First Meeting
Maggie
Five Years Ago
Ihadn’t even seen him at first.
There had been one thing on my mind when I burst into the locker room that night: a mission to complete. And I knew it wouldn’t be an easy one, considering how much I was asking of someone who gave so little.
I wasn’t blaming Liam for that. I never could. Not after I’d seen the way the world had treated him since he entered the public eye.
They’d dehumanized him, sexualized him, made him into some caricature of himself that was far less appealing than my real, flesh-and-blood brother.
He did his job and played damn well for our city, and all he asked for in return was privacy.
And here I was, coming in to ask him to give that up.
Only temporarily, I justified.
I wouldn’t have asked if it were anyone else. But I loved Cassie as much as I loved Liam, and I didn’t trust her in anyone’s care but his.
For all his flaws, he was good. In his heart and mind, he was good.
And once he set his eyes on Cassie, he’d be as softened by her as everyone was. She had that effect on people, and the funny thing was—I didn’t even think she knew it.
And even though my brother had higher defenses than a national-security prison, if anyone had a shot at breaking through them, it would be Cassie.
He would take care of her, I was sure of it.
It was just getting him to agree to it that was going to be the problem.
So, I launched into the story, preying on the sympathy factor that most humans with a heart would experience after hearing the way my best friend had been treated by her long-term boyfriend.
Liam, seemingly unimpressed, apparently wasn’t the only one listening to me air Cassie’s dirty laundry.
“Oh, that blows,” a voice called from the background, alerting me to the fact that my brother and I weren’t the only ones in the locker room.
I turned, and there he was.
I fought the urge to widen my eyes at the sight of him, standing there with freshly showered hair and puppy-dog brown eyes.
He was attractive, but so many of the hockey boys were. It didn’t mean anything. I was immune to a pretty face. Because I knew that it never really meant anything. In fact, the more beautiful the boys were, the bigger the asshole they usually turned out to be.
Still, I couldn’t resist a good banter.
“Right?” I grinned at him, taking the opportunity to give him the quickest of look-overs.
He was tall. Not as tall as Liam, but taller than most guys. And he was handsome. In that department, he was definitely above average.
I turned, determined to refocus my attention back to the task at hand. I opened my mouth to speak when Liam’s teammate’s voice beat me to the punch.
“Like I said, girls love dickheads.”
“What?” I spun to face him again.
Did he say that because he was a dickhead and knew from experience? God, I hoped not.
Why do I hope not? It doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t. I’m never going to see him again.
But when he blushed—really and genuinely blushed—I knew with a profound certainty that this boy I didn’t know might be many things, but a dickhead was not one of them.
“Nothing,” he responded quickly, seemingly shy that I even noticed him at all. “Forget I said anything.”
Yeah, that won’t be happening.
I went through the motions with Liam, finishing the conversation until he finally relented, and I left without sparing the beautiful boy so much as a second glance.
But that didn’t mean I forgot him.
Not even close.