16. Levi
Chapter 16
Levi
“T here they are.”
Brody approaching us with his arms stretched out. Milo walking along next to him.
He reaches me first and gives me a chest bump. “Hey, brother. Thanks for coming out.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I say with a terse grin.
“Yeah, you would,” he teases, before approaching Sienna and Julian behind me.
“Sienna,” Brody says warmly. “I am so happy you came.”
I watch as they hesitate in front of each other, then go in for what might be the most awkward hug I’ve ever seen.
“Thanks for having us,” Sienna says nervously.
Brody turns to the guy next to her.
“And you must be cousin Julian.”
Julian apparently doesn’t believe in personal space, because he pulls Brody in for a massive hug.
He nearly knocks the air out of my friend. Milo stands next to his hip to stabilize himself since he doesn’t have his cane. He only ever uses it at home.
“You have no idea how excited I am to get to be here,” Julian says, practically jumping up and down.
Brody laughs as he pulls away.
“You a fan, son?”
“A fan? Are you kidding me? I’ve been following the Thunderhawks versus Heatwave rivalry since I was a kid.”
“By the looks of it, you still are a kid,” Brody says, all smiles.
“Po-tae-toh po-tah-to,” Julian says with a shrug.
“Well, either way, I’m happy to hear it. Every time the Houston Heatwave makes it into our arena, we want the loudest fans here to hype up our boys. They play better the louder you scream.”
Brody winks.
“Oh, I can scream,” Julian assures him.
“Please don’t encourage him,” Sienna says from the side of her mouth, playfully nudging her enthusiastic cousin.
Brody turns to the team of staff members that have suddenly appeared along the walls of the hallway. Each one has a big bag of what I can only assume is Thunderhawk merch.
“A present,” Brody says, motioning them forward.
He takes one of the bags. “To old friends,” he says, handing me a bag. Then he grabs two more and turns to Sienna and Julian. “And new.”
Sienna blushes at the gesture.
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you,” she says to her dad.
Brody gives her a warm smile.
His dimples playing around both corners of his mouth. I look at Sienna as she brushes a piece of hair behind her ear and looks down shyly.
She has Brody’s same dimples.
“Well, that’s nothing,” Brody says. “Just wait until you see the seats we got for you.”
“Wait. Are you not going to be joining us?” I ask him, brow raised.
“Not the whole time, unfortunately,” he says with a flick of his wrist. “I’ve gotta work. But I’ll be around.”
Sienna’s gaze flashes to me momentarily.
So it’ll be just us… again.
Julian whoops as he digs through his bag and pulls out a number fourteen jersey.
“Whaaat?! These are like four hundred dollars online.”
“That’s our boy Hicks. One of the fastest forwards on the team. Now that’s a trade I will always be proud of,” Brody says, hands slipped casually into his pocket. He pulls one out and looks at the time. “We actually have some time before the game. Y’all wanna meet the players?”
Julian and Sienna exchange looks.
Sienna says, “Oh, that’s okay,” at the same time Julian jumps up and down with a “Hell yeah!”
“I guess if it’s not too much,” Sienna says. She seems almost uncomfortable. Not the typical spitfire, she is around the garage.
Julian pulls his fist to his waist, “Yesss! I can’t wait to get this signed.”
Brody motions for us to follow him down the hall, and before long, we’re standing in the middle of a sea of dark blue and grey jerseys.
“Everyone,” Brody says. “These are my friends, Sienna and Julian.”
Julian goes around shaking every single player's hand. And Sienna stands next to me, unmoving. She lifts her hand in salutation.
“And y’all know my brother from another mother, Levi Steele.”
Grunts of acknowledgement all around, and I nod to them.
“You bringing in the cavalry, boss man?”
A guy with wavy brown hair and eyes the color of the ocean says playfully. He’s shirtless and fitter than I ever was at that age. He slips on a long-sleeved shirt just as I catch Sienna eyeing him.
“Oh, my God!” Julian makes his way over to the guy. “You’re Joshua Hicks!"
The guy smiles, and unfortunately for me, it’s dazzling.
He must be new around here. I’m sure I would’ve remembered seeing that smile. I switch my posture, trying not to show that I’m uncomfortable.
“Would you sign my jersey for me?” Without even waiting for a reply, he shoves the fresh jersey onto Joshua’s chest.
The player laughs.
“Sure, man. But only if you promise me one thing…” He says a little more seriously.
“Anything,” Julian says, resolute.
Joshua reaches behind him for a permanent marker on the shelf of his stall.
“Promise me, that the second Keelan Landry skates onto the ice tonight, you boo him to the point of making him cry.”
Sienna looks at me questioningly, and I shrug.
But Julian seems to be in on some inside joke because he laughs, giving the guy a chest bump, and they snap.
“Done. It’s a deal.”
“Thanks, Julian,” the guy says, as he focuses on scribbling his autograph onto the jersey, then looks up at Sienna and smiles as he hands Julian his jersey back.
I instantly bristle. I know his game.
Immediately, Julian sheds his Thunderhawks t-shirt and slips the jersey on, smoothing it down his stomach in admiration.
“Alright, boys,” Brody says, already at the door to the locker room. “Y’all kick major ass out there. They don’t know what’s coming.”
“No mercy!” The team chants back like a battalion getting ready for war.
“No mercy,” Brody says with a fist in the air.
He taps Milo on the head as he makes his way out of the room, and we follow close behind.
Julian whispers-squeals to Sienna, “He knows my name!”
Sienna throws an arm over his shoulders, “Easy tiger.”
* * *
I lower into the empty arena seat next to Sienna with a grunt.
“This seat taken?” I ask, already sitting.
“Unfortunately not,” she mutters, gripping her soda like it’s the only thing keeping her from slapping me.
