Page 87 of Twisted Play

“Fuck this,” Cole muttered. “Eat it, and I’ll buy you a second breakfast after practice.”

Eva’s eyes widened in surprise. “Promise?”

“Christ, woman, yes, I promise.”

Eva’s phone buzzed. She looked at it then closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat, as if she couldn’t bear to look at us any longer.

She sat there for long moments, ignoring the wrap she’d set beside her on the bench seat and letting her coffee grow cold.

“I’m—I—I’m not selling information about the team,” she blurted out.

Cole snorted his disbelief.

“Well, I am,” she continued softly, staring at the cup of coffee in her hands. “My father owes—” She stumbled and then continued, “My father owes the bratva a million dollars. And they’ll kill him if he doesn’t pay. If I don’t pay. They’ll kill me if I tell anyone, but I guess that ship has sailed.”

Holy shit.

“And they think the information you’re gathering is worth that?” Cole asked, disbelief in his voice.

“Yorkfield is going to go to the Frozen Four,” I said quietly. “Same as every year for the last decade, since Coachtook over. Any edge on betting will make them tons of money.”

Jesus, Eva wasn’t dicking around so she could afford expensive coffees. She was trying to save her dirtbag father’s life.

“You really think they’d kill your father?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Eva said simply. “They already beat the shit out of him once.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Cole snarled. “You’re spying on the team—selling our information to the bratva. And we’re complicit.”

My heart stopped. My scholarship. My NHL dreams. If she got caught and anyone found out I knew, I could lose everything. What the fuck was Cole thinking?

“That’s why I made the deal with you,” she snarled. “And I’m keeping up my end of it. You better fucking do the same.”

Cole smirked. “Are you, Eva? You still haven’t eaten the wrap.”

“Eating spinach is part of our deal?”

How could they be joking right now? Eva’s father’s life was in danger, she owed a million dollars, and I was watching my hockey dreams spiral down the drain.

“Tristan,” Cole said, his voice soft. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, uncharacteristically gentle. “Our toy is refusing her breakfast because she doesn’t like spinach.”

The surprise of his touch, his comfort, was as effective at knocking me out of my spiraling panic as his reminder that Eva was in the car with us.

Eva.

Eva, whose pussy tasted like fucking sunshine, whose stunning curves had caught my attention the first day of practice, and now, I had her. If I wanted her. If I were willingto share her with my best friend. If I were willing to blackmail her with him.

My freshman year, Cole walked into the dorm room we shared, looked at how empty my side was, and promptly bought two of everything. When I called him on it, he sneered and told me to shut the fuck up—he was doing it for his comfort, not mine. And he never told anyone.

Same when I struggled to make rent in the hockey house our sophomore year—the year my brother bought my parents the ranch. Of course he’d have paid if I’d asked, but who wanted to be a burden?

Same when anyone on the team struggled. Cole quietly fixed it with his money and his contacts. When Rami’s sister got sick last year, he called his father and got her into the best cancer ward in the state, even though the waiting list was miles long. His father made him pay for that favor a hundred times over, but Cole did it anyway, even though he thought Rami was an arrogant jerk, even though Rami stopped talking to him after Cole’s DUI our sophomore year.

“This isn’t about you,” he said every fucking time, making it impossible for me, or anyone else, to thank him.

I squeezed Cole’s hand back. We’d find a way out of this mess. Together.

I looked at Eva, who watched us through the rearview mirror, her jaw set angrily. “I’m changing the deal,” I told her. “If you belong to us, we’re going to take care of you, and that means making sure you eat. Now, eat your fucking spinach.”