Rookie reporter. They always ramble when they’re new.

  “Hello.”

  “Um, yes. Um . . . Vida Henson with Sports Worldwide. You seem to have been on a tear lately. You’re closing in on two NHL records in rapid time. Are you doing anything different this year to make such strong improvements to your game?”

  Yeah, my brother’s dying.

  “Good question.”

  And I helped kill him.

  I stare at the lights and shake my head as I fight back the truth that haunts me every day of my life. At the crushing weight of it.

  “I’ve been . . . training differently,” I lie. “I added on some new members to my team outside of the club to help bring out my potential, and I—uh—guess they deserve a raise because it seems to be working.”

  I say a few more things, but I’m distracted.

  Maybe it’s being back in the same city I grew up in.

  Maybe it’s knowing I have to go home and face reality.

  Maybe it’s because . . .

  “Mr. Maddox? Randy Girdley with Headline Sports. You grew up not far from here, are there any places you like to frequent when you get to come back home?”

  The stretch of road where my life changed forever.

  The cemetery to pay my respects.

  Dekker wasn’t completely right.

  It’s so much more than being burned out.

  I blink a few times as the room shifts and moves around me, and I try to fight those first few terrifying moments when the path my life was on changed forever.

  Your game is shit tonight, son. You should be embarrassed of how you played.

  Facing my dad.

  Yeah, that’s another place I can’t fucking wait to go, home.

  I force a smile and let a laugh fall. Anything to draw them away from the truth. “Everyone has their places when they return home.” I scoot my chair back and stand.

  “Like?” he counters.

  “My schedule is always packed when I come here, so I rarely have time to venture from it. Of course, my training and the team comes first, but then there’s a visit to Boston’s Children’s Hospital, some time spent with the kids at the Elite 9 Rink to answer their questions. A few other things to help pay it back or help the game move forward. Busy. Busy.” Another smile to sell the lie. “Thank you for your time. I hope to see you all at the game tonight.”

  I’m through the door to my right as more questions are fired off, my feet moving from one side to the other while I try to settle the discord eating me whole.

  Why is this so hard this time? Why does it feel like all the oxygen is being sucked out of every breath I try to take?

  Within seconds, Sanderson comes through the same door I just did. “Everyone has their places?” He chuckles. “It came off like you meant a brothel or some shit.”

  If he only knew.

  “I danced in the dog and pony show you set up, isn’t that enough? You want me to focus on the game tonight and play my hardest, then isn’t it time I go so I can prepare for it? I did what you said and you’re still crawling up my ass.”

  “I asked you this the other day when your GM called me and told me to straighten your shit out and you dodged it, and I’m going to ask you again: what the fuck is going on with you? You answered their questions, but your smile said fuck you. The bad-boy act only flies so far. Are you trying to throw away your career, the stats, and records you’ve almost reached?”

  “I played nice. Now I’d like to go study films. The Fishers have a new defense they’ve been toying with and I need to make sure I’ve got it figured out,” I say of the team we’re playing tonight.

  He nods as he studies me. “Good to see your head is back in the game.”

  “It never left it.”

  “You’re the face of this team, Maddox. A lot is riding on you.”

  My face is, but it should be Jonah’s heart and body.

  “So you’ve said,” I mutter and look out the window of the otherwise empty room.

  “Mind answering why you seemed so distracted? Why you keep moving around like you can’t sit still? Jünger was concerned the Oxy you were taking for your knee is—”

  “Fuck this.” Fed up with the accusation, I go to walk past him and he reaches out and grabs my arm. I yank it the hell away. “Get the fuck off me, Finn. You think I’m using? Then drug test me. I’m clean. You think I’m drinking? Hell yeah, I overindulge a time or two, but not any more than anyone else on this team. Maybe my problem is you guys putting your nose in my shit when I’ve told you to back the fuck off.”

  “My job is to have my nose in your shit and right now, it stinks. Straighten the fuck up.”

  “Noted.” I move toward the door.

  “I’m riding out the next few games with you, because I fear what you’ll do if I don’t, so I suggest you make sure we don’t have to have a talk like this again.”

  When I exit the room without a response and turn the corner, I come face to face with Dekker.

  Fucking hell. First him and now her. Both on my ass.

  “Whoa! You going somewhere in a hurry?” she asks as we spin around so we’re in opposite positions now, and she puts her arms on my bicep to steady herself.

  “Yeah. I’ve got shit to do.” A ton of it, in fact. Having too much to do gives me an excuse why going to my parents’ house isn’t an option until after the game.

  That and being busy prevents the ghosts this place conjures every time I come back here from haunting me too much.

  “Hunter?” I meet her eyes and it’s for a split second too long, because I can tell the minute she sees them—the ghosts—because her hand tightens on my arm. “Hey?”

  “Yeah? What?” I take a step back.

  “I’ve texted a few times. You’re not responding.”

  Because if you’re the only one who’s noticed I’m burned out, I’m afraid if you look any closer you’ll see the rest of the truths I hide.

  “Been busy.” My tone is clipped and my feet shift with impatience.