“Sienna–”
“I’m really not in the mood to get into it with you at the moment, Levi,” she says, cutting me off. “Let’s just watch the game and get this over with.”
The crowd roars as the players take the ice, and the bass from the arena speakers thrums in my chest.
I can feel the heat from Sienna’s thigh through my jeans, and it’s infuriating how my body reacts like it knows exactly what we want but refuse to act on.
The puck drops, but the noise from the crowd barely registers. Not when she’s next to me. Not when every breath I take fills my lungs with her scent. It’s something sweet and wild and sharp enough to cut through my defenses.
I try not to look at her. I really do.
But then it happens.
The guy behind us lunges forward, beer sloshing, and she jolts right into me.
There’s no time to think. No time to process.
Suddenly… she’s in my lap.
Not beside me. Not brushing shoulders.
On me.
Her weight knocks the breath out of me, but it’s the heat of her thighs straddling mine, the way her hands clutch at my chest like she’s trying to find something solid, that really sends me spiraling.
“Easy,” I manage, my voice rougher than it should be.
My hands find her waist, grip tight on instinct.
I shouldn’t touch her—not like this, but my fingers don’t get the memo. They flex once. Just once. Enough to remind me how fucking good she feels.
“I—sorry,” she breathes out, scrambling to move, but I don’t let go right away. I can’t.
“You okay?” I ask, because it’s the only thing I can think to say that isn’t stay.
“I’m fine.” She won’t meet my eyes, probably for the best.
If she did, she’d see everything I’ve been trying to bury.
We untangle ourselves slowly, awkwardly. She shifts off my lap, but the heat she leaves behind lingers like a brand on my skin.
She settles back into her seat, and Julian offers her a stack of napkins.
Meanwhile, every nerve in my body is lit up, every second dragging.
I can still feel the press of her thighs. The curve of her hips in my hands. The fucking chemistry buzzing between us like the air right before a lightning strike.
The arena is loud and just as promised, Julian and the other die-hard fans boo every single time the Heatwave team captain makes it onto the ice.
She looks even more uncomfortable here than in the locker room, probably because we’re so close to all the action.
When Brody said we had great seats, I assumed it was up top, away from the crowd in some kind of box seating situation.
Apparently, in hockey, great seats are right up against the glass. We can practically feel the sweat from the team as they shake their hair out between line changes.
I try to focus on the game. On anything. But then I glance over and see she’s chewing her lip. Looking anywhere but at me. Until she finally does.
Her brows cinch together… pain.
And I break.
“Wanna get some air?” I ask, my voice low.
She nods before I even finish the sentence.
She leans over to Julian, who's so glued to the game, I don’t think he registers what she’s saying. He nods and jumps out of his seat just as the Thunderhawks make a shot on goal.
Sienna looks at me and just shrugs.
So I stand and lead the way through the crowd. Past vendors, drunk fans, and cattle bells that are currently giving me a migraine.
My jaw’s tight, hands fisted. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, only that if I sit next to her one second longer pretending I don’t want her, I’ll explode.
We use our VIP passes to enter a dim hallway behind the suites, where the hum of the arena is just background noise.
The door clicks shut behind us, and I turn to her.
She starts to say my name.
It’s soft and unsure.
“Don’t.”
I back her into the wall, our bodies close. Her breath hitches as she looks up at me, eyes dancing with mischief like she wants this.
“You can’t look at me like that, Sienna,” I say, my voice like sandpaper.
She lifts her chin.
“Would you prefer I look at Joshua Hicks like that instead, Captain. ”
There she goes, hitting every button like she knows exactly which ones will make me combust.
She noticed me noticing her.
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to find some kind of control.
But it’s gone. She took it the second she landed in my lap and looked at me like she felt it too.
“I keep telling myself to stay away,” I mutter. “But you keep showing up in all the places you don’t belong. At my shop. At my poker games. In my goddamn lap. And I’m running out of excuses.”
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me like a woman who holds all the power.
Because she fucking does. And she knows it.
“That sounds like a you problem, Levi.”
I let out a heavy sigh.
Because it very much is a me problem. The problem is that I want a woman nearly half my age. A woman whose father happens to be my closest friend.
And now she’s working for me.
It’s fucked up on so many levels.
“Look,” she says. My eyes falling to her pouty lips for a split second. “I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that I’ve thought about us doing… more.”
“More what?”
She reaches for the buckle of my belt and pulls me toward her so that our bodies are touching.
“Don’t play coy, Levi. I may be young, but I’m not innocent.”
I lower my head so that our faces are nearly touching.
“Don’t stoke a fire you don’t want to burn, Sienna.”
“What if I want to burn?” she says.
For one suspended moment, we just stand there.
The tension between us is pulsing. Building. Then a door slams down the hall.
Footsteps. Voices.
I swear and step back, just enough to breathe.
“We should get back,” I say, even though every part of me is screaming to do the opposite. “Before someone notices.”
“Yeah,” she says, barely more than a whisper.
The disappointment drips from her lips.
We nod at the Thunderhawk staff as they walk past us with suspicious looks.
“Come on,” I say, taking her hand and heading out the way we came.
We walk back side by side, and I drop her hand the second we’re in sight of people. But as we pass through the crowd, her fingers brush mine.
And this time, I don’t pull away. I let my body feel the full heat of being so close to hers.
As we make our way back to the seats, my head spins at her admission.
And I hate that I have to continue to be a bigger man.
I hate that the past has taught me not to take risks.
When I do, I end up losing.
Even if in the moment it feels like a win. Life’s taught me better.
Sienna is young. She hasn’t learned that lesson yet.
But as I watch her touch her lips as she watches the game… I wish, for once, I could just be reckless and give her what she wants.