Especially since you know I go home to him most nights.

  He stares at me with an intensity that unnerves me. “I need you to sit down a moment.”

  “It’s not a big deal. Forget I asked. I can see that you’re busy.”

  I’m practically walking back toward my desk when he says, “Sit.”

  So, of course, I do.

  He takes his own seat, his eyes flicking over my shoulder to where our receptionist Marge is speaking to someone, presumably his client.

  “How do you think the Jacks won the Cup?”

  What?

  “The best team won?” I sound uncertain, even though I know my statement is true. The Jacks were the best team in the Cup. They peaked at the right time and the distractions and outside noise faded away. “This isn’t about the Jacks. This is about Hunter and how I failed you.”

  His laugh is a low chuckle. He knows more than I do. “I’ll ask you the question again. How did they win the Cup?”

  I pause. I can see it in his eyes. This is one of his life-lessons moments. The last time we had one, he pushed me to find love—to give my whole heart. And I did. I let go of my fear, and I believed love was possible. I realized it was worth the risk.

  And that’s when it hits me.

  “They won because they believed they could. They won because they played as a team. They won because they trusted their captain and wanted those endless hours of pain and hard work to count for something. They let go of their fear of losing and believed in themselves.”

  My dad’s smile isn’t something he gives quickly, but right now, I see my favorite one. Pride. He’s proud of me, and somehow I don’t think it’s simply about my answer.

  “You’re right. They played as a team. Just like we do here. What you drop, another will pick up. What I drop, same goes. We’ll survive without Maddox . . . but you’re missing my point.”

  “What is your point then?”

  “His point is that he sent you to recruit me.”

  I gasp at the sound and then the sight of Hunter standing in the doorway to my dad’s office. He’s leaning against the doorjamb, his thumb hooked in one belt loop of his jeans, and he has a sheepish smile tugging on the corner of his lips.

  “Because he saw more in me than I could see in myself. He saw potential through my anger and skill through my antics. He saw something that most dismissed. He knew if I could get my head in the right place, that would be to my benefit. He knew that you’d see me as more than a hockey player when that’s all anyone had. He knew that you’d help me see through the pain because like me, you were fighting your way through it too.”

  I stare at him as my jaw falls lax and my heart swells. And there are tears. For some reason, tears are welling when there’s nothing to be sad about.

  Because I’m not sad.

  No.

  I’m so damn happy, so fulfilled, that I never knew this feeling was real or possible or something I wanted to feel.

  “Is that right?” I finally ask.

  “Yes. That’s right.” I turn to face my dad and shake my head as I try to process what he means. “I didn’t realize it at first.” He chuckles as he stands and leans his hips against the credenza at his back. “I thought you were the right one to go after Hunter because you were dogged, and I didn’t think you’d take any of his shit, but the more I talked to you, the more you questioned me, I realized everything Hunter just said was true. That you two were more alike than I’d ever thought. Funny how fate is that way.”

  I eye my father. I see the moisture he blinks away in his own eyes and can feel his pride for both me and Hunter.

  He nods his head and smiles softly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for my client.” He holds his hand out to shake Hunter’s when he approaches him. “Good to see you. Congratulations, again.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s Kenyon.”

  Hunter nods as my dad walks down the hallway toward his office.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, rising from my chair.

  A sly smile crawls onto his lips. “I wanted to make sure you were fulfilling your end of the deal.”

  “My end of the deal?” I ask and raise my eyebrows as he steps inside the conference room, shuts the door behind him, and proceeds to turn the blinds closed.

  Just what exactly does he think we’re going to do in here?

  He puts his hand on the small of my back and tugs me into him. His lips find mine in an instant. He’s warmth and arousal and comfort . . . and home.

  Isn’t that what I’ve come to realize over these past few months? That even though my dad sent me to find Hunter, I also found me?

  I know I should be worried that I’m in my office—in the conference room—and being totally unprofessional, but it’s so damn easy to get lost in Hunter.

  In his touch. In his humor. In the way he makes me think about things other than the day-to-day. In the way he makes me feel.

  My body heats from his touch, despite it only being hours since I slid out of bed beside him to come to work.

  It’s only when his hand tries to slip inside the waistband of my slacks that I push my hands against his chest to stop him. “Whoa, tiger.” I laugh and press one more kiss to his lips. “Not here.”

  “Just trying to make sure you’re holding up your end of the bargain,” he says and wipes a thumb over his lip in case any of my lipstick transferred.

  “My end of the bargain?”

  “Mm-hmm.” His eyes say he wants to devour me. “My LumberJacks gear?”

  I laugh and take a step back. “Perhaps.” I’m acting coy on purpose, because playful Hunter is always so much fun.

  “Perhaps?” he asks.

  “Maybe you’ll just have to wait and see when I get home tonight if I have my Jacks panties on.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “What if I have a way to let you out of your end of the promise.” He angles his head to the side and studies me, humor mixed with mischief on his expression.

