“That’s her nickname.” Christensen shrugged. “Everyone needs a nickname. I’m The Smile and you’re—”
“David Petrov’s journeyman son,” Ian finished, the bitterness in those four words etched into the marrow of his bones.
That’s all he was to most people—the not-quite-as-good substitute. And now the second-place son. He didn’t have to wonder what they thought. Everyone was always more than glad to share it in every sports column, blog, and Instagram comment.
Christensen picked up his glass. “Our dad is an asshole.”
He didn’t think, didn’t consider. The words were just too true for that. “On that we can agree.” He clinked his glass against Christensen’s.
They both chugged the rest of their milk at the same time—another tradition—while Shelby watched them from across the table as if she was trying to decipher hieroglyphs. “Is this the beginning of a truce?”
Ian glared at his his former best friend. “Not even close.”
“Too bad.” She took a sip of her water with lemon. “You two are the only people in the world who know what it’s like to be David Petrov’s son. Man, I’d give anything to have a brother or sister.”
Yeah, maybe if their father hadn’t hidden Christensen’s existence for all of Ian’s life and then if his former best friend hadn’t continued to keep their dad’s secret when he’d known the truth the entire time, things would be different. But they weren’t. His dad and Christensen had both shown their true colors.
“This situation is a little different than the usual,” he said.
“True.” Shelby picked up her menu. “But you two are pretty far from the usual, too.”
Before he could come up with a retort about how wrong Shelby was, the waiter showed up to take their orders and he was left to wonder if she just might be right.
…
For two solid days, Shelby had done everything she could to make sure she wasn’t alone with Ian. It sounded easy when she’d made the plan in her head. Of course, that was before she realized that he’d be sitting in the visitor’s suite watching the Ice Knights games with her.
Lucy had taken pity on her and joined them for the Phoenix game, but tonight in L.A., Freya had let it be known in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t up for sitting through another game.
“I’ll watch from my hotel room,” Lucy said as she headed for the suite’s door. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m too far away to give you the evil eye.”
Now it was just the two of them. And he was in a suit. She’d always been a sucker for a guy in a good suit. Ian’s had probably been custom-made. That would explain how it fit his broad shoulders perfectly and clung to his high, round hockey ass like it had been made for him—because it had.
Look away, Shelby. There be dragons with really great asses.
Ian glanced over at her and narrowed his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” she all but squeaked in response as she took her seat as quickly as possible and became incredibly fascinated by the linesmen doing their warm-up circles around the ice.
He let out a grunt. “With your nose all wrinkled like I stink.”
Ian did smell. Wonderfully. So much so that she may have leaned closer while they were getting drinks from the buffet at the back of the suite so she could get a good long whiff. God, if he noticed that, she was going to die of embarrassment right here.
“Is that why you smelled me before?” He sat down next to her and did one of those sly pit-sniffing maneuvers.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. “I was clearing my sinuses.”
One eyebrow went up. One yeah-sure grunt was emmited. One very hot hockey player turned away from her and focused back on the ice below where his teammates were lined up for the first face-off of the game. Meanwhile, Shelby sat there frozen with indecision about whether to go all in and tell him about her myriad sinus issues and the fact that she knew absolutely nothing about her fake ailment.
The hockey gods, though, took pity on her.
The puck hit the ice and they were both glued to the action. Pheonix wasn’t a dirty team like the hated Cajun Rage, but they were hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners go-getters and they wanted to win. Badly.
By the end of the first period, Shelby’s voice had gone hoarse from yelling. By the end of the second, she’d thrown off any pretense of maybe-sorta-kinda playing it cool and had spent most of it either standing up and cheering on the Ice Knights or pacing in front of the buffet table, grumbling about missed passes as she rolled her six-year-sober coin over her knuckles like the talisman it had become. By the time the second intermission started, she was twisted up so tight, she was ready to pop.
Plate of snacks in one hand and an unopened beer in the other, Ian sent a pitying look her way. “Want a beer?”
She palmed her six-year chip, her attention yanked away from the possibilities of the third period. “Nah.”
“Want something else?” He glanced back at the well-stocked bar behind the buffet table. “This place has pretty much everything.”
“Ginger ale, please.”
It was her go-to. Carry around a glass of that and people assumed it was spiked. It wasn’t that she was hiding her sobriety but more that she dreaded having to deal with the other person’s reaction. It usually fell into one of three categories. One, pity. Two, scorn. Three, the come-on-you-don’t-look-like-an-alcoholic-just-have-one-drink disbelief.
Ian nodded and grabbed an old-fashioned glass. “With?”
She let out a small sigh and braced for the conversation she’d been hoping to avoid. “Ice.”
He hesitated for half a second and swiveled around to face her. “You don’t drink?”
And there it was. Her gut knotted in anticipation of how he’d react. It shouldn’t matter—she barely knew Ian—but somehow it did.
The reality of that fact had her lifting her chin in defiance as she looked him
