Page 180 of Play Dirty

“Yeah,” Ares agreed. “And when it does, you’ll be in the back corner of the yard. The bathroom’s off-limits to you, for at least the next twenty-four hours.”

Zack flipped him off while clutching his throat. The laughter grew louder. Smiling despite myself, I slid into the booth.

This — this right here — felt good.

Normal.

Almost.

Ares dropped into the seat beside me like a freight train coupling up. It was close enough that our legs brushed. Not accidental. Never accidental.

“You good?” he asked quietly.

I glanced at him.

“Yeah.”

His eyes searched mine for a second longer than necessary. Sebastian caught the look from across the table, and smirked.

Grayson didn’t.

He was still standing, still watching.

Always watching.

“Sit down,” Ares ordered. “You look like a creepy fucking stalker.”

Grayson’s gaze shifted to me. I smiled at him, and something in his eyes softened. Just a little.

He sat down, and the table filled out. Noise pressed in from all sides. The rest of the team filtered around us, drinks flowing, arms rising, fists clenching glasses of frothy beer that spilled out on every toast.

For a while, it stayed like that. Laughing. Talking. Unwinding.

Pretending that there wasn’t something bigger, sitting just under the surface.

Like there wasn’t a game in less than two days that meant everything, or a man in an expensive suit pulling strings from the upper levels, or a goalie on the Quebec Sentinels who already knew we were coming.

And then—

The doors opened.

It wasn’t dramatic. No music cue. No sudden silence.

Just a shift in atmosphere. One of those subtle, almost imperceptible changes in the air your body notices before your brain does.

Ares felt it first. I saw it in the way his shoulders squared.

Sebastian’s laughter died, mid-sentence.

Grayson didn’t turn at all. Not right away.

He already knew, though.

I followed their line of sight. And there he was.

Carter Sutherland.

He walked in like he belonged there. Like this was just another night. Another bar. Another game, waiting to be played.