Page 2

Chapter

Two

André

The Saddledome was alive with the usual game-night chaos—beer sloshing, screens flashing, and the heavy bass of the arena music vibrating through André’s chest. He barely heard or saw any of it.

He lounged in one of the suite chairs, feet kicked up on the railing, grinning like a man who had already won. Because tonight? He was playing a different game.

Grace was coming.

Country sat across from him, arms crossed like he was waiting for André to realize what kind of shitstorm he’d created. He did. He just wasn’t sorry about it.

“You should be thanking me.” Country nodded toward the entrance where Jenna had disappeared to meet Grace.

André dragged a slow hand over his mouth to cover his smirk. “I’ll write you a poem about it later.”

Country shook his head. “Don’t be an ass. Don’t hit on her here. Jenna told me she didn’t want to come because of guys like you.”

“Hm. I’m one of a kind, so?—”

“That. Don’t do that.”

André tipped his beer in Country’s direction. “And what if she wants me to?”

Country grinned. “Bud. She’s not going to want you to. You step out of line, and I’m going to pretend we never had this discussion.”

André dropped his feet and sat straight. “Right. Jenna will never know that I’m into Grace. I just happen to be here.”

Country blew out a breath. “This is going to bite us in the ass. I can already feel it.”

“How so? You wanted to ask her about the charity game. That’s a plenty good excuse?—”

“Jenna doesn’t know about that either. She’s weirdly protective of Grace. She acts like if anything goes wrong where she’s concerned, we’ll anger the gods and lose Hope or something.”

André frowned. “The adoption’s final.”

“Yeah. That’s what I keep saying. I—” Country looked up, and André turned his head. The door to the suite opened, and everything in his body locked up.

Jenna stepped in first, her eyes darting between Country, him, Emma, and Tyler, and the other guys filling their plates in the back. Then Grace appeared behind her.

And shit.

As much as he’d been anticipating this, he wasn’t prepared. The last time he’d seen her in person was at the adoption party. She’d only been there for a few minutes, but it was long enough to scrawl her into his brain with Sharpie. Seeing her now, in real- time, in his space, looking like a Wall Street goddess? It knocked the air straight out of his lungs.

The arena lights caught the sharp edge of her jaw, the gold in her hair, the faint pinch of irritation in her brow that made him want to see her come undone. He wanted her to slice him open with her words. To eviscerate him. Just so he could snap back and break down those walls and find out what she looked like underneath.

André ’s gaze drifted lower, hungry, involuntary. She was all sharp lines and tailored perfection—the kind of woman who made blazers look weaponized. Dark green, cinched at the waist, fitted to the point of obscenity. He imagined slipping his fingers beneath the lapels, popping open the single delicate button with nothing but the edge of his knuckles.

And those pants? Black. Cut within an inch of their damn lives.

His brain short-circuited. That high waist? It begged for his hands. The clean, sleek line from hip to heel? A masterpiece. And he had no business imagining what those legs would feel like wrapped around his hips, pressing into his back, pinning him in place with the kind of control he knew she had.

His fingers twitched. Jenna was going to know he wanted her. One look, and she was going to read it all over his face.

“Pick your jaw up off the floor,” Country hissed.

André stood up, slow, like he had all the time in the world and wasn’t sporting a massive boner. He kept his body turned toward the ice as Jenna introduced Grace to everyone. She’d seen Suraj, Curtis, Brett, and Penny at the party, but he doubted she remembered anyone’s names. Except for Emma and Tyler, whom she’d known since she first came into town. He’d already given Tyler crap for not bringing her around to a game back then.

André gave a small wave when Jenna introduced him, but when Grace started looking for a place to set her purse and blazer, he couldn’t help himself. “Here.” He stepped past Country, took the stairs up the central aisle two at a time, and reached for her things.

Her eyes flicked to his, sharp and assessing. She hesitated a moment, then slipped out of her blazer and handed both items over. Her blouse was cream-coloured and delicate, with thin straps over her shoulders.

“Sorry, didn’t have time to change.” She smiled at Jenna, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“You can have my shirt if you want.” André folded the blazer over his arm and nearly tripped as he stepped back on the stairs.

Grace’s mouth quirked. “And you would wear . . .”

“Nothing.” He deadpanned until Jenna smacked his shoulder.

“What the hell, André? Country!”

