Page 25

Behind me I hear the camera guy start to angle in, and I give him a look over my shoulder that I usually save for opposing defensemen. The fucker finds something else to film.

By the fourth lap, she's not holding my finger anymore. By the sixth, she's shuffling on her own, arms out, tongue between her teeth in concentration.

"Look!" she yells at her mom. "LOOK, MOMMY!"

"I see you, baby!"

The kid wobbles off into the crowd of children, forgetting I exist entirely, which I guess is the whole point.

But when I straighten up, I feel eyes burning in the back of my head.

I turn around mid-ice to catch Audrey watching me from the boards. She looks away fast, suddenly fascinated by her tablet, but not fast enough.

And that's when I notice something else.

She's spent two hours out here handing hot chocolate to shivering kids, hand warmers to parents and a goddamn pretzel to Coach Dave, who saluted her with his thermos, but she hasn't eaten a single thing herself.

I skate off, unlace my skates at the bench, and walk to Zoey's blue market stall.

"One salted-caramel brownie," I say. "And a hot chocolate. No whipped cream."

Zoey stares at me for a second, then slides the brownie across the counter with a smile that knows entirely too much. "There you go. I'll get the hot chocolate."

I carry the loot back through the crowd and plant it directly on top of Audrey's tablet.

She blinks at it, then looks up at me, and fuck. I forgot how stunning her eyes were up this close.

"What's this?" Audrey asks.

"Food. You've fed the entire mountain but eaten nothing yourself."

Audrey picks up the cup and inspects it. "No whipped cream?"

"Of course not," I say. "You only scrape it off anyway."

She looks up at me slowly, and there's something in her face that's caught between laughing and being genuinely thrown. "That is an alarming level of observation you've got going on there, Stratton."

"I'm a captain. I observe things."

"And that includes my whipped cream habits?"

"I observe everything about—" I stop myself just in time. Drawing a deep breath, I manage to regroup. "—my team."

Audrey lifts the brownie to her mouth and bites slowly, blue eyes fixed on mine as caramel stretches between the brownie and her lower lip before her tongue catches it.

My entire body tightens as I imagine that tongue somewhere significantly less public.

“How is it?” I ask, though my voice comes out all rough and strained.

“Delicious.” She takes another bite. The woman knows exactly what she’s doing. “You want some?”

Yes.

But not the brownie.

Audrey holds it toward me, and instead of taking it from her, I lean down and bite the corner closest to her fingers. Her breath catches when my mouth brushes her thumb.

“There,” I say, licking my lips and tasting chocolate. “Happy?”