CHAPTER 1
“Istill can’t believe your brother bought ahockeyteam,” my friend Peyton said, staring at me from her side of the table in the crowded little bar on 6th street where we’d met up for drinks. “I mean, whodoesthat?”
“Someone with several hundred million dollars to spare,” Rosa cut in, snickering into her martini glass.
Someone with several hundred million dollars to spare who’s still bitter about not making it to the NHL himself,I added to myself, then immediately felt bad. My brother Andrew hadn’t ever done anything to deserve me snarking on him, even if it was only in my own head.
Except for signing my old crush, and quite possibly the first guy I had ever loved, to his brand-new team. Which meant said crush would soon be residing here in Austin, if he wasn’t already. Yeah, my brother had donethat. So maybe I was justified in feeling a little bitter.
“Andrew has always loved hockey,” I told my friends, trying to focus on the topic at hand—and stop obsessively thinking about a certain superstar center who had undoubtedly not thought about me once in the past ten years. “You know he went to school on a full ride to play at Michigan? Honestly, I probablyshould have expected he was going to try something like this when he had the arena built.”
“But he told everyone in the press the arena was for concerts and stuff,” Rosa pointed out.
Thathadbeen part of Andrew’s pitch when he was negotiating with the city to get Knight Plaza built a few years ago. In addition to housing the world headquarters of Knight Corp, the sprawling property included high end condos, retail space, and a twenty-thousand seat entertainment venue right in the middle. Andrew promised the plaza would bring money and jobs to the city while simultaneously making music-crazy Austin one of the premier concert draws in the region.
Apparently, he’d also had it built to the specifications required to house an NHL hockey team. Who knew?
“So he didn’t tell you he was going to buy the Atlanta team and relocate it?” Peyton asked.
I snorted at that. Andrew might be the only family I had left in this world, and one of my very best friends to boot, but he never talked to me about his business. Probably because he knew my eyes would start glazing over after just a few seconds of hearing him drone on and on about profit margins and diversification.
“She hasn’t really been around this summer,” Rosa told Peyton pointedly, her voice quiet, worried eyes darting over to me.
I made a face at her. “I’m sitting right here Rose. I can hear you.”
“It’s loud in here,” she said, gesturing to the noisy bar around us. “I thought you might miss it.”
“Well, I’m perfectly aware that I’ve been out of town for the last month. You don’t need to keep it a secret on my account.”
Rosa’s eyes were wide. “I just figured you wouldn’t want to talk about…” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Him.”
I tried to hide my grimace in my martini glass. I most certainly did not want to talk about my ex—or the reason I had fled Austin on my own for what was supposed to be a romantic couple’s get-away in the Bahamas.
Peyton had never possessed the same tact as Rosa. She waved her hands dismissively, blonde hair swinging around her shoulders. “Screw that. I want to hear all about this vacation.” She leaned across the table, a wicked grin playing on her lips. “Tell me you met someone. Tell me you had hot revenge sex with a mysterious gorgeous stranger on the beach.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, that really sounds like me.”
“It could be you,” she argued. “If you’d stop being uptight for five minutes.”
“Peyton!” Rosa looked scandalized. “Don’t be mean!”
“I’m not being mean,” Peyton argued. “I’m looking out for the girl. A month ago, she found out her boyfriend—the guy she thought might be theone—had a secret wife. That shit ismessed up. She deserves to have some easy, uncomplicated fun for once in her life.”
“Don’t forget the secret kids,” I muttered. I stabbed at the olives at the bottom of my martini glass with the little plastic stirring thing, feeling a familiar wave of anger, regret, and shame building up in me. Even all these weeks later it was still hard to believe. Matt had seemed like such a good guy, so charming and sweet.
It had taken me far too long to realize that he had been way,waytoo good to be true.
I would never forget the absolute shock of walking into Jefferey’s, my favorite steakhouse in Austin, with Peyton and Rose for a celebratory dinner the day school let out for the summer, and running straight into Matt. He had told me he was traveling for business that weekend—in hind sight, he seemed to do that a lot.
It turned out his “business” actually meant having a romantic dinner with the wife he had never mentioned. Fun times.
For a week straight I’d existed on a steady diet of ice cream and Netflix, barely able to leave my bed, let alone my apartment. On the eighth day post-betrayal, Peyton and Rosa had arrived. Without a word to me, they swept into my bedroom and began to pack my suitcase. “You’ve been looking forward to this trip for weeks,” Peyton said, grabbing the bikini I had just attempted to free from the suitcase and putting it right back. “You have two months before school starts again. You’re going.”
“I was looking forward to going withhim,” I sniffed, fresh tears gathering in my eyes at the sight of my suitcase. I was supposed to be packing for two weeks at one of my brother’s most exclusive resorts with the guy of my dreams. God, I had thought he mightpropose. What an idiot I had been.
“Well now you can look forward to going by yourself,” Rosa said, wiping at my eyes with a Kleenex. “You’re far better company than him anyhow.” Then she’d kissed my cheek.
Her sweetness had, of course, set me off on another round of waterworks. It continued until Peyton showed me a text she’d gotten from Andrew—apparently, they’d been talking about my breakdown behind my back—promising that he’d arranged for me to have all my meals comped and as many free drinks as I wanted at his resort if I went on the trip.
