using the word, "truth," loosely.

I took a swallow of my beer trying to wash down the sour taste of our exchange. Looking for a distraction, I glanced to where the eye-candy had been sunbathing earlier. She and her friends had picked up. Music swelled down the beach. A sorority had set up a makeshift DJ booth and at least a hundred women had drifted towards it.

Leaving Roman at Clara's mercy, I strolled over and joined the dudes scoping out the girls writhing to the beat. Every now and then some guy would work up his nerve, join the throng and get swallowed by the hundred or so bikini clad women rubbing up against him. It'd not be a bad way to go.

Even so, I waved off a girl's beacons and scanned the crowd. There were a lot of good looking chicks, but I was still curious about the sunbathing hottie I'd seen earlier. A tall, tan, curvy, dark haired beauty in a black bikini wouldn't be that hard to spot, would she?

One. No.

Two. Nope.

Three. My long neck froze halfway to my mouth. Sensual did not begin to describe this woman. The chick danced like the music was playing just for her. She was so hot she made Scarlet Jo plain Jane. And I knew her.

Her name was McKenzie Rivers. No joke. I suppose it was inevitable with eight kids and a last name like Rivers that parents would end up naming a child after a river. But the headwaters for the McKenzie River were just on the other side of the mountains. Growing up in Bend, with McKenzie as my BFF, I had heard it a million times. So had Kenzie, obviously. Unfortunately, in the asshole move of the century, I had made mulch of her heart when we were freshmen in high school. A few months later her family had moved taking my best friend, and all chances to apologize, away from me.

"Kenzie?" I croaked.

McKenzie's awareness snapped back from whatever magical place it was she went when she danced. I expected her to show me the nail polish on her middle finger. Hug me. Laugh hysterically. Kiss me. Flee.

I did not expect her fist in my face.