We’re not winning trophies here. Hell, we’ll be lucky if anyone even remembers we could be a contender. No one I’ve spoken to in this country seems to understand hockey, let alone the World Hockey League, and it pisses me off that after everything I sacrificed to make it to this point in my career, I’ve been relegated to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, doomed to be forgotten.
I’m not sure when I’ll come to accept my new circumstances in Bellerive. All I know is that I’m not there yet.
Chapter Three
Sawyer
The palace is heavily decorated in Bellerive blue and silver, the colors of the Bellerive Bullets, the World Hockey League’s newest franchise team. As with anything the palace does, it’s tasteful, but it still makes me laugh a little on the inside.
Bellerive has an ice hockey team. Bananas. What the hell does anyone on this island know about ice hockey? Most people have never even set foot on an icy surface, let alone a rink. The yearly winter festival near Christmas with temporary, artificial ice hardly counts. It’s not even at the level of recreational skating—it’s the equivalent of tourist ice skating.
The good news for the team and the island is that anyone with cash to, quite literally, burn, has shown up tonight. Tickets for the arena are supposed to be extremely expensive close to the ice in the premium seats to make the ones higher up much cheaper for the general population of the country. The tiered system isused for lots of events, but the wealth gap in the seats mirrors the one in the country—tickets for thousands of dollars and others for a few dollars. Like anything tied to money and status in Bellerive, the pricing has generated discussion, a bit of buzz. Those who have the money have already bought season tickets in the most expensive sections as a flex.
“When do the hot hockey players arrive?” Ava asks, staring mournfully at the door, a blue drink already in her hand. Her pale-blue dress is low-cut and clings to every inch of her curvy frame.
“They’re not going to invest in one of your businesses,” I say, eyeing her.
“There’s only one thing I want them sinking into, and it’s not any of my business plans.” She gives me a sly smile and tips back her drink. “I need another one.”
She weaves through the crowd, and I sincerely wonder if it’s possible for anyone in the world to tame her.
“Ava told me she plans to see how many of the hockey bros she can sample in the first year,” Hollyn, my brother Nathaniel’s wife, says, appearing at my other side to pass me a drink.
“As long as she stays away from the married ones,” I mutter.
“I thought her and Stephen Foster were a thing,” Hollyn says, her gaze appearing to follow Ava as she breezes around the room, mingling, laughing, moving on.
“The police officer? I try really hard not to think about that or ask about it,” I admit. “Ava downplays whatever has happened between them, and I’m not sure he feels the same.”
“She doesn’t like him?”
“More like she likes money, and Stephen will never have enough of it. She’d kill me for saying it, but she’s status obsessed like our mother.”
“That’s a shame,” Hollyn says, her voice quiet. “Ava’s also the only one who’s still talking to your mother, right?”
“Yep,” I say, taking a long drink. “None of us want anything to do with her after she deliberately kept you and Nathaniel apart for years. Her interference with Ember and Gage was a bit sketchy, too, but it felt forgivable at the time, since Ember was able to stay on the island after all. She’s been walking a fine line with us kids for most of our lives. Claiming to be protective of us while really just protecting her reputation.” The words coming out of my mouth are bitter. I know all that about my mother, and yet I was incapable of recognizing the same manipulative behavior elsewhere.
“Have you met your new charge yet? Logan, isn’t it?”
“Logan Bishop. Twenty-one. Top scorer. A forward—whatever that means. I know nothing about hockey.”
“No one on this island knows anything about hockey.”
“King Alex wanted to get Queen Rory a rink so badly, he did whatever it took to make it happen.”
“I always find it so funny that you call the king and queen by their nicknames.”
“They’re just people,” I say, “but I am more careful with formality when I’m out in Bellerive society. Too many people care too much about all of it.”
Trumpets—actual trumpets—sound, and I shake my head at the ridiculous lengths my father and Alex are prepared to go to usher in this new era in Bellerive. I wish I had faith that it would stick, but worrying about the viability of a professional WHL team on the island isn’t part of any job description I’d want.
The hockey team makes their way down the royal gauntlet, as I like to call it, which is really just a receiving line of a king, his mother, his two younger brothers, their wives, and their children. Alex, Rory, their young daughter Grace, Alex’s mother, Nick, Jules, toddler Amelia, Brice, and Maren.
In two months, Maren will officially be a Summerset royal. Seems hard to believe one of my little sisters will be on her second marriage when I’ve never even come close to a first.
Though, that’s not really true—I’d been close to making a bad decision, just like Maren made the first time. Painfully, painfully close.
“Do you know which one is him?” Hollyn asks.
