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“How was your weekend? What did you do with the boys?”

God, I hope the way I rushed the second question isn’t too transparent, but I need to remind myself of the reality.

“It was great. We saw the game on Saturday. My sisters didn’t let me take the boys to Chicago for the day to see it live, but you know.” He shrugs and a snort escapes me before I can swallow it down.

Then a full-on laugh.

“God, Tucker. You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.” He throws his hands up and shakes his head before turning to the kitchen. “I’m getting a beer, do you want something?”

“Maybe a Coke?” I say to his back. “I’m gonna run my things upstairs, be back in a minute.”

“Sure.”

I shake my head, still smiling as I hustle up to my room.

That man, wanting to fly to Chicago for the day with his three-year-old brothers, whose bedtime is a lot earlier than the end of that game was.

He likes hockey too much, clearly.

The boys must like it too. I know for a fact they love their skating lessons, but they never play hockey while those are going on.

I need to ask him why, though maybe it’s because they’re too young? They’re at the stage where any kind of repeated exercise about hand-eye coordination will be embedded into their nerves forever.

When I come back down and ask, I’m not expecting a long-suffering sigh to be Tucker’s first reaction.

“I told you about the one time Jim hit me, right?”

That . . . is not where I thought this was going.

“Yeah . . .”

“Well, it was because I told him I wanted to be a professional hockey player and play for the Demons.”

I want to smile, picturing a teenage Tucker all full of hope and dreams, but I know how this story ended, so there’s no way I’d smile at that.

“He hit me to snap me out of it, according to him. He reminded me we own teams, we don’t play games.”

I frown.

“There’s no way you’re about to tell me you agree with anything he said to you.”

Horror freezes my muscles as soon as the last word escapes me. It’s all fine and good when I’ve got his tongue or dick down my throat, but he’s still my boss at the end of the day. I can’t just⁠—

He chuckles and shakes his head, takes a long sip of his beer.

“No way. I just know that the boys take everything I say seriously. I’m not their parent in their minds, I’m their older, cooler, way-too-handsome brother.”

I snort. “All right, calm down.”

We share a smile that feels like a magical balm to my frayed nerves.

“Anyway, I feel like if I tell them you two are playing hockey and you’ll be superstars, they’re going to accept that as a law of the universe and whatever. And despite the fact that he took the asshole highway to tell me, Jim had a point. We as a family own these teams. If either or both of them ever decide professional hockey is what they want to do, everybody around the game is always going to think I bought them the spots, and god forbid they get drafted to the Demons. I think it would lead to a kind of mentally hard life that would make them hate the game in the end.”

“I understand,” I say, my voice low. “It would be like that no matter what game they play.”

“It would. And they’re too young to understand any of that. I know I’m not going to be able to shield them from every person who decides they don’t deserve kindness or compassion or even to excel at something just because they’re Barclays, but I’m planning to try.”