Page 2

CHAPTER

TWO

Jett

I feel her slap upside my bicep before her throaty voice meets my ears. “Fix your face, Jett Thomas.”

For such a little thing pushing eighty-six, my great-nana can still sting my skin with ease. I look down at Beatrice Cook and shoot her a dark look. The sun shines off her freshly dyed pink hair as she beams up at me with bright-pink lipstick on her wrinkled lips. “Ow, Jesus, you old bat. Why’d you hit me so hard?”

“You’re glaring,” she says, setting me with a look with dark-brown eyes that don’t match her weathered face. No, those eyes are all-knowing and show she’s always up to something. Even now, her eyes are playful even if a bit somber. We are burying a very important person, not only to me, but also to our town.

“I’m always glaring. Pretty sure I came out of the womb glaring,” I mumble, and she snorts before wrapping her creased hands along my forearm. Along with her pink hair and pink lips, she’s sporting long claws of pink that I know are fake since she cannot cross-stitch with those talons. Bea is a wild lady. She doesn’t give a shit what people think. She volunteers at church, feeds the poor, bakes cookies for kids, and doesn’t miss a game of hockey on the weekends with her pink hair and loud mouth.

Everyone loves Bea.

But I’m her favorite.

“No, my sweet boy, you came out barking and fatter than ever.”

“I thought I was a baby, not a dog.”

“Could have fooled me,” she teases, patting my hand. “Told Maggie to return you to the pound multiple times.”

“It was only right since it was rude to leave my packmates to fend for themselves.”

“Exactly, you got steak, and they got kibble.”

“Unfair.”

“Tragic,” she volleys back, and we share a grin. She’s always said I remind her of my great-grandpa. I don’t remember him much, he passed when I was a baby, but he loved hockey and he loved Bea.

So, I’m proud to remind her of him.

She pats my arm again. “Enough of that. Why do you look like you want to cremate poor old Phillip instead of bury him in the ground?”

My brow furrows even more, the reality of the day making my chest ache. “When was it okay to start calling a funeral nice?” I ask incredulously, shaking my head as we walk toward where they’ll lay a man I respected more than anything to rest. “Oh, the flowers are so nice. Such a beautiful service. The sermon was so moving. They have such good food,” I say, mocking the townsfolk of Thistlebrook. “A man dies in his sleep, and it’s nice? I liked it better when people kept their mouths shut and cried.”

She grins. “Damn social media.”

“Keyboard warriors,” I agree just as my nana and my mom fall into step with us.

My nana takes my free hand in hers, squeezing it softly as our eyes meet. My brown eyes match hers, along with my great-nana’s and my mom’s. They’re the Cook eyes. Dark and muddy brown, like the dirt under our ancestors’ fingernails. Nana gives me a small smile, and I return it as she uses her other tattooed hand to brush her brown hair out of her eyes.

Unlike most grandmas, mine is covered from head to toe in tattoos. Before my mom came along, Hazel and her man lived in a van, traveling the world to give tattoos after dropping out of school. They were wild teens, no one able to hold them down. It wasn’t until my grandpa’s mom died that he was forced to come home to settle things. And when he did, he also knocked Hazel up, and they ended up staying here.

They owned a tattoo shop in town, and Hazel kept it open after my grandpa overdosed when I was eight. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that she closed the shop. The same year my dad left my mom. And me. She said she was ready to retire, but I knew she wanted to be there for me whenever I needed her. To this day, Hazel doesn’t leave me be. Hell, none of the women in my family do.

I call them my girls.

They may be the parental units, but sometimes I feel like the adult, given their shenanigans.

When we stop, Mom reaches over to cup my face, her gaze searching mine and begging me with her eyes to crawl into her lap like a toddler and beg for cuddles. “Baby, are you okay?”

Jesus help me. My mom is just as much of a nuisance as her mother and grandmother. Also like the women before her, she is short but way rounder. She says it’s to give kids a cushy spot to lie when they need a cuddle. She forgets that, unlike her students, I am 6’6”, and I’d suffocate her if I sat on her. She means well, but damn.