“Yeah.” Country started up the steps behind him, but André turned and waved him off.

“It was a joke. Geez.” He turned to look back over his shoulder and winked at Jenna. “But even you wouldn’t complain.”

She glared at him, then blew out a breath and turned to Grace. “He’s always like that. Just ignore him.”

André grinned as he laid Grace’s blazer over the seat back beside his and set her purse on the upholstery. Perfect. He hadn’t triggered any alarm bells.

At least not with Jenna.

He barely had his butt in his seat before the chirping started.

Curtis leaned forward from the row behind. “So, uh . . . you want to tell us what that was?”

Suraj grinned and crowded in from the left. “The moment she walked in? You looked like a rookie getting his first shift in the show. Wide-eyed. Breathless. A little sweaty.”

André rolled his shoulders back. “Just the curry I had for lunch.”

Brett, who’d just taken a bite of nachos, finally swallowed and grinned. “Bud, I haven’t seen you move that fast since you noticed Fly standing behind you in the showers.”

André snorted, stealing one of Brett’s nachos just to chap his ass. “I didn’t know him then. Now, I’d consider it.”

Country sat down with an exhale just as Jenna appeared in the aisle. She crouched, bracing herself on his knees. “You planned this, didn’t you?” Country started to shake his head, but Jenna didn’t pause for half a second. “Brett? Suraj? Curtis? All in committed relationships. You told me you were inviting the guys?—”

“It’s not my fault they were the only ones who said yes!” Country threw out his hands, and Jenna motioned for him to lower his voice. “I tried to get Ryan and Aelin to bring the girls, but they had some commitment at the school.”

“I promised Grace there would be no single guys hitting on her.”

André scoffed. “Why are you looking at me like that? You brought a guest, and I acted like a gentleman. Can we no longer help a woman without her thinking we’re trying to sleep with her?” He nudged Country. “What’s the opposite of misogy?—”

“Ugh, you two are the worst.” She pushed up from Country’s lap and pointed at Grace’s jacket. “I’m telling her she doesn’t have to sit there.”

André shrugged, trying to keep the grin off his face. “I think Grace is a grown woman?—”

“So nice of you to notice.” Grace dropped to the step behind Jenna, one hand holding her plate and the other a full cup of beer. The foam slipped over the side of her cup, dripping over her fingers. “Anything else you’d like to discuss? Bone density, cholesterol levels?”

Jenna stepped back. “I was just telling André it was presumptuous to put your things in the seat next to him.”

“It was.” Grace cocked her head to the side. “I’m not going to sleep with you. If that’s what you were hoping for.”

Suraj snorted behind him, and Country’s eyes flew wide.

André ’s grin widened as he gestured to the purse chair. “Damn, Grace, you sure know how to crush a man’s dreams. I was already mentally designing our wedding invitations.”

Brett choked on his soda. Country just shook his head like he regretted every decision that had led to this moment, avoiding Jenna’s eyes like the plague.

Grace didn’t so much as blink. “Let me guess. Black tie affair, open bar, you show up late if you show up at all?—”

“Why wouldn’t I show up?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t exude ‘husband material.’”

André put a hand to his heart. “I feel so seen.”

Grace wet her lips, then slid past Jenna and Country. She paused when she stood directly in front of André, the waistband of her hot-ass pants brushing his thighs. “I’m too old for you.” She looked up into his eyes, her jaw set.

“That sounds like a limiting belief.”

Grace released a small puff of air, slid past, picked up her purse, and sat.

“I know a good therapist. She’ll take you on as a favour to me if you want to work through that.” André watched her settle in–the precise way she placed her beer in the cupholder, the way she tucked her legs beneath the seat, her posture stiff like she’d been trained out of letting her body take up space.

“I don’t need a therapist. Especially not one you’ve slept with.”

He scoffed. “You’re a lawyer. Don’t you know you need evidence before accusing?”

She didn’t take her eyes off the ice. “You said you knew a therapist, not that you had one, and you led me to believe you can influence her behavior. So, either she owes you money or she’s somehow still interested in you. Either one seems wildly unlikely, to be honest, but I’m going off of what information I have.”

“She’s my sister.”

Grace blinked, her eyes flitting briefly to his. “Well. A shot and a miss.”

André grinned. “Or I met her in grad school, and she definitely still wants me.” He winced when something hit him in the back of the head. Turning, he found Jenna with another Peanut M&M pinched between her fingers.

