Page 2

Grayson

“Al- right , O’Connor!”

Maverick Hawkins pumps his fist in the air as he skates over to me with a delighted expression. Luca, our team captain, skates away, rolling his eyes, but there’s a smile on his face.

He’s just shot at my goal, and I’ve just blocked him. Again.

There’s a certain sort of tension between the goalies and forwards during practice. It’s not like Luca doesn’t want me to block his shot, because my skill means we’re going to block shots in games, but he also doesn’t want to get shut down either.

Which is exactly what I’m doing.

I’ve always been good at hockey—ask anyone in the NHL, and they’ll tell you the same story—but this season already feels different to me. My limbs are looser. I move faster, respond to the puck better. It’s like, at some point between last season and now, something vital finally clicked in place, and everyone can see it.

We launch back into the scrimmage, and I watch as the guys go back and forth. Hockey isn’t like any other sport—the puck moves so fast there are no real possessions in this game. Just sticks clacking, the play whizzing over the ice, the wrist flicks and quick movements adding up to an eventual goal, the buzzer sounding.

I only have to hope I’m good enough that it’s not my goal the puck sinks into.

My eyes follow the line of the play, used to how the puck travels, how it changes course in a matter of milliseconds. I watch Luca and Callum—and unstoppable team—working together to bring it down the rink, trading it with Nikolai Petrov as they go.

Maverick and the other D-men punish them for every move, forcing the puck back, slipping it out from under their noses. And this goes back and forth, the fight for the puck snappy, a barely controlled chaos.

I skate out a bit, responding to the plays, but returning to the crease when my body urges me to, the instincts I’ve built over years of play turning over, assessing the game and driving me to action.

Callum and Luca work their magic, the puck moving, their bodies whizzing around me. The D-men crash in, pucks swinging.

Through it all, I pick out the motion—Petrov to Luca, then back, then to Callum—

I block the puck right before it slides into the net, diving and star-fishing on the ice, knocking it back. If the refs were here right now, they’d be motioning out with their arms. No goal.

“Fuckin’ Christ, O’Connor,” Callum laughs, reaching down and helping me back up onto my skates. “You always gotta go one-hundred-ten during practice, man?”

My knee throbs, but it was worth the pain to keep his puck from getting into the net. I imagine the best goalies are most connected to cavemen, driven by a territorial sort of drive. A need to keep the net safe from predators—or something like that.

“You all could learn something from O’Connor!” Coach Vic says, skating around to us. The man might be in his fifties, but he still handles the ice better than anyone I’ve ever known. “Maybe if you gave a little more, you might actually be able to score on him, McKenzie.”

“That wasn’t even my shot,” Luca laughs, but Coach is already calling us to the center of the ice for the team huddle before breaking practice.

I’m sweating under my gear, somehow freezing and on fire at the same time—the hockey way—as I join the team, clumping up the Frost logo in the center of the ice.

“Alright, gentlemen,” Coach says, his scratchy voice rising above the sound of my breathing, still echoing in my helmet. “I know it still seems like the pre-season is far from us, but you know that first game is going to sneak up on us like it always does. Make sure you’re attending every session of training. Even those of us who just got to the city.”

Maverick raises his hands, palm out like a surrender. “You got me, Coach. I’ll be there.”

It’s surprising to hear bad boy Maverick, who left the team because he couldn’t stand being around us, ready to give in that easily.

Coach is surprised by it too, because he blinks and clears his throat. “Alright. Get out of my face, all of you. See you Monday.”

We disperse, laughing and heading for the locker room while some of the other guys hang back to keep shooting on the nets. I’m just out of the shower, stepping into my jeans, when Callum appears beside me, scrubbing a towel over his hair.

“So, what is it, dude?” He glances around me, like I might be hiding something behind my back.

“What is what?” I laugh. It’s not like Callum and I are best friends—that’s him and Luca. Until a few weeks ago, when I really started performing well in practice, he only talked to me in passing. Now, more and more, I feel like I’m being pulled into the inner circle. And it feels good.

“Some fucking magic bean or something?” Callum asks, tilting his head.

“Give it up,” Luca says, appearing next to him, wearing a pair of jeans and pulling a Frost shirt over his head. “He’s never going to share that with you, Hendricks.”

“Share what ?”

Luca raises an eyebrow at me, like it’s obvious. “Whatever undetectable class of super drug you found at the start of the off-season that’s turned you into Robo Goalie. Player of our dreams. Defender of a forward’s nightmares.”

If Luca and I were better friends, and he wasn’t the team captain, I might laugh and say something like, “Oh, fuck you , man.” But he is the team captain, so instead I just laugh and hope my cheeks aren’t flushing too hard.

Because the truth is that I know exactly what it was that upped my game, but I’m not about to get made fun of by revealing it.

“You coming to Jameson’s?” Callum asks, like that’s something I’ve always done—joining him, Maverick, Luca, and some other guys at their favorite sports bar. Something they do after practice on Fridays. Something I’ve watched them head off to, never having an invitation myself.

