Page 109 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Thirty-Eight

Jules

It wasn’t until we’d walked down the concrete stairs and taken our seats that I realized I’d made a big, big mistake.

And that happened when I’d looked up at the scoreboard.

Breakers on the left side with their cute little wave-shaped logo.

On the other…

A logo of mountains.

My stomach clenched as I read the team name—The Sierra.

No .

I couldn’t be this stupid, couldn’t be this unlucky. This just…this couldn’t be right . It had to be a mistake, had to be. So, as calmly as I could—since Ethan was next to me—I reached into my pocket to extract my cell with shaking hands.

Called up the tickets Smitty had sent me…still with shaking hands.

And actually reading them this time, not just skimming over the details and looking for row and seat numbers, but reading the game time and the team names.

Breakers versus Sierra.

Christ almighty.

I could possibly be this stupid. And unlucky.

If I’d been by myself, I would have hopped right out of this seat, walked my butt up the concrete stairs, fled to my car, and surprised my hot hockey player in his bed later that night.

But I wasn’t alone.

I was with my son, who was firmly entrenched in the hockey bug and loving every part of playing, practicing, and watching the sport.

No surprise since he’d been adopted into the hockey fold—hell, he’d even gotten to hang with Cas and the rest of the Breakers crew last night at CeCe’s for a little while before Cas had taken him back to my place.

Mary was still babysitting semi-regularly, and I had been worried about the semi part of that fact, since Ethan had also spent time with Nonna JoJo and Ace—aka Luca—and one night with Kathy and Tim (Sam and Margot were back at school) but then Mary had told me that her coursework had gotten really intense and she was overwhelmed and that while she loved Ethan, she was glad to have some extra kiddo free time to study.

My guilt was assuaged—somewhat, because Mary had also confessed that she’d felt overwhelmed for a while but hadn’t wanted to leave me in a pickle.

So, since I was saving a lot of money on babysitting fees (though I had offered to pay both Cas and his parents and they’d both declined), I vowed to do something nice for Mary as soon as the semester ended.

A spa day, or a gift card toward books in the campus bookstore.

God knew I felt down to my bones how expensive textbooks were.

But…maybe a spa day.

Because Mary was like me.

She didn’t have a lot of family, didn’t have a lot of friends.

And since I was no longer on the outside, no longer relegated to the sidelines (and it felt fucking great), I was going to bring Mary along with me.

I’d totally bet that Beth, Kailey, and Hazel would be down for a spa day. Pru was a bit more of a tomboy, but I thought that even with that being the truth, she would still be down, too.

All of which was a good thing, something I was looking forward to.

But it wasn’t something that was going to help me take care of this situation.

We’d arrived later than the last time we’d come to a game—having zipped over straight from Ethan’s practice and making a pit stop for some grub on the way.

Yeah, I was saving on babysitting, but wasn’t going to go crazy with spending, especially with arena prices (though I had promised that Ethan could pick something here for dessert and, for the record, he’d gone with cotton candy, which was currently smeared like bright blue lipstick around his mouth).

The game was starting in just a few minutes, the national anthem had just finished and a player from either team had gathered around a few people standing on a red carpet that had been rolled out on the ice.

The Breakers player was Marcel.

The Sierra player…was Lake Jordan.

God, I hadn’t actually seen him in years, and…he looked good. Bigger and stronger and happy, standing there smiling next to the group of people, pausing to ruffle the boy’s hair.

I could almost hear his voice, since it hadn’t been all that long since we’d talked (though in my darker moments, I had preferred texting, because it had been less personal and more comfortable and…easier for me to remain on the sidelines).

I needed to reach out to him.

Connect.

Tell him how much his help had meant to me. Tell him how much it had meant that he’d…well, that he’d been good to me when no one else had been.

So, now that I wasn’t on the sidelines any longer, I needed to own that, to let him know how much it meant then and now, and…it was just that I’d prefer to not do it anywhere in the vicinity of Nate.

For one, my lawyer had advised me long ago to not communicate directly with my ex.

For another, I hadn’t seen Nate since he’d turned me away and broke my heart and…I wasn’t sure how it would feel to see him now, after all this time.

Last, and more importantly, I didn’t want to expose Ethan to his vitriol.

Didn’t want my son anywhere near him.

But how could I pull Ethan away from something he loved?

I tried to breathe, to think. We weren’t going to go anywhere near the Sierra’s locker room or players—yes, I’d planned on heading down and surprising Cas after the game, but I could tell Ethan that something had come up and that we couldn’t go down and visit today.

I’d soften the blow by telling him that we’d meet Cas at his place.

That way, it would still be a surprise for Cas, and it would definitely still be fun for Ethan.

That had pretty much been the original plan Ethan and I had before I’d gotten the bright—dumbass—idea to ask Smitty if he happened to have any spare tickets for the game.

Until then, we would watch the game and enjoy ourselves.

Until then, I would avoid looking at Nate, at Lake, and instead focus on my man, my friends.

It would be easy to stay under the radar.

Ethan and I were just two faces in a crowd of twenty-thousand people.

It would all be okay.

“That’s Lake Jordan, Mom,” Ethan breathed with almost as much awe as he’d had when first meeting Cas and Smitty and Marcel and the others.

“Yeah, bud,” I said, forcing my tone to stay neutral. “I grew up with him, remember?”

They’d had conversations about Lake when Ethan had first gotten into hockey.

A nod, his eyes glued to the ice. “But you haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“Right.” I smiled down at him.

“He’s big ,” Ethan said.

Lake was. He’d always been tall and solid, but now he was muscled, and in his gear, on his skates—even across the ice he was approaching giant status. Not to mention that face .

It was…pretty.

Too pretty to risk being sliced open with skate blades and whacked with sticks.

“Yeah, he is,” I said. “Almost as big as Smitty.”

Another nod, still watching intently. “Do you think he’ll recognize you?”

“Well,” I teased. “I didn’t get big . But I doubt it,” I told him. “It’s been years, bud, and we’ve only texted and talked on the phone?—”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

My head jerked up at the sharp sound.

Jerked up…and saw Lake standing there.

Waving at me. Grinning at me.

“Whoa,” Ethan murmured. “I think he recognizes you, Mom.”

Shit.

Shit.

I couldn’t form a response, not to save my life.

Because who was standing behind him?

Nate Miller.