André pretended he didn’t know why she was pissed and spread out like he owned the damn row. “You don’t have to scrunch up. There’s plenty of room.”

“Mmm. Thank you for telling me how to sit in my seat to watch a hockey game.”

“Here to help. If you need instructions on getting the appropriate amount of dip on those celery sticks or making sure your fingers aren’t sticky from the beer?—”

“I have a napkin.”

He shrugged. “They’ll still be sticky.”

She turned her head. “Let me guess, you’ll lick them off for me?”

He swiped his tongue over his lips. “No. I’ll watch while you lick them.”

Grace didn’t break eye contact. “Is this how you talk to every woman you meet?”

André exhaled and leaned back in his seat. “Only the ones who enjoy it.”

She rolled her eyes and dipped a celery stick. Way too much ranch. André tried to focus on the game, but Grace pointedly licked dressing off her finger. Slow. Turned toward him. Daring him to turn his head. His nostrils flared, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction.

He cleared his throat and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. The Blizzard controlled the game, cycling the puck in Winnipeg’s zone, their top line shifting seamlessly. Warren took a shot, and it clanged off the post. The crowd groaned as the Jumbotron showed the replay.

André barely noticed any of it. Which was insane, considering hockey was his entire life. Grace was like a TV in a sports bar. He kept wanting to glance over and see what was playing.

She hadn’t relaxed an inch. Not even a single casual shift in her seat, no slouch, no settling in. Just perfect posture, legs crossed tight, hands resting carefully on her lap.

André reached for his beer, which he’d conveniently placed in the left cupholder, and Grace’s eyes flicked down to his hands. She paused. Her nose scrunched.

“What?” he asked.

Grace didn’t answer. She narrowed her eyes, her gaze flicking from his fingers back up to his face. The expression was pure, concentrated judgment.

André drew from his beer, waiting for her to say it. He knew exactly what she was looking at. The nicotine stain on his fingers. Yellowed at the edges, just barely there, but enough for someone like her to notice. Someone who paid attention to details.

He should have cared. Should have been embarrassed, maybe. But he wasn’t. Because this wasn’t some new, bad habit. This was muscle memory. This was waking up after a road game and lighting up before his first piss of the day. This was learning to breathe through it because it was the only thing that ever made him feel steady.

The first time he smoked a cigarette, he was sixteen, sitting on the porch to avoid another drunken outburst. His brother, Luc, handed it to him.

André had taken it without thinking because the alternative was looking at the way Luc was staring blankly at the concrete, blood dried at his temple, mouth set like he wasn’t sure he still had all his teeth.

“Coach is going to be pissed,” André had muttered, rolling the cigarette between his fingers as if he knew what to do with it.

Luc hadn’t looked up. So André lit the cigarette, took his first drag, and hated it. It burned, tasted awful, made his lungs seize. But Luc exhaled, smoke curling in the air, and said, “It helps.”

And that had been enough of a reason to try again. Again and again. Until he didn’t hate it anymore. Until it became routine. Until he needed it.

He tried to quit once. He’d been successful for exactly three weeks and two days. It was after his second season in Juniors when his conditioning coach made an offhand comment about his lung capacity dropping.

By week two, his hands were shaking before practice. By week three, he was snapping at teammates, grinding his teeth, buzzing out of his skin. He caved, sitting in his car outside his apartment, lighting up with shaking hands.

“For someone who seems to have a high opinion about his body, I’m surprised. That’s all.” Grace turned back to the game.

André smirked. “Looking good naked has nothing to do with my vices.”

Grace’s lips twitched. “No judgment here.”

“Hm. It feels like judgment.”

Grace took a sip of her beer. “I’m not the one who has to kiss you. Or apply for life insurance.”

André set his beer in the cupholder. “You’ve never kissed a guy who smoked?”

“No, I have. That’s why I can speak with authority.”

André’s jaw tensed. The chirps from his teammates? Easy. The lectures from trainers? White noise. But this? Not sharp, not cruel. Just flat. Matter-of-fact. Like he’d already lost points he didn’t even know he was playing for.

Her words crawled under his skin. “Turns out I’m a fan of poor decision-making.”

Jenna sighed loudly. “We’re aware.”

Curtis clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t know the context, but that was never up for debate.”