When my dad walked out on us, it ruined her, and she clung to me. There wasn’t a moment I ever questioned if my mom loved me. She did, even with other kids competing for her attention. She’s a preschool teacher, and I’m still her number one, but she sometimes treats me like I’m one of her students. Has the need to tell me it’s okay to feel my feelings. Hazel makes fun of Mom for being a hippie, but the woman traveled in a van for most of her life and had dreadlocks until my mom’s first day of preschool.

Pot, meet kettle.

Mom’s kind eyes hold mine as she asks, “Are you feeling a lot of feelings right now?”

I’m thirty-eight fucking years old. My feelings are my own, and I don’t need to be telling my mom that I’m pissed because I haven’t fucking seen…her.

Aggravated with myself that I’m pissed over her , I shake my head. “Mom, I’m fine, just annoyed with his town.”

“As always,” Hazel says, threading her fingers with mine, but I don’t miss the wounded look on my mom’s face. “The town grump keeping up with his reputation.”

“He’s a lovely boy,” Mom corrects, looking up at me lovingly. “People don’t understand him.”

“Exactly,” Bea says, patting my wrist. “Like, how we all know you don’t give two shits what people are talking about and, instead, are wondering why you haven’t seen Fable yet.”

I shouldn’t be surprised by Bea’s observation, but damn, can she not see right through me? Like the little biddies they are, they all share a look while I refuse to dignify that statement with a response. Even if they’re absolutely right, I won’t let them know that.

But for real, where the fuck is she?

Twenty years. I haven’t set eyes on her in the flesh in twenty fucking years.

I press my lips together and will myself not to look around for her as we gather near the back of the whole damn town. As much as I hate myself for it, I glance around at the sea of people in different hockey jerseys in search of one person.

She’s not here.

That’s wild to me. I know Fable and her grandfather weren’t close like she is with Kitty, but I know she loves her grandpa.

Phillip Winthrop was a huge hockey fan. He built the Ice Thistle for his wife because she was an ice skater. What he didn’t expect was to fall in love with the ice too. He picked up the game of hockey quickly and ran the Ice Thistle with every bit of his heart. He was my coach growing up and my mentor. He made the Ice Thistle my home, and I plan to carry on that legacy. One that is destined for great things. The Ice Thistle is always busy. There are four rinks, and games or skaters are always utilizing them. If it is a AAA tournament or practice, peewee games, or beer league, the rink is packed and everyone loves it. Because of that, all of the town turned out in their team jerseys to show their support for Phillip.

We’re a hockey town because of the Ice Thistle.

Because of Phillip.

We are one of the top facilities in the country, and we hold the best and most sought-after tournaments during travel hockey season. The tournaments bring loads of tourists to our town, which helps our small businesses. I learned from the best, and I was promised full ownership of the Thistle when Phillip passed. While sometimes I wonder if it was a good choice to take the deal when I was eighteen, now that he’s gone, I know it was.

Did I lose my heart in the process?

Yes.

Do I regret it?

Daily.

So, instead, I will be what he was. I’ll carry on the legacy that is the Ice Thistle. While I wish he were still here since he was the man to teach me not only to skate but also to run a business, I’m ready to take the Ice Thistle to heights unknown. I’m ready to make the Cook name more than just some shitty blue-collar identity in this town. I want my name to be what the Winthrop name is.

Important.

Worth something.

I press my lips together as a wave of emotion knocks into me. Fuck, I miss you, man.

It’s only been four days, but it feels like years without his guidance. While I know that he didn’t have the best relationship with his granddaughter, I can’t believe she’s not here. Up front sits Penny Winthrop, who goes by Kitty, with her son and daughter-in-law beside her. She sits stone-faced, trails of tears down her sunken cheeks as she wears her husband’s bright-pink beer league jersey. It matches the ones the women in my life wear.

The Beer League Belles. A team Bea started and sponsors every season. A team I play for and captain. I swallow past the lump in my throat as I wiggle the long sleeves of my sweater to cover my hands that hold my nana’s. Not that it’s cold, it’s actually hot as fuck, but just for the comfort it brings me. Bea leans into me, and I’m sure it’s because she’s old and frail and not to give me support.

“Legs giving out?”

“Laugh it up, chuckles. Your knees are no better,” she throws back, and she isn’t wrong. Like most of the men in this town who thought they could leave, I’m a washed-up athlete who came back home with my tail between my legs after a gnarly knee injury. I had every intention of returning to college so I could make it to the NHL, but life happened.