Play it cool , I demand of myself. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

When I’m dressed, I walk out to the parking lot with them, swinging my duffel bag into the back of my car. Milwaukee can be temperamental, but this is one of those perfect summer days. Fat white clouds pass through the sky above us, and the wildflowers around the outside of the arena—blue and white, for our team colors—heavily scent the air.

The drive over to Jameson’s takes me down Broadway, which is one of my favorite streets in the city, all old buildings and tourists lining the streets, looking for the best brews.

After I park and make my way through the parking lot, I’m inside next to Callum at the bar, gathering drinks for the table and laughing about something Coach said at the start of practice. He’s unconventional when it comes to coaching, but Luca is convinced he’s taking us to the championship this year.

Rather than sliding into one of the dark booths on the other side of the bar, Callum leads me out onto the patio, where a large table is already filled with other players and people. I set the drinks down and take them all in, considering the group I’ve just gained access to.

Maverick, the defensive player who left the team and recently returned. His dark hair falls into his eyes, and there’s a faint scar over his left eyebrow that tells the story of a long-ago fight. After a spat with Luca, he left to play on the Houston Stampede. We hurt without him, and somehow Luca was able to get him back. Ruby Romano, sitting to his left, is wearing red lipstick and has her legs crossed, laughing at something Sloane said. The two of them match, both with dark hair and bold energies.

I don’t know the whole story with Ruby, but apparently she is rich, and Maverick brought her over to the team, along with quite a bit of money to infuse into the Frost. We’ve already seen more trainers and improvements to our locker rooms as a result. Luca is excited about the money, convinced it’s going to bring home the Stanley Cup for us this year.

Callum slides in next to Sloane and puts his arm around her. I was on the team two seasons ago when everything went down, but not that close with Callum, so I’m still fuzzy on the details. What I do know is that Sloane owns a hockey media company that used to talk shit about the Frost. Not so much anymore, after a very public apology. She has the same golden hair and freckles as her brother, Luca McKenzie, our captain. Luca’s sitting next to, but not touching, his wife Mandy. I went to their wedding too, and couldn’t help but notice the weird chill between them.

“…did he tell you?” Sloane is asking, as I slid into my chair, her eyes flicking between Callum and me. Her resemblance to Luca is uncanny, and it reminds me of the drama from two seasons ago. Luca wasn’t stoked about his sister and best friend getting together, apparently, and it made what was already a rough season just a bit worse.

“Tell me? Oh, no,” Callum laughs, eyes darting to mine as I slide in beside them. “He’s not going to share his secrets, babe.”

I feel the flush returning. They’re talking about my new confidence. The thing that’s surged through me and made it to where I’ve been able to block even the most sure-fire shots. Even if I could get over the embarrassment of the truth, even if there was a chance in hell that I could tell the guys, there’s no way I’m going to share it with Sloane here.

Because the truth is…her best friend had everything to do with it.

I’d seen Astrid around, obviously. Here to visit a few times, then during the rehearsals for the wedding. And there was something about her that immediately pulled me in. Something soothing. Steady.

Not to mention the fact that she’s fucking gorgeous. Pretty short, but in a body you can tell is powerful. She’s athletic, and despite her height, when she looks up at you, it makes you feel small. In a good way. And I thought she wanted nothing to do with me. In fact, I couldn’t find the courage to flirt with her, or even approach her, until I had no idea where to sit at the reception.

When she turned around, her eyes landing on me, I saw her notice me for the first time. And, somehow, I thought she liked what she saw.

Being an NHL player, it should be easy to flirt with women. But, for some reason, my words end up failing me. I always feel awkward. That’s why my last relationship was back in college, when my proximity to girls during class made it a lot easier for me to build up my courage and talk to them.

But Astrid had seen me. And she kept seeing me—watching me all night. When I put my hands on her, it felt like touching a live wire. It stayed that way for the rest of the party, when we danced, and I kept trying to get myself to go over to her.

Finally, I’d ducked away, hyping myself up, and ended up missing the send-off. I’d gone back and forth about whether or not to go to her room. That’s where I was, just about to leave, when she walked up and saw me.

The look on her face was hungry, and she kissed me, opening her door, pushing me inside her room. I’d spun her around, got her legs around my waist, then had the best sex of my life.

“Hey, anyone hungry for wings?” Maverick asks, standing. When he glances at me, there’s a look there that says he knows I don’t want the attention on me. “I’ll order some, on the house, boys.”

He disappears, and Ruby launches into an embarrassing story of something he did this summer, hiccupping through her laughter and rushing to get through it before he returns. I’m so invested in it I almost don’t hear my phone buzzing in my pocket.

I excuse myself from the table, moving to a quiet side of the patio to answer just as Maverick is returning with the wings.

“Hello?”

“Mr. O’Connor?”

“That’s me,” I say, throat already going dry at the tone of the person on the other end of the line. “How can I help you?”

“Mr. O’Connor, this is Eliza Montgomery, and I’m the estate lawyer for the Welch family. I need to talk to you urgently about a matter regarding Mr. Welch’s surviving children. Is there a time I could get you into my office?”

I glance back at the table, where Maverick is shaking his head and leaning back in his seat, clearly catching the last bit of Ruby’s story and disagreeing with the way she’s telling it.

Something tells me that the high I’ve been feeling this summer is about to plummet, and fast.