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“So funny, aren’t you.” He sighed. “I’m not even going to ask why he’s there.”
“No breaking the rule,” I reminded him, my hands tightening on the leather steering wheel. There was only one rule David and I had kept since his senior year in high school—we never talked about hockey. Ever.
“Gotcha. Just tell me how to help, Maxim. Want me to fly down?”
“No,” I sighed. “Just tell me how to deal with him.”
He laughed. “I’ve always been a fan of drinking.”
Drinking it was. I pulled the bottle of tequila from the cabinet and grabbed two shot glasses as Evie came around the corner into the kitchen.
She was dressed in jeans and an oversized Reapers hoodie, and I knew without looking that if she turned around, my number would be on her back.
Fuck, that was hot.
“Nice hoodie,” I managed to say, pulling the cork from the top of the tequila.
“Oh.” She blinked and looked down. “It’s not yours, I promise. I mean, it’s yours, like…it’s your jersey, but I bought it the first game I came to down here with Mila. I didn’t steal it out of your room or the laundry or anything.”
“I know.” My shoulders relaxed an inch or two. How weird was it that I was starting to love when she babbled? She got all flustered and then her mouth would just take off on her, and I adored it. There was nothing fake or pretend about Evie. She was unabashedly, exactly who she was.
“I actually started to buy the Sterling one—”
“You what?” My head whipped toward hers and my eyebrows rose.
She shrugged and leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. “I was trying to show support for Mila. She wanted to meet her secret brother and I thought it would be a cute gesture, but when we got to the fan store—you know, the one on the atrium level at the arena?”
“Yeah, I know the shop.” Fucking Sterling? That stupid, hot, irrational jealousy was back, burning its way up my throat like a firestorm. Evie wasn’t mine. If anything, she was Mila’s, but still, the thought of her with Sterling’s name across her back made me grip the tequila bottle tighter.
“But once I got in there, I saw yours, and thought it might hurt your feelings if I showed up wearing Sterling’s number just because I’ve always worn yours to games.” Another shrug, and she tucked her curls behind her ears. They were down today, framing her face in a gold halo that fell to just above her breasts.
“Good plan,” I muttered, pouring a shot into each glass. Evie had been a staple at the rink as I grew up, hauled along to every game because Mila got bored as shit with two brothers who played on AAA travel teams. Mom had always ordered her two hoodies along with Mila for the season, one with my number on the back, and one with David’s.
“You’re drinking at—” She leaned around me to see the clock on the stove. “Three in the afternoon?”
“It was the suggestion of my brother. Care to join me?” I nudged a shot glass in her direction. If anyone needed to get a little wild, it was Evie.
“Sterling?” Her eyebrows rose.
“No, David. Sterling doesn’t know enough about this particular situation to suggest anything besides a visit to my local psychiatrist.” I lifted my shot.
She took a whiff and recoiled. “Tequila?”
“Not a tequila drinker? I know you didn’t use to drink, but I’m not sure when you started.”
“It’s not my poison of choice.” She lowered the shot slightly, looking at the little glass like it might bite her. “And college.”
“Well, it’s the middle of the season, so it’s all I’ve got.” I always cleared out the bar before practices began to remind me to keep my head in the game, but kept an emergency bottle of Don Fulano.
She wrinkled her nose. “I have to work on a project.”
“Which one?”
“The motion and movement one,” she admitted, dragging her eyes slowly up my chest to meet my gaze.
“The hockey one?”
She nodded. “I need to reshoot and edit based on the peer critique.”
“Which you need me for.” My chest went all tight. The last time had been fine, it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to photoshoots, but there had been something incredibly intimate about shooting with Evie.
With every other photographer, I could pull off a little smirk or whip out some charm, but Evie had known me long enough to know what was fake and what wasn’t. She saw too much, and it was all I could do to keep that wall up, keep my emotions boxed up all neat and tidy so I could function.
“Yep. I need you.”
Those words hit me like a gut punch. “Okay, then I propose we make a deal. You drink with me, and I’ll strip down for you.” I winked.