There is only one person who left Thistlebrook and never came back.

I hear the gasps just as the chorus of “Tears in Heaven” is sung, a song I know Phillip hated. But the church group stops at the shocked interruption. I glance over to where everyone is looking.

My whole body goes taut at the sight, and my jaw goes slack.

Holy shit.

She’s here.

And the ice princess has developed curves.

In. All. The. Right. Places.

In a tight black dress, Fable Winthrop runs up a hill with all her might. Her arms are pumping, and in doing so, her full tits jiggle and almost pop out of the top of her dress. She stops, her chest heaving, before kicking her foot to make one pump fly up in the air. She catches it with ease, then does the same to the other, much to the displeasure of the pearl-clutchers in the audience. Me, I get a view of some killer thick thighs that I’m pretty sure are covered in ink since she isn’t wearing stockings. Did the ice princess get tatted? Prim and proper Fable Winter Winthrop, inked up? No way. But I know what I saw, and it has my mouth drying out. That’s hot. I don’t even try to fight back a smirk.

Her brows pull together as she looks toward where we’re all gathered, holding her pumps close to her chest as she fights for air. “Hey, is this Phillip— Oh, thank God, Kitty! I ripped my dress, so I had to go buy a new one, and oh my God, it’s been a day.”

I snort.

“Fable Winter! For the love of God, come sit down,” Elena, her mother, scolds as Fable’s face scrunches up. God, I can’t stand that woman, and not because she loved to scream “toe pick” at me when I was learning to use figure skates. I know she got it from The Cutting Edge , and it wasn’t fucking funny, no matter how much she cackled. No, I can’t stand her because she has always treated her only daughter as if she is the bane of her existence.

With her lips pressed in a thin line, the ice princess makes her way to them. Her wild mane of white-blond waves that used to be down to her ass is now shorter, dusting the tops of her shoulders. Large black sunglasses cover her eyes, but her face is bright red and shiny from the heat. I know she still skates daily from her Instagram posts. She also coaches a lot, so she’s in shape, even if she isn’t the stick she used to be. Now she has thighs meant to suffocate me, hips meant to be handlebars as I pound into her, and a belly that I want to nuzzle. And those titties… There aren’t enough days in this lifetime for me to get my fill.

“You’re drooling.”

I ignore Bea’s quip as Fable waves awkwardly to everyone who is gawking at her. Which is basically the whole town. I bet everyone assumed she wouldn’t come, just like I had, but one thing about the ice princess, she does things in her own time.

Once she’s by her grandmother, she slips on her pumps and asks, “Who picked this song? He hated this song.”

I have to cough to hide my laughter.

Of course, that earns me dark looks from the women around me, but I ignore them, my eyes fully trained on the back of the ice princess’s head. She has to feel my gaze since I can’t help but drink in every single inch of her. Her dress leaves her back exposed, and she has the cutest little roll around the middle that I want to trace my fingers along. I loved her hair long, but I can’t deny how sexy it is all short and sassy. I have known the ice princess my whole life. She never had time for anyone, always so focused on her skating. It took my coming into her world to be noticed, but even then, I don’t think she ever saw me.

I was only her partner, and she was the girl I wanted.

But couldn’t have.

My breath hitches when she looks over her shoulder and lifts her glasses up into her hair. Her green eyes almost glow in the June sun as she looks out at everyone.

Then her eyes meet mine.

It’s like being smacked back two decades to the first time my horny teenage self saw her in a way that wasn’t approved by the church. My body goes still, my heart jumps into my throat, and I’m stunned in place. Still drop-dead gorgeous, with thick black lashes that frame her moss-green eyes. Her lips all plump, kissable, suckable. Her shoulders are thick with muscle, and I want to sink my teeth into the spot that connects her neck to her shoulder. My skin tingles in all the right ways, and my cock throbs against the zipper of my slacks. I swallow hard as I hold her gaze, unable to look away, unable to make myself send her a greeting. All I can do is stare.

And she stares right on back.

Everything else fades into the background, and I have to force myself to look away.

Because she may be back and mouthwatering, to boot, but nothing has changed.

I’m a Cook, a washed-up hockey player from the working class.

And she’s a Winthrop, a silver-spoon ice princess.

I wasn’t good enough for her then, and I sure as hell am not good enough for her now.