He was quiet for a long time, eating his breakfast. Finally, he wiped his hands on a napkin and turned to me.
“I’ve missed it. I tried to ignore that, but it was there. The idea of buying a team…I guess it was always at the back of my mind. And once I let myself seriously consider it, I realized how badly I wanted it.”
“I’m glad,” I said, and I genuinely was. For so long, hockey had been my brother’s escape from the reality of our lives. A part of him had died when his knee went out and I hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to get it back. Maybe this team could help him regain something that had been lost all those years ago.
That would be worth anything to me. Even running into Liam O’Conner around town.
Once again demonstrating his uncanny ability to read my mind, Andy grinned. “You’re not even going to ask me about him?”
I attempted innocence. “Who?”
He laughed. “Uh huh. You’re definitely fooling me, Ace.”
I dropped the futile act. “You could have at least warned me,” I muttered, tearing off the edge of my last fluffy donut. “I ran into him at the bar last night.”
His eyebrows went up. “You’ve seen him already?”
I nodded. “And it was hella awkward, so thank you for that.”
“Youshouldthank me. I brought the love of your life to town.”
I snorted. “Give me a break. I never even dated the guy.” I didn’t add that I had spent more time with him in high school than I had any of my friends. Nor did I mention our one, perfect kiss.
It had all been in my head anyways. Liam never felt the same way I did.
“I don’t understand why you traded for him in the first place,” I muttered. “You always hated Liam.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
I just stared at him until he finally grinned. “Fine. I was not the golden boy’s biggest fan. Maybe I brought him here for you.”
I might kill him, seriously. Was there a rule somewhere that brothers had to be obnoxious?
“Can we just talk about something else?”
Andy gave me one last smirk before changing the subject. “What’s on the agenda now that you’re home? You get into the classroom this week, right?”
I tried to shake off any thoughts of Liam, or how insanely attractive he had looked last night, of how little I had been able to sleep with my mind filled with blue eyes and strong arms.
“Yeah, I can start setting up on Monday. Meet the Teacher night is Wednesday, so I’ll get to see some of the kiddos then.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Those curriculum changes you worked on last spring go into effect this year, right?”
I hid my smile, pleased but not surprised that he remembered the curriculum committee I had chaired last year. This was one of the best things about my twin brother—he always took my job as seriously as he took his own. He may own a multi-billion-dollar international tech conglomerate, but he never made me feel lesser for being a mere third grade teacher.
We chatted for a few minutes about my classroom and the things I was looking forward to teaching. Throughout our conversation, Andy’s phone dinged in his pocket no less than a dozen times. He never once took it out to check the messages. My brother was the busiest person I knew and half the time we had to cancel these brunches because his work constantly took him out of the country, often at the last minute. But whenever we were both in town, he was here with me, completely present. For one hour out of his weekend, at least.
But his buzzing phone made me think of something else, something I was reluctant to tell him.
“Mom called me last week,” I finally muttered when there was a lull in our conversation.
He immediately stiffened. “Why in the hell did you answer?”
“Because she would have just kept calling back.”
He made a scathing noise. “I’ve managed to go five years without speaking to her, Grace. It’s not that hard.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t all have assistants screening our calls,” I shot back.
