Page 4 of Crack the Ice

“Hey guys,” I squeak out, quickly clearing my throat and trying again. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hi Cecy.” Lily’s ocean blue eyes light up as she waves wildly, and it melts a bit of my anxiety. “This place is awesome. It looks like a hockey rink, but pink. How’d you manage to do all that but still make it feel like you?”

A familiar tug pulls at the corner of my mouth, though it feels different today, heavier. Maybe that’s because they’re here with him, and I’m seeing the family dynamic in person. My voice quakes when I finally say, “I hired a good painter, and she brought my jumbled thoughts to life.”

She shrugs, and if she caught the waver in my voice, she doesn’t say anything.

“Thanks, Lan. This is the best group of test subjects I could ask for.”

Kelsey lets out a laugh, her smile so big that the crinkles around her eyes pop. She looks so much like their mom did. It’s uncanny. “Don’t let her fool you, Cecy. We didn’t have a choice. We were threatened with bodily harm.”

“Duh, how else am I supposed to get the band back together?” Lana says, throwing her arms in the air and letting them bounce off her thighs.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about. We weren’t threatened, just promised we could have sugar before school started.” Lily smiles at me. “But we’re kinda on a time crunch,” she says, rolling her pointer fingers around one another, and I press my lips together to keep from laughing.

“Look, I can’t eat all this during the season. I’d drag ass, and then I’d get fired,” Mav says, though his eyes are still on me.

I feel them like a visceral touch as they trail down my side. A shiver rolls through me, and he smirks like he knows exactly why.

“Come on, Mavy.” Kelsey smacks him in the stomach, making him double over as if it hurt. “Live a little. You can have a bite here and there.” She shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest that holds the Tornadoes logo. “It’s not like you don’t work it all off anyway. You live in the gym.” Her nose scrunches as she looks up at her younger brother. “You need to find a new hobby.”

“Yeah, Reed. A new hobby.” The mirth in Cade’s eyes has me on the edge of my seat, wondering what’s going to come out of his mouth next. “Like, I don’t know a girlfriend, or maybe you should take up goat yoga.”

Mav’s brows slam down over his eyes, and this time I can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of me. Mav isn’t grumpy by any means, but he’s analytical, quiet, and reserved. That’s mainly, or it used to be at least, because he spends so much time in his head that I’m surprised he doesn't get lost.

But here, with them? There’s a lightness to him that I haven’t seen in a long time. Which tells me two things: he’s the steady presence in their lives, and he’s choosing to be, because they’re important to him.

“And what hobbies do you have off the ice, Cade? Care to share with the class?” he fires back.

A pang of jealousy rolls through me as they joke back and forth the way he and I used to. There was a time when I wanted to be chosen by the man in front of me more than anything. But then, there came a day when I knew I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and truthfully, I don’t know that he could have been there for me the way I needed him to be.

My eyes fall to the floor, throat stinging as I fight against the tears threatening to form. I spent a year on the other side of the world from him, doing everything I could to heal and be enough on my own. And he undoes it in ten minutes, because Maverick Reed isn’t just handsome as hell. He’s gentle, kind, and damn it, seeing him like this… unguarded and at ease with two kids in tow? God, it makes me wish things were different. But they aren’t, and none of those things belong to me anymore, because he doesn’t, he never did, not for long anyway.

“Guys,” Lana thankfully cuts in. “Can we get down to business? We need opinions, and by we, I mean Cecy. I think it’s all delicious, so I’m no help.”

All five of them turn to look at me at the same time, and I fight the urge to shrink back. They’re all intimidating in their own way, but right now, they’re here to tell me if my food sucks balls or not. I almost wish she’d shown up with strangers now. Focus, Cecilia, Jesus.

“Okay, so, these are what I think are going to be the constants. Meaning, I’ll have them all the time.” I point to the two loaves of bread, cookies, rosquillas de San Isidro, and, of course, blueberry muffins because Greyson, one of their teammates, would kill me if I didn’t have those at all times.

“I think we’ll always have plain vanilla and chocolate cupcakes because not everyone likes to be adventurous with their food. But these four are what I hope will be the first rotation. Then the donuts will have the option of sugar and lemon or white meringue. They’re popular this time of year in Spain. They make me feel like I’m home.”

I point at the first cupcake. “This is a vanilla lavender cupcake.” The base itself is plain vanilla. The frosting is lavender, but it’s the way it’s frosted that makes it unique. Instead of the tall dollop you’re used to seeing on a cupcake, there’s a purple rosette in the center, white chocolate frosting on the side in a thick squiggle lining one side, and three small, dark purple bud-looking dollops.

“It’s stunning,” Kelsey says as Lana cuts it into four pieces for each of them.

My face pinches together as they all bite down, only softening when Lily gets frosting on the tip of her nose.

“Holy shit, Cecy,” Kelsey groans, her thick eyelashes fluttering closed until they kiss her cheeks. But it’s Maverick who’s staring at the cupcake like it personally offended him that has me worried.

“You don’t like it?” I ask, wringing my hands together in front of me. It’s only now that I realize the others could hate it and I wouldn’t care, but him? God, if he hated it, I think I’d drop dead on the spot.

His eyes immediately snap to mine, something like awe shining through them, and it knocks the breath clear out of my lungs.

“How’d you get lavender to taste good?”

Lana smacks him in the arm, making a throaty chuckle fall from his plush lips. “What? Usually it tastes like soap.”

I roll my eyes, but don’t pay him any mind. “Little ones?” I ask, turning to Lily and Cade.