Page 122 of Forbidden Hockey

“Lion attack.”

Penny rolls her eyes and storms ahead. Other than that, the early morning is pretty usual, but my ever-growing need to touch him is bad. Worse. I know that by the end of the day, his lip’ll be barely noticeable, and I’ll have the need to bite it again, so he can wear an outward symbol that he’s mine on him.

I refrain, making the mistake of checking my phone instead.

Stacey

Your son’s alive. I’ll take good care of him. Promise.

It’s immediate. The words set my heart off into a wild gallop, pounding through my body, taking me away.

I’m too far away. Dash is too far away. Can’t … can’t help him.

My chest tightens.Easy there, Nolan.I take a slow breath.

The enemy’s tequila, not Robin. Dash must be hurting this morning after pickling his liver. It’s not even the first time I’ve got a message like that one from Stacey about my son, but the words land differently today. Uneasy. Like a hard lump I can’t swallow. I force it down and rub my hand over my face for good measure.

“Everything okay, Trav?” Dirk says with a hand on my neck. “You look like you wanna kill something.”

I do. Robin.

Dirk sets coffee on the bar top for me, careful eyes never leaving me, searing through my skin. He knows me too well, he must know it’s on my mind every minute, every day, since fucking Maxwell brought it up.

He takes a slow breath. I don’t need words to read him, either. I’m making him fucking nervous, but in true Dirk fashion, he says nothing, bearing whatever menace I’m giving off quietly. I don’t want that.

Spinning around, I pull him into my lap. I kiss his neck until he smiles.

“Fuck you, Trav,” he says with a laugh in his voice.

“Any time, baby.”

I tip his chin up, about to really dig in, make a fucking meal out of his mouth, when the door swings open. Dammit. We didn’t lock that? Cold air and attitude pour in. Maverick Elkington looking like he just stepped off the cover of some rich-boy magazine, holds the door open, the perfect gentleman, for Bryce Meyer.

Bryce freezes when he sees Dirk on my lap. Maverick’s smirk saysoh, this is going to be fun.

Dirk shifts, about to jump away, but I lock my arm around his waist. They’ve caught us, what’s the point in him being any further away from me than he needs to be?

“Shit, Boulder,” Bryce says, gaze flickering to Maverick. It dawns on him. “You knew.”

Maverick shrugs. “I’m a vault when someone gives me a secret, baby, but if you’d asked, I woulda told you. We don’t have secrets.”

He tries to pull Bryce toward him, but Bryce bats his hands away. “What did I say, Elkington? No fucking touching me.”

Maverick stares as if Bryce is a new angel the heavens just released, and holds his hands up, a signal he’ll keep them to himself.

Bryce turns his cornflower blue eyes on us, the rough edge that I’ve picked up as a Meyer trait, blazing through him. “Don’t worry, I don’t give a fuck if you’re fucking.”

“Do all Meyers cuss that much?” I ask.

“Even the little ones,” Dirk says.

“Isn’t he stunning?” Maverick says. “Only reason he doesn’t want me touching him is because he has a weakness for me. Has to keep the hard-to-get thing up.”

“I’m gonna twist your nuts off, Elkington,” Bryce threatens.

I don’t get them. Have I missed something? Are they together? Not together? Hard to tell. Sutter and Casey are—that’s confirmed—but you’d think they were enemies sometimes. These two are … I don’t know. I give up on trying to understand their relationship dynamics.

“Sorry, Trav. Totally forgot I told Bryce to come in so I could train him on prep. There were only so many floor shifts I could give him, and he wanted the extra hours.”