He slides his arm around my waist, pulling me into his side. “You’ll save a chase for me, right, Leila?”
Before I can even process what’s happening, Landon appears and rips me away from Bodhi’s grasp.
“Over my dead body,” Landon growls, positioning himself between us.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I snap, my temper flaring. “This is exactly why I chose Gravepoint! You two act like I’m a little child who can’t make her own decisions.”
“You are nineteen, Leila,” Levi points out, crossing his arms.
I laugh at how absurd his words sound. “We’re Irish twins, Levi. There’s eleven months between us.”
“Technically Irish triplets,” Levi corrects with a smirk, gesturing to himself and Landon.
“Oh my god, you’re impossible,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Both of you. I’m an adult, and I can talk to whoever I want without my brothers acting like my bodyguards.”
“Not when they are our teammates,” Landon snaps.
“Your teammates who apparently chase girls in masks?” Abigail pipes up, looking between Bodhi and the mask with interest.
Bodhi shrugs, completely unbothered by the tension. “What can I say? We like to have fun.”
“You know what?” I say, grabbing the keys from my pocket. “We’re leaving. Abby, get in the truck.”
“Leila—” Levi starts with a sigh.
“No.” I slash my hand through the air for emphasis as I cut him off. “I’m done with this conversation. I’ll see you guys at the party.”
I speed walk back to my car with Abigail in tow, but as I climb into the driver’s seat, I catch Bodhi’s eye in the rearview mirror, and he winks at me.
Is it wrong to get involved with him, knowing it would piss my brothers off and might cause tension for the team? Maybe, but it also might teach my brothers a lesson: the more you tell someone no, the more they’ll want to do it.
Chapter Two
Jagger
The ice feels perfect under my skates as I glide through the warmup, muscle memory taking over while I size up tonight’s competition. The Stormhaven crowd is loud as hell, comfortable in their own arena, but that only gets my blood pumping harder.
“You see Levi’s form today?” Knox calls out as he skates past, nodding toward where the player in question is practicing his shots. “Guy looks tight.”
“Good,” I grunt, firing a puck toward the net with enough force to rattle the crossbar. “Tight players make mistakes.”
All summer I’ve been waiting for another crack at the Kane brothers. Last season, they got close to beating us more times than I care to admit. But this year it feels different. I’m hungrier and want to win by more.
The horn sounds, signaling the end of warmups, and we skate back toward the tunnel. In the locker room, Coach runs through the game plan, his voice echoing off the concrete walls as he draws the plays on the whiteboard.
“Holt!” Coach’s voice cuts through my focus. “You with us?”
“Yeah, Coach. Pressure their forwards, make Levi work for everything.”
“That’s what I want to hear.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re back on the ice. The crowd is deafening, but I feed off the energy. When they announce the Kane brothers as “the brothers of brutality,” I can’t help my snort. Brutality? I’ll show them brutality.
That’s when I see the two brothers banging their sticks against the glass, making some poor girl in the stands turn around. The name KANE stretches across her back in bold letters.
Slowing my skate, I take a better look. Red hair, and curves that even an oversized jersey can’t hide, but there is something familiar about her—I’ve definitely seen her before.
“Check out Kane’s girlfriend,” I mutter to Knox as he skates beside me.
