Page 48 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Fourteen

Beth

I was sitting with Hazel and Oliver, along with a plethora of girls from the team he helped coach, watching the Breakers play.

The girls were awesome, and somehow, I’d gotten seated next to one named Hannah, who was all fire and excitement and intensity.

Her gaze had been locked on the ice during every second of play.

But before the game had started and during any stoppage, including the longer pauses in the match that coincided with commercial breaks from the television feed, she’d been peppering me with questions.

Surprisingly, about makeup and clothes.

Apparently, Hazel had made me out to be the knowledge-keeper of all things girlie.

And apparently, tough as nails, intensely watching, very talented (according to Oliver) hockey player Hannah wanted a breakdown of all things that involved smoky eyes and fake lashes and matching outfits.

She was too little for it all.

But…she wasn’t.

I remembered the excitement of makeup and pretty clothes and shoes and earrings and accessories . I remembered how fun it was playing around with them, how exciting it was to learn what I liked and to experiment and?—

Then it had become a chore.

And now…I was realizing that sometime in the last decade it had become less of a chore and more fun.

Still a mask.

Still something I had to get perfect.

But talking to Hannah I suddenly had a hankering to try a new shade of eyeliner. “Tell you what,” I said as the guys lined up for the face-off (and I didn’t miss that one of those guys was Raph).

“What?” Hannah asked when I got a little sidetracked, lost for a moment in the fact that it wasn’t fair Raph looked sexy in a helmet.

He should look dumb.

Not even more gorgeous.

“What?” Hannah asked again, a bit more impatient.

I pulled it together. “If your grown-ups say it’s okay, you and your teammates can come over. I’ll make pizzas and cookies, and I’ll show you how to do your makeup and hair.”

“Really?” No impatience. Just excitement.

“Really,” I said. “Think of it as team bonding.”

“That. Is. Awesome! ” Hannah yelled, turning her attention back to the ice.

Just as the puck dropped.

Raph didn’t get control of that one. It flew back between the Sierra player’s feet and skidded toward his defenseman.

But Raph was moving, barreling toward that puck, on a mission, and on a mission that succeeded when he snagged it and managed to get it over to Theo, who carried it down into the zone and scored, burying it decisively behind the goalie’s shoulder.

The crowd erupted.

I felt it in my belly, felt the babies roll and move.

“This is the best day ever! ” Hannah yelled, fist-pumping and then doing a little dance that I found myself on my feet joining in with.

It was too cute not to.

“Woo!” I cheered, fist-bumping Hannah as we finished our little jig.

A flash of blue.

My eyes drawn to the glass.

Raph was on the other side.

And the look on his face…it had every bit of air inside me going solid.

His lips moved, but I couldn’t read them.

Not until he smiled, mischief in his blue eyes.

Sugarpie.

He was calling me sugarpie and pressing his hand onto the glass, and I was lifting mine to line it up to his like this was a bad drama film, and he was heading off for war or something.

In front of twenty thousand people.

Then he was gone, and my cheeks were hot—though, thank fuck, I had my makeup on so no one would be able to see I was blushing.

No one being Hannah and her teammates. No one being Hazel and Oliver, whose faces I caught a glimpse of when my gaze darted to the side—Hazel, considering with no little amount of caution tossed in; Oliver, pure shit-eating amusement.

No one being whoever of the twenty thousand people in the sold-out arena happened to be looking up at the jumbotron and saw me reenacting my wartime dramatic film with Raph.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, thankful it was loud enough in the arena for the girls not to hear me.

Thankful that the game moved right along, my and Raph’s interaction a short blip in the action.

Because the Sierra came right back, putting a ton of pressure on the Breakers and keeping them chasing in their own zone for several breath-stealing minutes.

Lots of shots.

Lots of near misses.

Lots of oohs and ahhhs from the crowd.

Then Cas got the puck, and the big, lanky defenseman glanced up the ice…and I held my breath, finally understanding a bit of the game when I saw the lane to the net—I actually saw it, saw the space, the path he could take, the opening around the players.

He’d seen it, too, and a lot faster than me, no surprise.

He was already moving, charging up the ice, closing in on the Sierra goalie.

A shot…

The crowd groaned.

But that shot was hard and low and the puck bounced off his pads…right to Raph.

He swung, his stick flicking out, and this time the crowd erupted.

Because the puck flew into the goal.

Hannah and I were on our feet again, the babies rolling, my butt jiggling, my voice ringing out with the rest of the Breakers fans in the arena.

Raph was mobbed by his teammates, and they all started skating to the bench, but I didn’t miss him turning to look at me, his eyes flaring, mouth tipping up at one end before his lips moved, and this time I almost heard his voice rasping in my ear. “For you, sugarpie.”

So fucking ridiculous.

So fucking lame.

Such a fucking line.

But…it wasn’t. I’d known him long enough to know that was for me.

A wink. That mouth turning up again, this time on both sides.

And then he was back on the bench.

And then Hazel was leaning close, her mouth tipped up. “I think we need to talk.”

Nope. No talking. I had the all-encompassing urge to run up the stairs and out of this arena, to keep on running back to New York, maybe up to Canada to some small farm town where the copious winter storms would keep everyone at bay.

But I couldn’t run.

I was cooking two babies for Pru and Marcel.

I was building a life here for myself.

I was locking those demons down forever so that I could have a happy life, a peaceful life.

Auntie to my friends’ kids, soaking up all of their joy so that I didn’t risk rattling the demons who were hanging out in the dungeon, didn’t risk setting them free.

I would be the best bridesmaid-slash-co-maid-of-honor I could be.

The best travel buddy. The best babysitter.

I would always bring a pie or hosting a pizza and makeup party or cook dinner or…

I would make a small space for myself in my friends’ lives.

I would survive on that.

But letting anyone in deeper?

I couldn’t do that.

Couldn’t risk it.

Not even if the message from all the romance novels I read was to be open, to be vulnerable, to hand over those demons so my man could slay them.

My hero didn’t have wings.

My hero didn’t carry a sword.

My hero didn’t have a morally gray conscience that would have him burn down the world for me.

My hero didn’t exist.

“I don’t think you two need to talk,” Oliver quipped, causing me to blink, to jerk out of my own head. He winked at me, directed his comment at his wife. “I think all Beth needs is a jersey with the number eighty-two on it.”

Raph’s number.

Raph’s jersey.

“I guess don’t need to keep worrying about finding an excuse to pull him in for a talk anymore,” Hazel said back, smile growing as she squeezed my hand. “I know my girl will take good care of him.”

Because that’s what I did.

I stepped in.

I made things right.

But then I stepped right back out, slipping into the background, letting the happiness of fixing and helping and making right fuel me.

That was what I did for my charities.

That was what I was doing for Pru and Marcel.

That was what I would do with babysitting and friends’ vacations and Cheese Night Extravaganza.

I fixed, but my castle gates stayed firmly closed…

or at least the doors to the basement were securely locked (in the case of Pru and Hazel since they were closer to me than anyone else and actually had made it inside the castle’s first floor).

But even as I thought that, about all the security methods in place, my stomach churned and worry bubbled through my veins.

Because Raph didn’t strike me as the type of man who would be satisfied to be locked outside of heavy castle gates or be barred from an entire floor.

He didn’t have wings.

He couldn’t fly.

His conscience wasn’t gray, and he wouldn’t burn down the world.

But he had skates.

So maybe he could fly that way.

Fly right across the ice, sail through the walls.

And reduce my castle to rubble.