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“What?” He sounded startled.

“The draft I sent you.” What else could this be about? “Didn’t you like it? Was it the photo or the caption?”

“Oh. No,” he said as if he were only now remembering that I’d sent it. “It’s fine. They’re both good. Thanks for letting me see it before it was posted.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Yeah.”

More silence. My imagination summoned the apropos sound of crickets chirping.

When Lukas still didn’t say anything, I wondered if maybe he’d called me by mistake, and now he didn’t know how to politely hang up.

“All righty then,” I said, happy to end the awkwardness. “Goodbye, Lukas.”

“Wait!” he cried.

I froze. Every last bit of me. “What is it?”

“I…uh…called to apologize for ending things so awkwardly after dinner. I would have said something about it o n the phone last night, but it…uh…didn’t feel like the right time with…everything.”

My face heated up at the memory of all those videos he’d made me watch.

“It’s fine,” I said, trying to sound like it was totally no big deal, and I was completely unaffected by him shutting his door in my face. “I didn’t notice anything weird about it. Typical moody Lukas Bakken behavior, am I right?”

“Oh.” He let out a breath. “Yeah. Right.”

More silence. I guessed neither of us knew if there was anything more to say, so I asked, “Is that it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “See you later.”

“ Later in the general sense? Or later -later, as in you’re going to the Velveteen tonight?”

“Oh. I hadn’t actually decided.” His tone suggested he was drifting back into Moody Berserker Land.

“Well,” I said, “if I don’t see you, have fun doing whatever you do.”

“You’re going to the Velveteen?”

“Evan invited me and my friends.”

“Ah,” he said.

“You should go,” I said, brightening my tone and hoping to drag him out of whatever funk he was heading into, not to mention dragging him out to the club.

“Because you’ll be there?” he asked.

“No.” I forced a laugh, hating that he still saw me as that stupid girl who threw herself at him so many years ago. “Because you just got into town, and Evan’s the only person you really know. It would be good for you to bond with your teammates.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I’m absolutely right,” I insisted.

“Maybe somewhere else though. Another night. ”

I rolled my eyes. “What’s wrong with the Velveteen?”

“It’s just a lot of people,” he said.

“Yeah. Is that a problem?”

“A lot of women.”

“A lot of women who like you,” I said. It was the understatement of the year.

“That’s the problem,” he said darkly.

“It’s a problem that women like you?” He was talking in riddles again, and I was already lost.

Lukas sighed. “It’s a problem that they like me for all the wrong reasons.”

I opened my mouth to retort but stopped myself short. Something in his tone had me slamming my mouth shut because for the first time in the last couple of days I was finally hearing what he was saying.

Lukas didn’t like all the attention. He didn’t like the fawning and unrepentant ogling. He didn’t like being drop-dead gorgeous.

The backs of my legs tingled with the rush of unexpected emotion. I didn’t even know what to call it. Sympathy, maybe. But also an instinctive need to protect.

The reversal of our genders’ more typical experiences was fascinating, particularly since I’d never known Lukas to be vulnerable, but there was no misinterpreting the sound of his voice.

“If that’s all women see,” I said, and I said it softly, hoping to convey that I understood him and that I apologized for behaving like an idiot when I was younger. “Then they’re missing out.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he said, and I heard him swallow.

There was so much more that I wanted to say, but I knew it would be a mistake to push this moment too far .

“See you later, Lukas.”

“Yeah, Elli,” he said, just as softly. “See you later.”

LUKAS

Lukas tapped the back of the driver’s seat. “This is good. You can let me out here.”

The driver pulled over to the curb, then glanced across the dark street to the Velveteen and the line of people stretching down the block and around the corner.

Lukas hopped out and jogged across the street, checking left, then right for oncoming traffic.

Normally, he would have preferred to be less conspicuous, but it was dark enough that he might go unrecognized by everyone except the bouncer.

With the latter, Lukas’s celebrity would have to be enough to get him inside quickly because he was already late.

The team had arrived over an hour ago. Elliette and her friends probably too.

Right on cue, just as Lukas was about to clear the curb, the bouncer opened the door, allowing him to hustle inside. He only heard a few people groan their complaints before they suddenly recognized him (one woman shrieked), and the door swung closed behind him.

