Babysitting the Beckham hockey brothers

CHAPTER 1

I once had a crush on Ace Beckham. 

Had. 

I repeated in my mind, even as I stared at the hockey god while he skated through the ice, his stick set towards the black puck his teammate had passed to him.

Everyone in the crowd held their breaths, the energy and tension in the room dropping to a hundred degree even though this was just practice and not the actual game. 

“Oh my goddess!!” Madison, my best and only friend—bit on her fingers as she grabbed my arm with her free hand, tension rolling over her. “He’s not going to make it.” 

I bit my lip, watching the opposing team skate after Ace, their sticks raised to pull the puck off Ace’s stick. 

He slid effortlessly through the ice, his jet black hair falling over his beautiful chiseled face in long waves. 

No helmets were worn at practice, and it made everything even worse. Ace was so blazingly beautiful that sometimes, it hurt to watch him. 

Too bad he was a massive a-hole. 

Ace Beckham never kissed girls. He could fuck them, get them to kneel at his feet, hell, I even heard he could take you to the goddess herself and have you screaming love confessions to him while you orgasmed. But no matter what, he would never kiss you. 

Everyone at Greenwoods Academy knew that. 

I knew that. 

Except for the one drunken night at the bonfire last year, when he kissed me, and told me how beautiful I was.

And then, didn’t recognize me. Or even acknowledge my existence since then.

I doubted he even remembered. But it was stuck in my head. The fact that the Hockey champion who everyone bowed to. The dangerously beautiful star-back. Had been my first kiss. 

And he didn’t even fucking remember. Or maybe he did, but it just meant so little to him. Besides, he was the hockey god. And I was just a nerd who has a scholarship.

The screaming in the viewers spot intensified when Ace passed the puck to a player by his right, freeing him of the members of the opposing team who had been on his tail. 

“If Jaxon scores a goal I’m going to sell my right kidney!” Madison squirmed, her eyes tracking the new player who now held the puck. Ace’s brother. 

“Dramatic as always,” I mumbled. And immediately, my body shivered as I felt every hair on the back of my neck stand. 

I didn’t have to look far, I met his blue-eyed gaze and my heart… fell. 

Ace was looking at me. 

ACE FUCKING BECKHAM WAS LOOKING AT ME. 

But just as soon as it came, he looked away, his eyes holding no emotion or even a reaction as he skated toward the black puck. 

Ofcourse, he was just scanning through the crowd as every other hockey player did. 

I shook my head, coming here was a bad idea, I shouldn’t have let Madison convince me into attending tonight’s practice. I mostly avoided hockey games since that night a year ago, but Ofcourse. Madison wouldn’t let it be. 

I forced my eyes to the goalie of the opposing players instead. I mean, there had to be what? Like twelve hockey players currently in the rink, so why did I have to have my attention on the one person I disliked? 

I could focus on someone else. The goalie had red hair, his body just as toned and muscular as Ace’s but again… he wasn’t Ace. 

I screamed when someone crashed into the goalie I had been staring at, one second the Goalie was standing, and the next, he was down, a fist connecting into his face. 

Ace. 

Ace was punching him. 

“What the…” I scrambled to my feet, so did Maddie and everyone else around the viewers section. 

The goalie’s eyes were wide with terror as he tried to protect his face from Ace’s brutal punches, saying things that none of us could hear from this angle. 

“Ace! What the fuck?” The coach screamed as Jaxon and some of the teammates grabbed Ace, dragging him off the Goalie that now had his eyes searching frantically over the viewers section… like he was looking for something. Someone.

My heart stooped in my throat when his eyes stopped on me, the confusion he once had now morphed into something else, anger. Annoyance. Hate. 

“Why is he looking at you like that?” Madison’s hold on my arm tightened. 

“I… don’t know.” I swallowed, did he know I had been looking at him and comparing him to Ace? Certainly he couldn’t right? He couldn’t read minds. Only specific types of werewolves could and they had been out of existence years ago. 

“You’re benched for the next game!” The Coach had turned bright red from wailing. “Both of you.” 

Ace raced a hand through his wet hair as he let his teammates guide him through the rink, disappearing into the black curtains to the players locker room. 

Only then, did the tension that had locked into my muscles, released.

“I told you coming to this game was a bad idea.” I breathed, taking my worn out bag from the the chair. 

Maddie rolled her eyes, picking her bags and following me outside the Greenwoods hockey hall, it was crowded, as always. 

But I thanked the goddess Maddie and I made it to her car in one piece. 

“Do I need to drop you off at the coffee shop?” Maddie asked.

