Page 73 of Crack the Ice

“Hermano,⁠* can we not do this in front of the kids? This was supposed to be a fun night.” My woman’s voice is gentle yet firm, doing everything she can to pull her brother back from the edge he looks to be on.

He sets Lily down, shakes his wife’s hand off his shoulder, and slowly crosses the room, looking every bit like the predator he is on the ice. My heart rate spikes, not out of fear for me, but of fear for her.

She’s had a hard enough day already. She doesn’t need to be dealing with the fallout of her brother, too. It would kill her for him to be mad at her. And then I’d have to kill Monroe for not keeping his mouth shut.

He comes to a stop when he’s nearly toe-to-toe with me. He’s massive in both height and width. His silence is brutal, laced with unspoken threats with every rise of his chest. But then, he shocks the shit out of the entire room when he starts to laugh.

The deep vibration eases the tension a bit, but when he pushes his sister slightly to the side, I think maybe I’d misread the entire situation.

“Markus,” Cecy squeaks.

His arms wrap around my shoulders as his laugh gets louder. My eyes meet his wife’s confused gaze over his shoulder, and when her eyes meet mine, she shrugs, waiting to see where this is going, just like I am. Is he going to squeeze me to death at any moment, or is he going insane?

“Bout damn time, Reed.” Markus pulls away before pulling his sister in for a hug. “You hurt her, though, I’ll fucking kill you. I don’t care that you’re my captain or my best friend.”

Cecilia’s jaw drops, her hands landing on her brother’s shoulders as she pushes away from him. “What do you mean, ‘bout damn time?!”

God, they are so much alike when they talk sometimes.

“Mamí and I had a bet going,” he says, making Cecilia groan.

“Ay mi madre!” She buries her head in her hands while I stand here dumbfounded.

“Wait, you knew too?” she hisses.

His laugh gets louder, louder than I’ve ever heard it. His eyes shine with unshed tears as he looks down at his sister, who’s more than a foot shorter than he is. “You’re about as subtle as a train wreck, hermanita.”⁠*

“The hell does that mean?” Her hand flies to her chest, the Samuels family dramatics coming out to play.

He holds up his hand like it’s a piece of paper, pretending to write on it with the other. “Cecilia Reed has a nice ring to it,” he says, continuing to write. “One day, I’ll be Mrs. Reed.”

Cecilia’s eyes widen, her face turning the brightest shade of red. I’m concerned she might burst into flames. “You read my journal?!” She launches herself at her brother, punching him in the arm, making his laugh even raspier.

“Wait, I didn’t even get to my favorite part.” His chest heaves as he wraps his hands around her waist, pulling her away from him slightly.

“Mav kissed me today, but he missed my lips entirely and ended up kissing the space right under my nose, which would have been fine if I hadn’t had a cold. Pretty sure he got a mouth full of snot.”

“MARKUS SAMUELS!” She charges at him again. This time she knocks him to the floor, swinging wildly, his laughter getting choppier with every pathetically landed punch.

It’s then that the noise in the room filters back in, and I realize everyone else is also laughing. There’s so much joy here. The kids are laughing, the love of my life has tears streaming down her face, but there’s a smile seated on her lips as she continues to playfully fight with her brother, who’s also got tears painting his cheeks.

Monroe has Lettie on his lap, his arms wrapped around her waist as they look on, laughing when Sammy lets out a high-pitched squeal when Cecilia starts to tickle him.

Kait’s got tears in her eyes as she watches two of her favorite people wrestle on the floor of my kitchen. The kids flank her sides, watching on as the scene unfolds.

Then there’s me with my hands shoved into my pockets, smiling down at them as I remember that day like it was yesterday. She got a cold while she’d gone to some tournament in Michigan with her family. I didn’t care, though. I missed the hell out of her, so I kissed her anyway. Well, tried to at least before I tripped over my own two feet and my lips met the slimy slope of her upper lip.

The smile on her face when she turns to look at me over her shoulder doesn’t just light up the room. It sets off my soul like fireworks. She wrote about that? That stupidly mundane interaction made such an impact on her that she wrote it down. She wanted to save it, hold on to it for later. How many other moments did I let myself forget that meant more to her than I’d ever guess?

“Alright, that’s enough.” I hold my hand out for Cecilia to take. She doesn’t hesitate to slide her hand in mine. I help her up, then offer her brother the same.

He slams his hand in mine with a loud smack, and I pull him off the floor, and he immediately pulls me in for a hug. “I’m serious, man. Don’t hurt her.”

“You’ve been calling me a monk for years. Now you know why. She’s the sun my world revolves around.”

He steps back and gives me a curt nod, a serious one, not as one of my best friends or my teammate, but as her brother, her original protector. I respect the hell out of him, but it’s my turn now.

Lettie claps, breaking the remaining tension in the room. “Well then, now that we’ve got that out of the way, can we eat and talk about why you had such a rough day?” She looks right at Cecilia, who’s made her way back into the kitchen next to Cade.