Page 119 of Secrets on Ice

“I know.”

“We are out in the clubs. I haven’t been in years.” Her eyes are wide.

“I know.”

“In a VIP booth, Ember, with free bottles.”

“I know!”

I was never a big clubber, but I am having the best time with the girls. Violetta lines up shots we absolutely do not need. Collette dances with her hands in the air, and her wedding rings glittering under the lights. Evelina takes about four hundred photos. The music is loud enough that my brain finally, mercifully shuts up, and I dance in the booth, laughing until my face aches. I don't think about anything, and it's the best I've felt in longer than I can remember.

Which is when the guy shows up.

He appears at the edge of the booth with a drink in his hand and asks Marlowe something I can't hear. She waves him in, and then he's looking at me. He's cute, really cute, with dark hair, a good jaw, and a smile he definitely knows the value of. He leans in close so I can hear him over the music and tells me his name, and I lose it immediately.

“Can I get you a drink?” he says.

“I've got a whole bottle.”

He laughs like it's the funniest thing he's heard all night, and then he stays, and we talk, and I don't remember a single thing either of us says. What I remember is that he keeps looking at me like I'm the only person in the room, and that nobody has looked at me like that in a very long time, and that I'm drunk enough not to run the tape of every reason this is stupid.

Cassidy appears on my other side. “Dance with him,” she says in my ear.

“Cass.”

“Ember.” She grabs my shoulders and physically turns me toward the floor. “Go. I'll be right here.”

So, I go. And he can actually dance, which is more than I can say for most men I have ever met. His hands are warm at my waist, the music is good, and I'm laughing, and in the middle of all of it he leans down and kisses me, and I let him.

It's nice. Just nice. Not a rip-your-clothes-off kind of kiss Sully gives me. A nice kiss from a stranger who doesn't know one single thing about me. No history. Nothing. This is what Cassidy meant. This is me, getting back out there. I can do this. I pull back, smiling, and turn toward the booth to find her, to give her the look.

And that's when I see him.

Sully.

Standing at the edge of our booth with Bouch, Evan, Nelly, and Fish. He isn't looking at the booth, or the girls that are surrounding them. He's looking at me, those blue eyes narrowing at the man whose hands are on my waist.

Shit.

Even across a dark, crowded club, I know that face. I have known that face my whole life. It’s the one he wears on the ice when he is about to kill the competition. His jaw is tight, his shoulders are set, and he looks like he is about to put him into the boards. Then a girl in a tiny dress steps into his space and puts a flat hand on his chest, and another one appears beside her, and the boys disappear into a crowd of women who have found the hockey players, and just like that I can't see him anymore. The stranger's hands are still on my waist, and the music is still going. Everyone around me is still having the best night of their lives.

And I'm not having fun anymore.

31

SULLY

This is Fish's fault.

We were fine at Murphy's. We were having a good night, a couple of beers, the boys still yelling about Cap getting engaged, and Bouch upset because he hasn’t found a woman yet but also complaining that he doesn’t want to settle down yet. Perfectly good night.

Then Fish looks at his phone and says, “Collette's at some club with the girls. No man better think they can touch my woman.” Forty minutes later here we are, five grown men walking into a club because Justin Crawford cannot be separated from his wife for one evening.

“You're pathetic,” Bouch tells him.

“Fuck you. You’re just jealous.”

“Facts,” Nelly teases Bouch, which earns him a finger.