I let out a sharp inhale, Mom had been in a coma for three months, and it didn't matter how many part-time jobs I took, every single payment went to her hospital bill. 

"I had volunteered an extra night shift at the coffee shop so I should probably go there first, but I was also hoping to apply for more jobs..." I ran a hand through my blonde hair. "Hopefully I get one that pays higher than the Coffee shop."

Maddie turned to me sharply, her eyes shinning in that, 'I have news!' way.

"What?" I raised an eye brow, most times, her 'I have news' ended being the kind of news that had the chances of killing us both. 

"Okay, so don't get mad..."

"Madison Anne Hawthorn, what did you do?" I narrowed my eyes. 

She swallowed. "I might have applied for a job for you."

"What?!"

"It was a good offer! To be like a live-in babysitter to three sweet boys, and their pay was pretty high, I couldn't look past it."

"Three sweet boys?" I repeated on air quotes. 

She raised her shoulders. "I mean, that was the exact wording the job poster used, so I'm guessing they are like kids in middle school or something. But that isn't the case. They were basically offering a hundred dollars per hour. That's like... Your payment for a month from the Coffee shop."

My jaw were dropped open, my eyes widening as I stared at her. A hundred dollars? How was that even possible. 

"Maddie..." Tears blurred my vision as I stared at her. To think she had gone through job offers and tried to find the best for me. "What would I ever do without you."

Her eyes lit up. "You... You aren't mad at me?" 

"Ofcourse not, you dummy! That job would go a long way! If I paired it up with the coffee shop I might even be able to afford the new school text books." 

She clapped, her face shinning with smiles. "Exactly what I thought! And they had accepted your application, but they had said they were traveling tomorrow morning and they needed the babysitter to begin tonight. So that kind of means..."

"I need to go today." I completed and she nodded. "Then what are we waiting for?" 

She did a little dance and next, the car ignition sparked to life and she was speeding down the road to my apartment.  

***

I had packed everything that looked relatively new or good enough to be worn without showing I was as poor as poor could get. 

Maddie dropped me off at the mansion entrance, and I was absolutely wowed. 

All I had to do was show the gate keeper my student ID card and the gate had opened. A woman who looked in her late seventies led me in, she was wearing an outfit that showed she was somehow in charge of taking care of the flowers. 

And there were a lot of flowers. The entire mansion was covered with them.

"Mrs Abigail is waiting in the living room. And I will lead you there." The elderly woman said. 

I nodded, soothing my hand over my cargo jeans skirt that stopped mid thigh and a pink basic top. 

When we walked into the main house, it looked like a whole generation could live inside and never have to see each other each day. 

Big and beautiful was an understatement. It was nothing I could have imagined a house would be. 

"Hiii!" A woman trailed down the steps, her eyes shining with beautiful light and her stomach swollen from a pregnancy that looked like it was due for delivery. "You must be Sophie Fane?" 

I forced a calm smile to hide the trembling of my fingers. " Yes ma'am, I had applied for the job offer." 

"That's awesome! I'm Abigail, and I'm sincerely glad you showed up," she tugged a strand of her hair at the back of her ear. "I was scared you might bail out." 

How would anyone sane bail out from such an offer? And especially one from a woman like Mrs Abigail who looked bastardly rich and yet, so nice? That was rare to find. 

"Cecilia," Mrs Abigail turned to the older woman, her tone dropping into a motherly one. "Could you go get Kane and the kids? They need to come see Sophie." 

"Yes Ma'am." With a bow, the woman climbed up the stairs Mrs Abigail had come down from. 

I had not noticed before, but looking around now, lots of boxes littered the floor, like they were being packed for a vacation. 

"So Sophie, tell me, are you a student? Or..." Abigail asked, her eyes glazing over my clothes. 

"Yes, I am. I school at Greenwoods academy." 

"Really?" Her eyes widened, "my boys school there too!" 

I parted my lips in shock, but before I could even utter a word, three boys emerged from the darkened stairway.

Except, they weren't boys. Didn't have the posture of boys either. They were men. 

And when my eyes met the familiar blue-eyed one of the man who stood in-between the other two. My entire life went to the fucking drain. 

Ace Beckham was staring back at me. His upper lips where a split lay, definitely from his fight back at the hockey game—turned down into a frown.

And the exact same shock was on his face, before his brows came together, and then, he was glaring.

Fear raced into my blood, and it all made sense as my eyes swept through the three men standing at the end of the staircase. Jaxon Beckham, Ace Beckham and ofcourse the smaller one who I knew was still in middle school, Josh Beckham. 

The beckham brothers. 

I was going to be babysitting the Beckham brothers.

And once again, Madison had made a decision that would this time, actually be the end of me.