Georgia glanced at her, understanding immediately. "Go. We still have a few minutes before the puck drops."
Libby fled the box, weaving through the crowd in the private suite level concourse until she found a relatively quiet corner. She leaned against the wall, jersey sleeves falling past her wrists, and tried to remember how lungs worked.
He'd been silent for twenty-four hours. She'd put on the jersey anyway. He'd pointed his stick at her in front of the entire arena.
What did any of it mean?
"Well, well." The voice was cold enough to frost glass. "This is quite a performance."
Libby looked up to find Kate Davenport emerging from the adjacent suite, silver hair pulled into a severe chignon, diamonds the size of marbles at her ears and throat.
"Mrs. Davenport."
"Wearing his jersey?" Kate's smile could cut diamonds. "How pathetic. He's just using you for?—"
"Mom." A bored, elegant voice cut through Kate's monologue. "God, you're doing the thing again."
Anne Davenport appeared behind her mother in thousand-dollar cashmere and Converse high-tops so worn the rubber was peeling from the canvas. Her blonde hair fell in professionally maintained waves, and she clutched a vape pen in the same hand that bore an oversized men's Cartier watch.
She took a long drag, blew the vapor toward the ceiling, and looked at Libby with something like solidarity.
"Liam is like my weird, broody step-brother," Anne said flatly. "And not like in those books you pretend not to read either."
Kate spluttered. "Anne, that's hardly?—"
"We dated for like five minutes in prep school because you wouldn't shut up about mergers and bloodlines and producing perfect hockey-playing grandchildren." Anne scrolled through her phone with her free hand. "It was exhausting. He was exhausted. We were both relieved when I moved to Paris."
"You and Liam were perfect together?—"
"We were perfectly boring together. Also? He's not even into blondes." Anne looked at Libby, really looked, taking in the oversized jersey and the obvious emotional chaos. "Good. You look like you actually have a personality. And I have Etienne in Paris, who's, you know, actually hot and French and definitely not my step-brother." She pulled out her phone, already scrolling. "So maybe redirect your controlling energy toward literally anything else."
“Etienne is a pasty, degenerate nobody and I will not have him?—”
“Mother, get a life. You can’t have mine.” She nodded at Libby's jersey. "That looks better on you than it ever would have on me."
Then she walked away, trailing vape smoke and European indifference, leaving Kate frozen in the hallway, mouth open, face turning an alarming shade of red.
Libby pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.
"You—" Kate started.
"I need to get back," Libby said, already moving. "Game's about to start."
She slipped past Kate and back into the D'Arcy box. The opening faceoff was seconds away. She slid into her seat beside Georgia, heart hammering.
"You look pleased with yourself," Georgia observed.
"Anne Davenport just called Liam her weird, broody step-brother and told Kate to redirect her controlling energy."
Georgia's eyes went wide. "No."
"And complimented my jersey."
"I've never seen Anne actually stand up to Kate before," Georgia said quietly. "Paris has been good for her."
The puck dropped.
He won the draw, cycled the puck, created space, set up Morrison for a shot that pinged off the post. The entire building groaned, and Libby's fingernails dug into her palms.