It took a second for Lukas’s eyes to adjust to the dark. Inside, the Velveteen was a turbulent sea of humanity— and shifters, fae, and berserkers—all gyrating against each other, moving to a throbbing bass, their arms pumping in the air while colorful lasers flashed across their faces.

His ears siphoned through the pulsing din until he was able to pick out the faint note of a familiar voice: Bjorn Eliasson, their starting goalie and the oldest player on the team.

Lukas headed in that direction, weaving his way through the crowd while skirting the dance floor.

The crowd that had congregated along its edge was mostly human, and it parted for him like the Red Sea.

This had nothing to do with his fame. Unpredictability and brute force were the calling cards of any berserker, so people generally got out of their way.

When he reached the bottom of the ramp that led to the elevated VIP section, a waitress wearing a black leather vest and low-rise leather pants—the club uniform—stopped him.

“You’re hot and all,” she said, “but that section’s for VIPs only.”

“That would be me,” Lukas said. “I’m with them.” He pointed to one of the U-shaped booths where a few of his teammates were sitting.

The waitress glanced up at the booth, then at Lukas. “You’re in the Savage League?”

“I am.”

She looked at him for a few more seconds, then her eyes widened and, even in the dark, Lukas could tell she’d gone beet red.

“Oh my god,” she said, sounding mortified. “You’re Lukas Bakken! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you right away.”

“No worries.” He stared blankly over the top of her head as she groped him with her gaze. He knew he shouldn’t have come out tonight. “Am I free to go?”

“Of course, handsome. Can I get your drink order?”

“Whiskey. Neat.”

“You got it.” She sashayed away, and Lukas strode up the ramp to the booths that looked down on the dance floor.

“There he is!” Bjorn called out, waving his big, beefy bear arm.

Rafe and Sean Murphy, who everyone called “Murph,” turned over their shoulders to see who was coming. Wide smiles broke across their faces.

“You’re late!” Murph joked.

Lukas had already learned the nymph was a stickler for punctuality himself.

“We thought you weren’t going to make it,” Rafe said.

“Had some shit to do,” Lukas replied. He was still ten feet away, but he didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard over the music. Even in their human forms, his teammates—a berserker bear, dryad, and hell hound—had no human auditory limitations. “Still getting settled into my apartment.”

Lukas dropped his ass onto the booth beside Bjorn. “Where’s Rogue and the others?”

“Mostly on the dance floor,” Bjorn said. “Caden’s been grinding up against the same chick for the last half hour.”

“That’s a gancanagh’s definition of commitment,” Murph quipped.

Bjorn continued, “Rogue, Tuttle, and Petey saw someone they knew up at the bar. They took off a while ago.”

Pete “Petey” Olson was the third human on the team. He played left wing, same as Rafe.

Lukas glanced around the crowded night club, looking for Rogue, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

The waitress returned. “Your drink, Mr. Bakken.”

She set it on the table in front of him, then paused as if she hoped he’d give her a reason to linger .

Lukas said, “Thanks,” but he did it without so much as a glance in her direction.

Clearly stung, she turned her attention to the rest of the table. “Anyone need anything else?”

“All good for now,” Bjorn said, raising his beer mug.

“Let me know if that should change.” She briefly touched Lukas’s shoulder, forcing a low growl to slip past his lips.

She jumped, then hustled away.

Lukas’s team mates looked at him with eyebrows raised.

“What was that all about?” Bjorn asked.

Lukas just shook his head and told them to drop it. He took a big gulp of his drink, enjoying the burn.

“There they are,” Murph said, pointing in the direction of the bar on the far side of the dance floor.

Lukas turned to see what had caught his teammate’s attention and spotted Rogue, Tuttle, and Petey talking to two other human men at the bar. If the VIP booths hadn’t been elevated, there was no way he could have spotted them through the crowd.

“Who are they talking to?” Bjorn asked.

“Fans,” Murph said. “I saw them at the game.”

Lukas didn’t have the right angle to see their faces, but he didn’t doubt it. The human fans supported their own kind, especially when so few humans were still able to secure positions in the league.

“Rogue looks pretty serious,” Rafe said, commenting on his hard expression.

Lukas took another look and realized Rafe was right. In fact, everyone in the tight circle looked rigid and intense.