  “I’m thinking I’ll wear the panties.” I sit on the top of the desk behind me. “I never trust someone who changes a deal midway through.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.” What in the world is he getting at?

  There’s that slow smile again that tugs on every part of me. “You’re an agent. You know full well that negotiations shift. Change. Realign.”

  “Should I worry about what exactly it is you want to realign?”

  “More like I want the terms to change.”

  “You’re talking in circles, Hunter,” I tease, and his grin widens.

  “Good thing you’re familiar with how to follow circles.”

  “True.”

  But he is talking in circles and it’s making zero sense.

  “What is it you want now?”

  “You.”

  Thud. My heart on the floor.

  “Oh.” I don’t hide the shock or the stupid grin on my face from his unexpected comment. “In that case . . .” I grab the sides of his shirt as he takes a step toward me before framing my face and dipping down so he can meet my eyes. His are intense and alive with emotion.

  “In that case?” He brushes his lips over mine.

  “New terms accepted. Negotiation successful.”

  He laughs as I pull him against me, wrapping my arms around his waist. He rests his chin on top of my head and I revel in the feel of him and the knowledge that he’s all mine.

  Who would have ever thought I’d say that about the only man who ever truly broke my heart?

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Dekk,” he murmurs, his chin moving on the crown of my head. “Scary, I know.”

  “About?”

  “Things.”

  “Like?”

  “My career. My life. What I want from it.” He leans back and our eyes meet again. “All of this—the clarity, your belief in me, you pushing me, the Cup—has me looking at things in a different light.”

  “I don’t see how I had anything to do with that.”

  “How can you say that?” he asks. “You heard what your dad said. That it’s your belief in me that allowed me to be my best me.”

  “I was just doing my job.”

  “No, you were being you.” Those lips of his meet mine again in a kiss that lacks intensity but is loaded with tenderness. “I’m madly in love with you, Dekker Kincade. Maybe I always have been, but you helped me see the me I had lost. You allowed me to be the me who had hope. You allowed me to tell my darkest truths and instead of walking away, you held on tighter. You loved the me I hated.”

  “And I love the you that you now love too.”

  “I know.” Tears well in his eyes, but he blinks them away just as quickly as they appear.

  “If there’s one thing I learned with everything, it’s your next tomorrow is never guaranteed. I don’t want to miss any tomorrows with you. I think we should take the next step. I think we should move in together and start building that tomorrow and the day after that and the week after that together.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.” He laughs. “I’m getting confused where my toothbrush is and whether I’m coming or going from your house or mine. It’s so much easier if I know I get to come home to you at the end of the day. That’s all that seems to matter anymore.”

  “Says the league MVP.”

  “Exactly.” He squeezes my hand. “We never made a bet on what I’d get if I won MVP and I did . . . and so”—he shrugs—“cohabitation.”

  “Cohabitation?” I laugh.

  He nods. “I know I’ll screw up. I know I’m stubborn and frustrating and will sometimes shut you out when all you want is to be held close . . . but I can promise you I want to do right by you. For you. For me. For us. I want to make this work because Christ, I’m miserable without you.”

  “But you haven’t been without me for a while now.”

  “Exactly,” he repeats, his voice softening, “because you’re where I want to be.”

  I’m having trouble swallowing over the love that his words create, wrapping around my soul and taking root.

  “Hunter.”

  “Don’t cry.” He wipes my tear that slips over. “No more tears.”

  “Just tomorrows.”

  His smile returns. “Just tomorrows.”

  I’m not sure how long I stay wrapped in his arms, settling into this idea of getting to wake up every morning next to him and getting to kiss him every night—but it’s not a hardship to accept.

  Not by a long shot.

  There’s a knock on the door and we jolt apart like kids getting caught.

  “Dekk?” My dad peeks his head into the conference room.

  “Yeah?” I pull the door open all the way.

  “Can I have my client back now? You’re messing up my schedule.”

  “What do you mean your client?” I look from my dad to Hunter and his stupid, wide grin and laugh that vibrates, then back to my dad.

  “What you drop, another one of us will pick up,” my dad says.

  “Hunter?” I ask, confused but hopeful.

  “He means his client. You once told me I could only have one or the other with you, and, Dekker, you sure as hell know which one I’m going to pick.”

  “Me?” I ask, an incredulity in my voice as my world comes full circle.

  “Did you not just hear anything I said?” He laughs. “Of course, you.” He gives me a chaste kiss on the lips. “And then him.”

  He squeezes my hand as he stares at me, and I don’t care that my father’s there watching—I wouldn’t care if the whole world was—because when Hunter looks at me, everything else is just background noise.

  “I’ll be in my office,” my father says, leaving us alone.

  “’Kay,” Hunter says, but his eyes never leave mine.

  “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Do what?” he asks.

  “This. Me. Us. KSM,” I say with a nervous laugh, “because this is your only chance to bail. You know us Kincades, we never walk away from negotiations.”

  “Lucky for me, because I already let you walk away once, and I’m sure as hell not making that mistake again.”

