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The moment I step foot inside The Castle, I’m met by Gray. “Dad wants to see you,” he says.
“Why?”
“No idea. Come on.” He holds his arm out for me to step in front of him. “What’d you get up to last night after you left the bar?”
Shit, please tell me he doesn’t know. You can’t tell that someone had the best sex of their life a few hours prior just by looking at them, can you?
“I dropped Liam home and then went back to my apartment, where I was rudely woken up by Jonah this morning. Any idea why he’s in town?” I ask, a single brow arched in question.
“Nope. I didn’t know he was,” Gray says, taking his phone out of his pocket, probably to text Jonah to find out why he’s not at school.
A few minutes later, I walk into my father’s office. “Shut the door,” he says.
Gray closes the door behind us, so I go and sit down on one of the chairs in front of Dad’s desk. My brother then fills the chair next to me. “You summoned me,” I say to Dad.
“How are things going with King?” he asks me, and I feel all the blood drain from my cheeks. I need to work on my poker face if I’m going to continue this thing with Liam behind everyone’s back.
“It’s going well, so far. I think all the positive PR is working. His jersey sales numbers are up by twenty percent, and that was before last night’s win,” I tell my father.
“Good.” He spreads out a range of images of Liam at various events. “We need to start sending out some of our other guys on these things. It can’t become the Liam King show. This is a team. It needs to look like a team effort,” Dad says.
Gray picks up a newspaper clipping from a few weeks ago when Liam went and taught the youth league. It’s a photo of him handing the puck he signed to that little girl. “Where was this taken?” Gray asks me.
“Ah, just some local youth camp,” I say.
“Which one?” He hasn’t taken his eyes off the picture.Weird.
“One of the ones we sponsor, down the road a bit.”
“Get rid of their coach. I want to coach those kids myself,” Gray says.
Both my father and I look at him like he’s lost his mind. “What? You can’t do that,” I tell him.
“I can and I will,” Gray says, folding the clipping in half before shoving it into his pocket.
“You’re on the road too much. The season is just starting and you’re going to be away a lot. Those kids need a coach all season, Gray. Not whenever you happen to be in town and not on the ice yourself.”
“Okay, then get me an appearance. I’ll help out whenever I’m free.” My brother pushes to his feet and heads to the door. “I got shit to do. Catch you both later,” he says and walks out.
“That was odd.” I look to my dad.
“Yeah,” he agrees, but then goes back to talking about Liam. “The first away game is next weekend. You need to travel with the team.”
“What? Why? You never said anything about traveling,” I complain.
“Because you’re the only thing keeping that boy out of trouble. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. Keep doing it,” Dad tells me. I’m almost certain he wouldn’t be saying that if he knew exactly what I was doing with his player last night.
“Okay. Whatever you need me to do.”
“We’re hosting the Knights’ dinner at our house in three weeks. Make sure you’re there too.”
Argh, I hate those black-tie dinners he hosts. “Can I bring my friends?” I ask.
“Charlie? Sure.”
“All of them, Dad.”