  “I just . . . I wanted to apologize for the other night. I didn’t mean to push you. I—”

  “Done and fucking over with.” I offer a tight smile and hate that seeing her makes me feel so damn rattled. Hating her presence and not wanting her to leave. Frustrated, because it feels like a burden has been lifted that someone else knows and unsettling that she does. That she can see me.

  She worries her bottom lip between her teeth and shakes her head, her eyes loaded with concern I don’t want to see. “Got it. Done and over with. Discussion never happened. Night never happened. No need to repeat it.”

  But it did. The laughter. The Kings hat. The tennis balls. The beer. The comfortable silence. The solidarity.

  “Did you need something else?”

  “Just know I’m here for you. If there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “Do you know what would help? If people stopped fucking telling me that. I’m not a cancer patient. I’m not dying. I’m fine.”

  She stares at me, her jaw clenching and eyes firing with anger.

  I’m reminded immediately of three years ago when she stood in that hotel room, her chin quivering but held high as she fought the emotion in her eyes. As she told me our fling had run its course and that it was best we didn’t meet again. As she saved me from having to break her heart that was starting to grow a bit too attached to mine.

  Because mine was already fucking there too.

  The memory is the last thing I need. To be reminded of what it felt like to be cared for by her. To remember how I had spent too much time convincing myself I didn’t deserve someone like her—the feelings, the comfort, the simplicity of it all—only for her to save me by doing it for me.

  Only to prove to me just how much of an asshole I am. I never chased her, told her she was wrong . . . because I let her walk away.

  She struggles momentarily with her emotions before the businesswoman façade slides back into place and she takes a step back.

  “It makes sense now.”

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “You don’t want to hear what I said the other night, but you want to play the victim. News flash,” she says, mocking what I said to her. “You—”

  “Christ, Hunter.” I look up to see Sanderson over Dekker’s left shoulder, disbelief and disgust etched in the lines of his face. “You told me you were leaving to get your head in the game. Yet here you are, trying to score a cheap fuck like a desperate john.”

  Before I can respond with the fury that streaks through me, Dekker spins to face him.

  “A cheap fuck?” she asks, and Sanderson’s face pales when he sees who I’m speaking with. “I’m sure your clients get great publicity when their agent talks to their fans like that.” She takes a few steps toward him, a tsk on her tongue. “For the record, Finn, I’m nowhere close to being a cheap fuck, but you’d never know because I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”

  With that, Dekker Kincade saunters down the hotel hallway without looking back. I chuckle quietly. And then I wonder why she’s the only person who can put a smile on my face these days.

  DEKKER

  SKATES CARVE UP THE FRESHLY resurfaced ice. The sound is like a symphony of skills and maneuvers you can hear just as easily as you can see.

  I watch the LumberJacks go through their warm-ups as the diehard fans arrive early to make sure they catch every second of hockey they can.

  A few times I catch Hunter glancing up to where I’m standing in the visiting team’s suite. While a small part of me hopes it’s because he feels bad for being an ass to me earlier, the rest of me knows he doesn’t care.

  Hell, the only time Hunter Maddox cared about how I felt was when it came to sensations to get me off.

  But I think about his press conference today. About the disconnect I saw him have in his answers and the way he acted when I ran into him afterward.

  Guess nothing much has changed about him in that aspect either . . . Even now, I can’t figure him out.

  “Such a surprise to see you in Boston.”

  I glance in my periphery to see Finn Sanderson step up beside me, arms folded, the suit he’s wearing ridiculously expensive.

  “We all have jobs to do,” I murmur, not exactly wanting to engage with him, and not just because of his cheap fuck comment. I simply don’t like the man.

  “And some of us are better at those jobs than others, right, Dekker?” His voice is smooth as silk but I know it’s laced with arsenic.

  He’s pushing buttons.

  I don’t give him the satisfaction of responding.

  “What client are you here to babysit?” he asks.

  Every word he utters is a reminder of the clients he’s taken from us. How he’s slowly chipped away at our foundation and it strengthens my resolve that much more. The Kincades will win this fight.

  Now, if I could just approach Hunter to see where I stand.

  Then again, if Finn keeps sticking his foot in his mouth like he did earlier today with his cheap fuck comment, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let him do the convincing for me.

  The guys switch drills, and I watch Callum move through the line. He swears his change to a plant-based diet has made all the difference in the past couple of months and a part of me agrees. It seems to have assisted in the fluidity of his movement and his increased stamina. Regardless of the reasons behind it, I’ll take it, because his contract is up at the end of the season and I’d love his stats to inch up to help those negotiations in our favor.

  I watch them and Finn watches me.

  “Should I be worried you’re here to steal my clients, Dekker?” he finally asks.

  He’s pushing buttons.

  I snort in response and check a text that came across my phone to play him a bit.

  “Is that a yes?” he pushes.

  I turn to face him for the first time. I take in his perfectly styled hair and dark gray eyes and all I can think is how he’s too perfect, too polished.

  I bristle over how much I despise him but the smile on my face shows nothing but indifference.

  “It’s a nothing. It’s a maybe you should be a better agent and then you wouldn’t have to worry if your client might jump ship, because you already know they’re satisfied.”