  He leans in and kisses me with a kiss that’s equal parts emotion and heat. But when he pulls back, the look in his eyes is one hundred percent emotion.

  “What?” I ask softly.

  “Just trying to fathom how you’re here. How I’m here. How life happens.”

  “Skill. Stick. Finesse, Maddox.”

  He throws his head back and laughs.

  And it’s the best sound in the world.

  HUNTER

  6 months later

  I ABSENTLY TOY WITH THE edges of the letter. It’s light, but the weight of it staggers me.

  Unable to bring myself to look at the words typed on the page yet, I sit on the old dock and watch the lake sparkling in the sun before me.

  “We’ll own a cabin here someday,” I say to Jonah. He looked over at me and skipped a rock across its surface. We both count as it dances five times on top of the water before sinking.

  “Maybe.” He leans back on his elbows and holds his face to the sun. “We might own a cabin and come here with our families. We might not. But this is where I want to die someday.”

  “Dude. That’s fucked.” I laugh. “Why do you have to get all morbid and shit? We’re sixteen. Let’s not think about that yet.” I lift the beer we’d swiped from the cabin’s fridge and take a drink.

  I still think it tastes like piss, but I’m trying to acquire the taste.

  And not get caught.

  We’d be dead if we got caught.

  “It’s life, little brother. We live. We die. The earth moves on.”

  “You should drink that beer before Mom and Dad get back from the store or we’re going to practice that theory when Dad finds us.”

  He laughs and takes a sip. I’m relieved to see his wince and that he doesn’t like it much either. But guys like beer, so we’ll figure out how to like it.

  “Just think about it, though. What better place to be when you die? You’re surrounded by everything that we love here.”

  “I guess.”

  “Right here on this dock. That’s where I want to kick the old bucket.”

  My eyes blur from the memory.

  My chest aches in a way I never thought possible.

  My life missing a piece I have to figure out how to navigate without.

  God, I miss you, Jonah.

  My thoughts are filled with a million memories about this place. About that conversation. One I had completely forgotten until Jonah died and his lawyer told us his wishes were for some of his ashes to be spread here.

  Just like his wish was for the lawyer to give me the letter I hold in my hand. The one he dictated to him over two years ago.

  I’m not sure what my fear is. Is it that this is the very last piece of Jonah I have left? That if I read it, then this is real and he’s truly gone? Is it because a small part of me feels guilty that I’m grateful he’s gone so he’s no longer in pain? Is it because I miss him and reading this will prove to me how goddamn much?

  I shove the tears away and take a sip of beer. It’s the same cheap shit we drank all those summers ago, and I laugh because it still tastes like piss.

  With a deep breath, I look at the letter.

  Hunter,

  There’s so much I’ve needed to say to you for so long, but I’ve known you wouldn’t listen. You’re a stubborn and determined little shit (yes, you’ll always be little to me, no matter how old we get) and would probably walk out of the room if I told you any of this.

  If you’re getting this, I’m gone. Fucking sucks on both our parts. This wasn’t how our life was supposed to go. We were supposed to be old, grumpy men on that rickety dock at the lake when we kicked the bucket. We were supposed to be Stanley Cup winners with kids of our own. Ones we’d teach how to play hockey if they wanted to. We’d argue over whose grandkids were the cutest before we’d fill them up on sugar and send them home. We’d have wives who were best friends.

  We would have lived our lives to the fullest and without regret.

  I no longer can, but I need you to promise me that you will. That you’ll live for you. Every second. Every minute. Every day. Every year.

  To do that, you need to hear this: what happened to me wasn’t your fault. I’ve had a lot of years to think about this and plenty of time to play out all the scenarios that could have happened that day. Bottom line is, I’m at fault.

  I drank. I got behind the wheel. I killed that woman. I did this to myself.

  And I’d do it all over again if that meant protecting it from happening to you. That’s the job of a big brother. Even now, I want to protect you. And the only way I can do that is by telling you I never blamed you, and the accident was not your fault.

  I should have told Dad to go to hell that day, and that you were going to junior prom with us. I should have stood up for you—that time and so many other times—but I didn’t. I failed you.

  I’ve come to terms with that, and I hope one day you can forgive me for it.

  I couldn’t have asked for a better brother. You sat by silently while Dad put me on a pedestal when you were just as skilled and talented as I was. You cheered me on while being slighted. I see that now. Time has given me that opportunity to realize how wrong that was. I’m sorry. You are every bit as good as I could have been. I watch you playing now on the TV, and I’m so damn proud of you.

  It’s more than hockey though. It’s about you. About how you’ve tried so hard to live for both of us. How you’ve made sure to include me in every step. How you’ve called and talked for hours when I know you had so many other things to do.

  So what happens now, Hunter? I know you’ll miss me as much as I’ll miss you.

  You live.

  For you.

  Without regret.

  And every once in a while, go to that dock, crack open that cheap, shitty beer, and take a sip for me.