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Until LaBlanc calls out brightly, “Good to see you, son!”

Attention away from me, I slide to a stop nearest the boards to look up where the newcomer—a young man in a tailored business suit is stepping down toward Lily’s seat. The same asshole from last week at the rink, when she got into his car.

Son. It doesn’t hurt. I don’t care. Son.

Lily’s body is frozen, eyes never leaving me. Like in a hazy dream, eyes glossed.

The guy steps right past her like she’s not even there, to come closer to the bench where LaBlanc stands. Something wars within me, thankful that he’s ignored her and angry at him for ignoring her at the same time.

“You as well,” the preppy asshole says with a nod. “Need her back by any time?”

LaBlanc flickers his eyes toward me and then back with a grin. “No, Carson. I’ll be back in about an hour or so—if you can keep her company until then, we can have a drink at the house after, all right?”

The man—Carson, I assume, nods, before stepping back to Lily’s side and reaching for her with an extended hand. “Hey, Lily? Let’s go.”

Lily, delivered with a small quirk of his lips, a familiar greeting like he knows her well.

A fire roars across my shoulders and up my neck, muscles twitching to jump for them both, but I rein it all in.

Lily hesitates, before something in her dad’s gaze has her jolting upright and following the man up and out of the arena, nearly tripping a few times because of her eyes still trying to find mine, before Carson reaches for her hand.

“Love that kid,” LaBlanc says beneath his breath as we both watch them. I wish the words didn’t hit like blows to my chest, but it’s impossible to erase the longing that once lived within me with the hatred of him I now hold. “He’s a sports agent—newer but well connected. If you want, I could introduce you—”

A pit drops out of my stomach, and I grasp for the boards like I might fall over. He’s goading me. I know he is—but it doesn’t make the need to chase after her, like always, too great to ignore.

“Fuck off—”

“Suit yourself,” he says, but his eyes are glittering. “You know, it’s kind of endearing you find your reputation salvageable. What was it Hockey Today said?”

Toren Kane, the psychopath. I remembered the article well. The way it had torched everything until I was alone in the ashes of the life I’d imagined, had nearly had in my grasp.

“Perhaps it is a blessing that we are currently seeing the end of the hockey enforcers, after young up-and-coming ‘new era enforcer’ Kane was involved in a domestic violence incident—”

“Are we done talking? I thought you were actually trying to make me sweat,” I goad LaBlanc.

“It seems to me that Harris doesn’t know the first real thing about you. Tell me this,” he says, stepping toward me over the boards. “If he knew who you really were, do you think he’d even blink twice before getting rid of you? The unwanted psychopath.” The last word hits me like a slap. Or a puck to the face, no cage on.

I knew what that felt like. He’d done it to me just days ago.

“You’re a cancer to this team, just like you’ve always been. Time doesn’t change shit.”

“Fuck off.” I toss my gloves down. “I’m done.”

He puts a hand to my chest. “Do you know how easy it would be for a certain legal document to end up on the desk of Waterfell’s most esteemed coach? I doubt in the choice of allowing my daughter here or you, he’d choose the one who threw the punch.”

The restraining order was dissolved by the North Carolina court, I already knew that. But that was last year. The call had come through at the Frozen Four, just before my phone blew up with LaBlanc trying to get me on a team. It’s easy to see now that was probably on purpose.

Had Sahara and her husband not found me that night, I would’ve taken it. I wouldn’t have had a choice.

There’s some sick irony in the fact that I’d seen the Harrises’ home as a safe place, if only for a moment. Terrified to get too comfortable, but it was more of a home than I’d ever had.

But then . . . Harris hired LaBlanc. There was a betrayal in that, at least in my head, even if it was unfair. Harris didn’t know, I hadn’t told him . . . but that knowledge didn’t get rid of the hurt.

I don’t want Harris to know, especially not from LaBlanc’s mouth. There’s always been speculation, but the documents from that night were sealed. Lily was eighteen, it was easy for her dad to keep it all quiet.

It wasn’t as easy for me, alone, booted from my foster home, suddenly without an NHL contract, abandoned by everyone.

Only speculation from tabloids. From those willing to talk to media, spewing lies.