“Hey!” Liam protests with a pout.
“Present company included.” She rises on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, taking the sting out of the words.
“When do you meet him?” Avery asks me.
“Tomorrow, at the arena.” Nerves flutter in my stomach, but I ignore them. I've got this. Ihaveto have this. There's no backup plan or safety net. I left everything behind in Charlotte, and this job is my lifeline.
“Well, tonight we celebrate.” Liam picks up the Stanley Cup again, hoisting it over his head. “Lunch is on me. And Lord Stanley here is coming with us.”
I laugh. “You're really going to carry that thing into a restaurant?”
“Hell yeah, I am. You only get twenty-four hours, and I'm making every minute count.” He pauses, then adds, “Plus, we're picking up my brothers from the airport later. They're flying in to see the Cup. It's going to be epic.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you had brothers,” I say.
But then again, I don't know much about Liam Novak beyond the tabloids and what Avery has told me. Hockey was never on my radar until my cousin took a job as the Renegades' team publicist.
I started paying attention then, and what I found made me nervous. The partying. The revolving door of women. I worried that Avery was going to get her heart shattered by some overpaid athlete who saw her as just another puck bunny.
But Liam has surprised me. He's solid. Maybe I was wrong to paint them all with the same brush.
He smiles. “They’re fifteen and twelve. They’ve never seen the Cup up close, and I promised they could touch it.” His whole face lights up when he talks about them. It's sweet. For all his wild reputation on and off the ice, Liam Novak is a softie when it comes to family.
Liam insists on driving even though the restaurant is only a few blocks away. “Can't have the cup walking,” he says.
We pile into his Challenger, and the engine rumbles to life with a deep growl that turns heads on the sidewalk.
“He loves this car more than me,” Avery says from the front passenger seat.
“That's not true.” Liam reaches over and squeezes her knee. “You're tied.”
She swats his hand, and we all laugh. I’m going to love it here.
I sit in the back with the Stanley Cup buckled in beside me like a very expensive, very shiny passenger. The leather seats are cool against my bare legs, and the air conditioning blasts away the July heat.
I try to memorize the route from my new building to the restaurant. New York is overwhelming in the best way. The noise, the energy, and the sheer number of people. It's nothing like Charlotte, While it’s a big city, it has nothing on New York. Here, I'm completely anonymous and invisible.
The restaurant Liam chooses is upscale but not stuffy, and the staff smile when he walks in carrying the most famous trophy in hockey.
We don't make it three steps before someone approaches. A man in a tailored suit abandons his lunch companions to shake Liam's hand. A group of businessmen raise their glasses in his direction, calling out congratulations.
Liam handles it all with easy charm, posing for photos, signing a napkin, chatting like he has all the time in the world.
Avery touches my elbow. “Come on. This might take a while.”
We follow the hostess to a curved booth near the back with a view of the entire restaurant. Avery slides in gracefully, then turns her attention to me.
“How are you holding up?”
I know she's not asking about the move.
“I'm okay,” I say. “Better now that I'm here.”
“Does Brody know where you are?”
“No.” I run my finger along the edge of the table. “And I told my mother that if she gives him my address, I'll never speak to her again.”
Avery reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “Good. You deserve so much better than him, Nat. You know that, right? What he did was unforgivable.”
