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“I believe it. Cooper and Maddox, Oakley and Ava’s oldest son, are really the only ones who can use them properly, but the younger kids love to try and keep up.”
When we reach the top of the stairs, I look around in awe.
The room opens up completely, with a living room, bar, and kitchen tucked in the back corner. The living space has a massive rounded couch and several leather armchairs, all the same beige colour as the walls. It looks and feels like luxury, and I’m still not sure how I feel about being here.
Besides the shouting voices of the kids I spot running on the deck through the open wall beside the kitchen, it’s silent. Too silent. My attention is pulled to the crowd of people staring at us—or, more specifically, at me, and I gulp.
Gracie stands close to me and gently touches my arm. “Everyone, this is Scarlett. Scarlett, this is everyone.”
“Hi,” I croak, waving.
“Want to get any vaguer, Gray?” someone asks her from across the room.
“Right,” Gracie giggles. “Let me try this again. That’s Oakley and Ava over there.” She points to the two people sitting at the bar.
A noise of excitement comes from the brunette sitting beside Oakley. Having met the retired NHL player a handful of times over the past few years during charity events or volunteer activities, he’s a familiar face in a crowd of unfamiliar ones, and I latch onto the small slice of comfort that brings me.
His arm is slung over the shoulders of the woman beside him, and I quickly place her as his wife, Ava. She has a calmer aura about her than Gracie does but still wears an expression of barely contained joy as she stares at me.
“I’m so happy to meet you,” she gushes, clasping her hands together.
Oakley speaks next, his words ultra-calm in comparison to the two girls I’ve just met. “It’s great to see you again, Scar. Thanks for coming.”
I smile at them both while Gracie points to the couch. There are two large men sitting on opposite sides of a dark-haired woman. One of them has a large hand placed high on the thigh of the woman beside him.
“My husband, Tyler, is on the end there, and the guy who looks about ready to slip his hand up his pregnant wife’s dress is his brother, Braden. Sierra is the poor woman getting felt up beside him.”
I choke on a laugh, and both men hop off the couch. Braden, the stockier of the two men, reaches down to help Sierra up. Tyler rounds the couch and walks toward his wife with a grin while my jaw falls open.
It’s just now clicked in that Tyler is Tyler Bateman, the best defenseman in the hockey league right now.
Oh, shit. Am I sweating?
He moves to Gracie’s side and kisses her cheek before looking at me. “It’s nice to meet you, Scarlett. We’ve heard great things.”
Sierra walks closer to the rest of us and places a hand on her slightly rounded belly. “Your hair is amazing. Is that your natural colour?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s natural,” I answer. Subconsciously, I push my hair back.
“Scarlett with the fire-truck-red hair, huh?” Braden asks. Sierra glowers at him.
“It’s a name I’ll never forgive my mother for,” I say honestly.
Braden bursts out laughing, and everyone else quickly follows. I smile slightly, feeling a bit more relaxed.
“Braden can be a bit of an asshole sometimes, Scarlett. Just a fair warning,” Tyler says.
I focus my attention on him and find myself overrun with questions I want to ask him. Like what was it like to enter the league undrafted? Did it make his experience harder compared to Oakley’s? Or was it similar?
Suddenly, a hard chest brushes my back. My breath hitches at the contact, but I don’t move away. Instead, something has me leaning against the hard wall of muscle behind me and relaxing completely for the first time since I was in my car.
A large hand grips my hip, squeezing as hot breath warms the back of my ear. “You’re looking at Tyler like you idolize him. It’s making me jealous.”
Goosebumps pebble my skin. “You’re late.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The pads of his fingers press deeper into my hip when he pulls me flush against him. The feeling of him pressed against me has my head spinning. I shudder and try to focus on the group around us.