“They’re talking hockey,” Bjorn said without any sense of irony. “There’s no business more serious. ”

Murph raised his old-fashioned glass. “You said it, old man.”

Bjorn raised his beer mug and clunked it so hard against Murph’s glass that beer sloshed into the cocktail.

Murph looked down into his glass, then up at Bjorn with such a forlorn look that Lukas actually forgot about what was happening at the bar and guffawed. The unfamiliar bubbling sensation felt nice. He hadn’t found much reason for laughter lately.

The DJ cranked up Dance the Night , and out of the corner of his eye, Lukas caught a flash of silver.

He whipped his head toward it and realized the flash was a sequined dress, and that dress was being worn by Ellliette’s friend, Jen, who was pulling someone toward the center of the dance floor.

Lukas’s stomach pitched when he recognized that someone as Elliette. She wore her hair down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it like that, and he was surprised that it hung halfway down her back and was styled in loose curls. She looked…sexy. Fuck .

“Bakken!” Rafe yelled, his tone sharp.

“What’s that?” Lukas dragged his attention away from Elliette and back to his captain.

“Something wrong with your hearing?” Rafe asked.

“Not that I know of,” Lukas said with an arched brow.

“Okay, so what did you think?”

“About what?”

Rafe and Murph glanced at each other, then back at Lukas.

“About the post,” Rafe said, as if the answer were obvious. “The photo. It had thirty-thousand likes before lunch.”

“Nice apron,” Murph said with a smirk. “I didn’t know you cooked. ”

“Not for assholes like you,” Lukas said. He glanced toward the dance floor again, and though he could spot the flashes of Jen’s silver sequins, he couldn’t find Elliette.

“No,” Bjorn said. “Bakken only cooks for pretty PR managers.”

“She’s Rogue’s little sister,” Rafe said reproachfully, then to Lukas he asked, “You think that’s smart, making her dinner?”

“It wasn’t a date. It was a work meeting,” Lukas said just as a shift on the dance floor gave him his first good look at Elliette. She was wearing a black dress with a neckline so wide it slipped off one shoulder. It was also extremely tight and unusually short, compared to what she usually wore.

She was dancing with some guy. Close , like she knew him. But he didn’t think it was the ex-boyfriend. A woman who held her own with Oisín O’Rourke wouldn’t let an ex who’d spurned her back into her life so easily.

“A work meeting at your apartment?” Murph asked. “Because that was your apartment, right? She didn’t invite you into hers.”

Lukas took another big swig of his whiskey. “Don’t worry. I won’t be setting foot in her apartment.”

“She’s here, you know?” Bjorn said, leaning forward to see around Lukas. “Somewhere.”

“She said she might come,” Lukas replied, trying to sound like he hadn’t already clocked her, like he wasn’t hyper aware of everything about her. Trying to convince himself that it didn’t matter she was practically grinding herself against that guy.

“She’s here with some friends,” Bjorn said. “Do you know the hot Indian chick?”

“It could be Parvati Bhaduri. She grew up next door to the Rogans.” Lukas downed his whiskey. “Does that waitress come by regularly?”

“She’ll be back soon,” Murph said, “unless you’ve really scared her off.”

Lukas stood up.

“Going somewhere?” Rafe asked.

“Just gonna flag her down. I’m empty.” But Lukas couldn’t see their waitress anywhere. Who he did see again—now at an even better angle because he was standing—was Elliette.

Her little dance circle had garnered more attention and several random men were trying to get in on the action, fitting their hips to some of the girls and leaning over them from behind, as if they were spooning on the dance floor.

The man Elliette had been dancing with now had his arm sliced around her middle, and he was holding her so tight that her ass was pressed against his crotch.

“Jesus,” Lukas muttered. Was this how a grown-up Elliette let loose? Or had he corrupted her with all those videos?

“What is it?” Murph asked.

“Someone’s got a fan club,” Lukas growled.

“Oh yeah?” Rafe rose slightly from the booth to get a better look. “Are Rogan and those guys still at the bar? They must be getting mobbed by now.”

Rafe meant Evan Rogan, but Lukas had someone else with that surname in his sights.

“Close enough,” Lukas said, and he stepped out of the booth.