  “Like yours are?”

  “I’ll let you stand here and be a petty, insecure agent while I go stand over there in shoes I’m more than comfortable in and with a conscience that lets me fall asleep perfectly fine at night.” I start to move to the opposite end of the box.

  “Tucking your tail between your legs already, Kincade? I thought you’d fight harder than that to keep your clients.”

  “Prick,” I mutter under my breath and welcome the ringing of his cellphone to interrupt this less-than-stimulating conversation.

  There is a commotion at my back, and I turn toward the entrance to see a high-tech-looking wheelchair being moved into the suite. I smile at the person who’s strapped into the chair out of kindness, but I’m unaware if he sees me or not. Fearing I’m staring, I offer a similar greeting to the woman pushing it. She’s older in age, her hair stuck to her cheek and frustration lining her face.

  “Do you need any help?” I offer and move toward them, noting the awkwardness of the chair since its occupant is lying back.

  “No. I’ve got it. Thanks,” she says with a slight grunt as she moves him to the end of the aisle where the chair can fit with an unobstructed view of the arena.

  And it hits me.

  That’s Jonah. It’s Hunter’s brother.

  I digest the information, trying not to look their way so I can make the connection completely.

  Then I debate walking over and introducing myself to them, but figure I should let her get them situated first so my presence doesn’t make him feel like I’m there to ogle or so I’m not in the way.

  And the whole time I stand there waiting for them to get settled, eyes watching the Jacks warm-up and their actions in my periphery, she murmurs words to who I assume is Jonah as if she’s making sure everything is okay.

  “Here we are. You comfortable?” She adjusts his arms. “How exciting. Aren’t you excited to be here, Jonah? I know you’ve been waiting forever for this.” She flips a switch on the chair and it sits up some. “The Jacks are going to win tonight. I mean, you’re here. You’re their good luck charm.”

  She talks to him in a soft, singsongy voice, each sentence of hers competing with the gentle hum of his ventilated breaths, as she fiddles with things on the chair.

  “Carla. So great to see you,” Finn says before stepping around me.

  I turn to watch Carla’s face light up as she moves toward him and embraces him in a quick hug. “Mr. Sanderson. I didn’t know you’d be here tonight. So good to see you.”

  Finn moves toward the man in the wheelchair. “Good to see you, Jonah. You excited to watch the game tonight? Your brother has been slaying it. I bet he’s going to play like a madman tonight knowing you’re here.”

  Carla reaches her hand out and pats Finn’s arm, her eyes and the slight shake of her head saying something I don’t understand.

  Feeling like I’m eavesdropping but forced to due to proximity, I turn my attention back to the ice, my moment to introduce myself lost.

  “Are you taking care of my boy?” she asks.

  “You know he doesn’t need taking care of.” Finn laughs. “I’m sure you saw that for yourself.”

  “We haven’t seen him yet. He said you had him scheduled all day. Maybe after the game tonight.” There’s sadness in her voice that replaced the excitement from moments earlier.

  “Maybe.”

  Hunter looks up my way again and raises a hand in greeting.

  “Hi, honey,” Carla says loudly as if Hunter can hear her. “Jonah, Hunter says hi.”

  “Dekker? Have you met Carla and Jonah Maddox yet?”

  I take a few steps to where they’re set up. “No, I haven’t. I’ve heard so much about you though,” I say with a smile and extend my hand, hoping Sanderson just caught the implication that I’m close with Hunter. “Such a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” Carla says in the warm and most non-condescending way as she shakes my hand.

  “Thank you.” I turn to Jonah and suck in a breath. And it’s not because of his pale complexion or the trach tube or anything to do with his disability, but rather the fact that he’s identical to Hunter. Like exact. The hair, the eyes, the nose . . . it’s simply stunning. I force myself not to stare at him for that reason alone and offer a smile. “Nice to meet you, Jonah.”

  He doesn’t respond verbally but his eyes meet mine, and I nod in greeting.

  “Carla, this is Dekker Kincade. She’s the agent trying to steal your son away from me.”

  Carla barks out a laugh while I try to figure Finn’s angle with the comment. “Well, she already has one up on you,” Carla says. “She’s a hell of a lot prettier.”

  HUNTER

  HE SHOULD BE THE ONE out here.

  The thought is on replay in my head with each pass.

  Each shove of the opposition.

  Every whack of the puck toward the goal.

  He should be the one out here.

  The anger in my blood hums with a potency stronger than any drug I’ve ever been given. It surges and pushes me to take risks I don’t even register and beats the shit out of me when whatever I try to do on the ice fails.

  He’s not doing well, Hunter. Another chest infection. Another blood infection. He’s not able to speak anymore. Dr. Masterson says it’s only a matter of time, really.

  My mom’s comment from months ago echoes in my head and causes the split-second fumble of my thoughts and the puck is stripped away from me. Shit.

  My head.

  It’s way too fucking busy to be on the ice. Way too much shit going on.

  How can I be down here doing this when he’s up there like that?

  When he damn well knows what ice feels like beneath his skates? When the roar of the crowd was more his drug than it was ever mine? When life ended that night for him and finally began for me?