Sugar and Ice - RJ Scott Page 0,16

be a fine alternate captain in a few years. Surely you realize that you must prove yourself a loyal Raptor before we bestow a letter on you?”

I stepped up beside him, watching his emotions dance over his face. He really was incredibly beautiful in the moonlight. I jerked my sight from him, forcing my gaze back to the cement cherub.

“Yeah, I guess I get that, but you’re supposed to be above all the petty shit. It doesn’t matter what I do in my private life, as long as it doesn’t affect my playing, so what is with the attitude from you? Did I piss on your feet in a former life or something?”

“I’m not sure I even believe in reincarnation.”

“Dude, it was just a saying. Damn, you Russians are so literal. Like hanging out with Drax.”

“I don’t know anyone called Drax—”

“From Guardians of the— You know what, I’m not even going there.”

I needed to get control of this conversation again, because there was definitely something amiss with Tate. “Perhaps we Russians wouldn’t need to be so literal if you Americans didn’t speak in confusing circles full of double meanings and local flavorings.”

That made him glance my way. Which, with the moon captured in his dark eyes and his hair dancing in the dry desert wind, was the tiny spark that would ignite a wildfire. His lips parted. My gaze touched on his mouth, the full lower lip, the divot above his upper lip, and the light scruff he wore so well.

“Zorya has blessed you with the beauty of the evening star.” He blinked at me as if I’d just said he were a three-headed, groat-stealing goat. “I…you are not an idiot. I am the idiot.”

I reached up to run my fingers along his stubbly jaw. He didn’t run or punch me in the throat or kick me in the balls. He stood there with the stars and moon illuminating his face. And I knew that this moment was already terribly out of hand, yet I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down a few inches to brush my lips over his.

Chapter Five

Tate

I reared back from the almost-kiss, the tender touch of his lips to mine.

“Fuck you,” I snapped, and cast a look around me. Was I being punked?

“No I—”

I turned on my heel and left by the nearest exit, heading down the hill until I came to a seating area with a low wall completely blocked by bushes. I’d just about reached the limit of shit being thrown at me today, and yet I’d still come to this party, just to prove to the team that none of what Lacey said in public was true, or at least that I didn’t care what she said.

When she’d signed up for that stupid hockey girlfriends reality show I hadn’t even known about it, but at first it had been okay. She’s gushed over me as her fiancé, told the world I was the same behind closed doors as I was outside. Respectful, loving, a good friend. Then things began to slip. Rita Dremin, married to the dog-loving Joe from the San Diego Suns, began to tell stories about her husband, and his dogs, and the fact they were trying for a baby, and things shifted. No longer was Lacey the star of the show because she was engaged to the Tate Collins, phenom, apple pie guy, because that Tate freaking Collins was boring.

So she’d lied, and inside those lies were truths that she’d guessed along the way.

I’d told her that Devin, the C of Dallas, was being hard on us at practice for no reason. In the show she’d made up a story about Devin going nuclear and how everyone was scared of him. She’d even dabbed her eyes for the camera because she was scared for her poor, sweet Tate, pouting that some captains shouldn’t be allowed to run their teams by fear.

I’d never said that. I’d never even thought that. But it was the first in so many lies she’d told, that there was no longer any distance between me and the mistruths that people heard. She’d told everyone that I collected Star Wars figures, well fuck, is that a crime? Only she told this lie that I’d stolen from a kid at a hospital visit, but she’d told it as a joke, and worst of all she’d implied the kid was dying anyway.

She was a vile human who just wanted the limelight.

Thank god the show had ended, because with things