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He rolls a fresh roll of tape between his palms, slowly, over and over. "I would know."

I look at him. I think about the pucks Derek takes to the face and how fast he moves to the med room, and the year he's spent pretending he doesn’t like a particular doctor.

"How do you carry it?" The question comes out of me rough. "How?"

"Badly." A muscle ticks in his jaw, the closest Derek comes to a laugh. "Don't do it my way, Hunter."

He stands and claps me on the shoulder, and it lands like a check. "Her brother obviously knows. Tell her the rest. Before the secret hurts you both."

Then he's gone, carrying his own the way he always does, alone.

I sit by myself, my best friend's plea still ringing in my ears and I let myself think, the worst is done, her brother knows, now… Maybe it's time I tell her.

Maybe I'll stop teaching Margot how to love some other man. Maybe I'll hand her the truth instead and let her break my heart to my face.

Chapter 15: Margot

I'm on my brother the second he comes through the door of the family room, hair wet from the shower, with a thundercloud on his face he's worn since the fight.

"What did he say to you, Cade? What did Jax say out there?"

I've been pacing this ugly carpet with my heart lodged in my throat, replaying a fight I watched and couldn't hear one word of.

The fans couldn't hear it either, but they didn't need to. They saw my brother grab a fistful of Jax’s shirt and say something that turned both their faces inside out.

They saw the officials rip them apart. They saw Jax skate to the penalty box like a man walking away from a wreck he caused, and I’ve been dying ever since.

"You two were fighting and it wasn’t about the game." I catch his sleeve. "What happened, Cade?"

He looks at me. And it's the look that stops my heart, because I know my brother, and I’ve never seen this one before.

He's looking at me like I'm made of glass. Like something rearranged itself behind his eyes tonight and he's still moving through the dark bumping into the furniture.

"Sit down, Margot."

"I don't want to sit!"

"Sit down."

I sit, because he’s my brother. He lowers into the chair across from me, elbows on his knees, and drags both hands down his face.

"What happened on the ice stays on the ice." His voice comes out rough and careful. "That's between me and Jax."

"Between." I can't get a full breath, I start to tear up. It must be bad. I ruined everything with my plan. I hurt my brother, I hurt Jax. "Cade, you’ve never in your life kept a thing from me. You tell me everything."

"Not this time." The words are quiet and final. "You want to know what he said out there, you go ask Jax."

And that scares me worse than any answer he could have given me. Because my brother is protecting Jax from me, right now, to my face, and there’s exactly one reason on God's earth that Cade keeps a man's secret from his own sister.

He knows something. Something big enough to change everything.

"Now I've got a question for you." He lifts his head, eyes red-rimmed and steady on mine.

My stomach hits the floor. "Cade."

"At your dinner table, your boyfriend's name came up, and Jax flinched like you slapped him."

He watches me. "Ethan." He leans in. "When do I get to shake the guy's hand?"