Because the man currently cradling Mabeline Mae Rose against his chest at the far end of the rink is someone who absolutely, categorically, should not be here.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
My heart skips once. Twice. A third time that sends a sharp pain through my sternum. The realization does not arrive all at once. It seeps in, slow and poisonous, settling into my bloodstream like ice water injected directly into my veins.
Around me, confusion erupts.
"Wait a damn fucking minute." Dillon skids to a stop beside me, his helmet pushed back, his eyes squinted at the far boards. "Is that... Rafe?"
"It looks like Rafe," another teammate mutters, leaning over the boards. "Like an older Rafe. A bigger Rafe. A Rafe who got hit with a growth ray and a jawline upgrade."
"Is that his Dad?"
"His Dad wouldn't be at this school wearing skates, you dummy. What kind of father shows up to a college rink in full gear?"
"A cool one?"
"Shut up, Marcus."
Everyone is wondering. Whispering. Craning their necks and squinting across the rink at the tall figure holding Mae like she weighs absolutely nothing. Theories bounce between them like a puck in open play, each one more ridiculous than the last.
But I do not need theories.
I know exactly who he is.
Obviously.
It is my older fucking brother.
Raphaël Calder Beaumont.
Three years my senior. Same stormy gray eyes, same bone structure, same arrogant tilt to his chin that makes you want to either punch him or follow him into battle. But taller. Broader. With dark auburn hair where mine is lighter, and a physical presence that fills a room the way my bravado tries to but never quite manages.
Raphaël left when he was five.
Gifted. That was the word our parents used. Gifted and selected for an accelerated academic program in Paris that would give him opportunities no school in North America could match. He was shipped across the Atlantic with a suitcase and a tutor and a future already mapped out for him by people who saw his potential and decided it belonged to France.
I was two years old when he left.
I do not remember saying goodbye. I do not remember his face, his voice, or whether he hugged me before he went. All I remember is growing up in the aftermath of his departure, in a house that still had his bedroom decorated exactly how he left it, with parents who spoke his name with a reverence they never applied to mine.
Raphaël is doing so well in Paris. Raphaël scored the highest marks in his class. Raphaël was selected for the junior leadership program. Raphaël. Raphaël. Raphaël. The golden son who conquered Europe while the spare held down the fort and tried not to feel invisible in the shadow of a ghost who sent Christmas cards in French.
I was thankful he was gone.
I will admit that freely and without shame. His absence was my oxygen. Without Raphaël in the picture, I was the Beaumont son. The one who mattered in the spaces he occupied. The one who ruled the ice, captained the teams, collected the trophies and the praise and the recognition that would have been diluted to nothing if my genius brother had been standing beside me.
Hockey was mine.
Every predawn practice since I was six. Every broken finger taped up and skated on. Every concussion I downplayed because missing a game meant someone else might take my spot and prove I was not as indispensable as I needed to believe. I built my entire identity on the ice because the ice did not know Raphaël's name. The ice did not compare me to a brother studying at the Sorbonne. On the ice, I was not the spare. I was the captain. The fastest. The best. The one they cheered for because there was no one standing next to me to draw their eyes away.
He was in Paris and Europe. They did not care about sports like hockey over there. At least, that is what I assumed. That is what I told myself every time I stepped onto the ice andpretended the cheers were filling a void that had nothing to do with a brother I barely knew.
That assumption is currently disintegrating in real time.
Because Raphaël is here. At Valenridge University. On the ice. In skates that look professional-grade. Holding an Omega in his arms with the casual confidence of a man who has done this before, who knows how to plant his blades and absorb a full-speed collision without losing his balance or his composure.
