dance?” I asked, motioning to the men at the table around us, and the women perched on the barstools.
“Trust me, the women need a break from you idiots,” the bartender said with a quick smile, blowing a kiss to the guy across the table—Sawyer McCoy, the goalie.
“They won’t let us over there,” Cannon Price grumbled, eyeing his little blonde wife like he could fuck her from fifteen feet away if he tried hard enough. “They said it’s girls’ night. On a Tuesday.”
They all cursed under their breath.
Hockey players were weird.
“So you’ve all played together for years,” I guessed, taking in the close-knit group that had taken pity on me, seeing as I had yet to make any close friends on the Cougars.
“For the most part,” Sawyer answered as a guy with short, black hair and gray eyes took the seat at the edge of the booth. “Sterling here just came back to us.” Sawyer lifted his bottle of water in salute.
“It was a long three years, but man it’s good to be back.” He grinned and stuck out his hand. “Jansen Sterling. Goalie. Nice to meet you.”
“Hendrix Malone. I can’t skate.” I shook his hand.
He laughed. “We can solve that problem for you.” He settled into the booth like it was his second home. “I hear you’re one hell of a wide receiver.”
“With one hell of a pain tolerance if my twin is one of his friends,” Nathan added.
The rest of the booth laughed.
“Damn, I missed you guys,” Sterling said before taking a drink.
“I’m still pissed at Silas for letting you go,” Sawyer muttered, rolling his bottle between his hands.
“He didn’t have a choice!” Of course, Nathan defended his one-day brother-in-law. “It’s not like he could put us all on the protected list. Expansion drafts are…” he threw his hands up. “What they are.”
“Seriously, Bangor wasn’t that bad,” Sterling added with a shrug. “I learned a lot, and Silas paid a shit ton to get me back here. Don’t be pissed at him. He did everything he could and went way above and beyond.” He grinned. “Besides, you should see how fast my glove is now.”
The bells on the door sounded, and when I looked up, there were two new guys at the bar with a brunette between them.
The entire mood of the table shifted, lowered.
“Apparently, not fast enough,” Sterling muttered, his eyes locked on the woman’s back. “Fuck my life. I swear to God, if she’s actually dating him—dating either of them, I’m going to puke on the fucking table.”
“Please don’t,” Cannon said without so much as lifting an eyebrow.
“You could try talking to her,” Sawyer suggested. “Novel idea, I know, but sometimes it works.”
Sterling peeled the label from his bottle and glared toward the bar. “I can’t believe he fucking signed him.”
“Now who’s being too hard on Silas?” Cannon asked. “You weren’t exactly open about your relationship.”
“She’s fucking perfect,” Sterling snapped quietly. “Gorgeous, and smart, and really damned nice, which is nothing he deserves.”
The first guy turned at the bar, his gaze sweeping the room until he found Sterling, then narrowing. Interesting.
“I’m going to smash this bottle over his head if he comes over here,” Sterling mumbled.
“It’s plastic,” the quiet guy with a neck full of tattoos that was tame compared to Cannon’s said from the end of the table.
Briggs, I mentally reminded myself. Introductions had been fast tonight.
“Then I’ll hit him really fucking hard, okay?” Sterling sent a glare back to the bar that told me he’d do exactly that. There was some bad blood here.
“Look, I’ll bury a body. I’m down for it. But you’re the one who has to explain his disappearance at practice,” Briggs answered with a shrug.
There was something familiar about the girl—the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Man up and go get your woman. Unless you don’t actually want her to be your woman,” Briggs suggested before taking a swig of his beer. Guess he wasn’t on the water-only train.
The woman turned to face us, her smile freezing on her face as her eyes locked with mine.
No fucking way.
Now the hulking figure on her other side made sense.
“And say what? Get away from—”
“Her brother?” I interrupted without looking away from a pair of blue eyes that looked at me like I was a ghost.
“What?” Sterling shook his head. “No. My brother. Maxim Zolotov. The asshole she walked in with.”
“Your brother is Maxim Zolotov?” The name was right up there with Gretsky when