“He hired a valet?” Rosa asked incredulously.
“Of course he did,” Peyton said, opening the visor mirror to check her makeup. “Andrew is a show-off, always has been.”
I met Rosa’s eye in the mirror and we both smirked. From the way Peyton was fluffing out her hair and adjusting her blouse—no doubt hoping to display just the right amount of cleavage—she appeared to be planning to do some showing off of her own.
I climbed out of the car and handed my keys off to the valet. “The party is taking place on the east lawn,” he said. “If you’ll just follow that path there…”
There was no point in telling him that I had been here hundreds of times, even had my own suite of rooms on the third floor, because the truth was, this place was so massive that I routinely got lost when I came to visit. Once I’d woken up to find huge, neon orange arrow stickers on the floor outside my bedroom door and all the way down to the kitchen. Hilarious guy, my brother.
“East lawn is just fancy talk for the backyard,” I told the girls, leading them over to a lightly wooded path that wound around the left side of the mansion’s brick facade.
“To be fair,” Rosa pointed out, “this place has a lot of grounds. When you say backyard, do you mean where the pool is?”
“Or do you mean that hilly area?” Peyton asked. “Where we played volleyball the one time?”
“Or that meadow place with the fire pit and the little pond?” Rosa cut in.
I snorted. The girls had a point. “I mean the patio right at the back of the house, off the kitchen. That’s where the grill is set up.”
“Is that a helicopter pad?” Rosa asked as we turned a corner and a small clearing to the left came into view.
“What, don’t you have one?” I teased.
“Your brother’s life is insane,” she muttered.
I wasn’t going to argue with that.
After a few more moments, we rounded another corner and the back of the house came into view. A fairly large crowd of people were gathered on the flagstone patio and the sweeping expanse of green lawn behind it.
“Is it just me, or do all of those guys look…really tall,” Rosa murmured.
Peyton’s eyes were bright with excitement as she nodded. “Um, yeah. Those are somehugemen.”
“Hockey players generally are,” I murmured, barely listening to them. Because amongst the crowd of bulky athletes—and more normal sized men and women who I assumed made up the rest of the Sting organization—my eyes had already settled right on a certain team captain.
Liam hadn’t seen me yet, giving me the opportunity to drink him in from afar for a moment. And God, there was a lot to drink in. He was taller than just about every guy there, his shoulders broad, contours of that incredible chest hinted at under his tight, navy polo shirt. His blond hair shone even more than usualunder the bright Texas sun. The only fault I could find were the dark aviator sunglasses that hid his blue eyes from my view—but even those added a bit of a bad boy touch to his golden looks.
As I watched, he laughed at whatever the person next to him was saying, his head tilting back just a little, exposing the thick column of his neck. The neck that I had run my tongue along barely a week ago.
I was suddenly aware that my friends had gone quiet. Tearing my attention away from Liam, I turned to see them both staring at me, eyes wide. “Oh, shit,” Peyton said. “You have it bad, girl.”
I swallowed uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?”
She pointed at me, scowling now. “Don’t you dare even try it. We know you, Grace. And we know that that look—” she circled the finger around my face, “—is not how you usually look at your brother’s employees.”
“You didn’t even look at Matt like that,” Rosa added, much more gently. “And you guys dated for months.”
For a second, I considered arguing, but really, what was the point? If they had already read so much into my expression, there was no way I was going to get through an entire afternoon in the same vicinity as Liam without them seeing how affected I was.
Peyton had a shrewd expression on her face as she studied me. “Did you take my advice and make out with him at the gardens that day?”
“Ooh, yes, I’ve been wondering about that!” Rosa jumped up and down a little, like this was all some super fun game.
“You told her?” I glared at Peyton.
She just shrugged. “Obviously.”
I had to laugh. “Can we at least go get something to drink before you start the inquisition? It’s blazing out here.”