André turned, feigning offense. “What did I do to deserve this?” He cleared his throat and swivelled forward. “First of all, I’m in peak physical condition.” Grace arched a single, devastating eyebrow. “Second, I don’t smoke that much.”

Curtis let out an actual cackle. “Bud. You have two separate gas stations that know your order.”

“He’s a franchise,” Tyler called out from two rows up.

Penny grinned. “Marlboro probably sends him a Christmas card.”

André threw up his hands, grinning despite himself. “Wow. We done?”

Emma thankfully changed the subject, and André somehow forced himself to focus on the game. It had been getting chippy for a while. The refs were letting them play, letting the sticks ride high, letting the little extra shoves after the whistle slide.

Sure enough, halfway through the second period, it finally boiled over. Lindholm, a Blizzard winger, got buried along the boards—a clean hit, but heavy. One you feel in your bones.

Then the gloves came off.

“Here we go,” Curtis muttered.

André sat forward, grinning as Appy and Monohan put elbows up at centre ice, dropping their gloves like they’d been waiting for an excuse.

The fight started like all of them do. A little hesitation, circling, waiting to see who throws first—then boom, first grab, first shot, first real connection that makes the crowd go feral.

André loved a good tilt. Not for the violence, but for the mechanics. A real hockey fight was an art form. One player controlled the collar grip while keeping his head tucked, and the other used footwork to stay just out of reach, the little tugs and balance shifts to keep the other off-centre.

Then came the big shots. Monohan threw a heavy right hook—missed, but it kept the pressure up. Appy landed a sharp uppercut, knocking his helmet loose. They went back and forth throwing bombs in front of thousands of screaming fans, knowing damn well this was more about the code than the actual outcome.

Eventually, Monohan hit the ice, and the refs broke it up, pulling them apart while the crowd rose to their feet, screaming approval.

André grinned, shaking his head. “That was solid.”

Grace exhaled sharply, crossing her arms tighter. “That was ridiculous.”

“What? You don’t like a little old-fashioned conflict resolution?”

Grace’s lips pressed together. “That wasn’t conflict resolution. That was two idiots giving each other concussions for no reason.”

André turned. ”There’s always a reason.”

“There isn’t.”

Hilarious. He doubted Grace had played a day of hockey in her life, and here she was, lecturing him. “There is. It’s about respect.”

Grace let out a small, incredulous laugh. “Respect? Earned by punching a guy in the face?”

“There’s an order to it. You don’t fight because you’re pissed off. You fight because someone has to answer for a dirty hit, or a guy’s been running his mouth all game, or the boys need a momentum shift. It’s part of the game.”

Grace shook her head. “Part of the game. Right. And I suppose brain damage is just a fun little side effect?”

And just like that, everything inside him went still. The noise of the crowd dulled, faded into the background.

Brain damage. The words spun like a top in his head. He should answer. Should laugh it off, chirp back, keep it light. Instead, his throat locked up.

“Hey, speaking of which, I had something I wanted to talk with you about.” Country leaned forward, snagging Grace’s attention. He gave André a small nod, then smiled wide. “There’s a charity game our team is putting on. To raise money for Heads Up Alberta. They support kids and families dealing with traumatic brain injuries.”

Grace straightened in her seat, if that was possible. Considering she already seemed to be sitting on a metal rod. “Oh. That’s amazing.”

Country nodded. “Yeah, it’s something we’ve been trying to get off the ground for a while now. We’ve got a lot of guys backing it, but we need help on the legal side.”

Grace pursed her lips. “I’m not sure that’s my area of expertise.” She crossed her legs, curling into herself. She crossed her arms like she was trying to hold herself together.

Something twinged in André’s middle. He cleared his throat, his breathing beginning to normalize. He owed Country for the distraction. And for what was about to come next.

Country continued, “It’s just contracts, sponsorship agreements, liability waivers.”

Grace nodded but didn’t bite. André silently willed her to ask more questions, to seem even the least bit interested, but she was buttoned up.

Country leaned back, forced into straight-up asking. “I wondered if you’d be interested. It would only be a few hours a week, and while we don’t have much of a payroll budget?—”

Grace turned, that pinch back in her brows. André wanted to reach out and smooth it with his thumb. “I wish I could, but I’m already overcommitted.” She uncrossed her legs and stood. “Excuse me.” She scooted past the two of them and climbed the stairs, exiting the suite.