Fire and Ice (Boston Bobcats #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

cameron

The list of things I’m allergic to is longer than a drugstore receipt, yet none of them make me as uncomfortable as small talk.

I adjust the cuffs of my dress shirt, breathing deeply to quell the panic, and pick up another bacon-wrapped scallop from a passing tray.

All the while I’m pretending to listen to this man as he bores me with stories about his kid.

Like I give a fuck. If the next time I see you will be at another charity event like this, why should I care about your thirty-six-month-old—just say three, for fuck’s sake—holding a back float in the pool?

I nod along, even though my brain checked out somewhere between “swim lessons” and “floaties shaped like unicorns.” Across from me, my teammate Cole nods like he’s got a vested interest in the story.

“Wow,” he says. “Freestyle?”

“Yep.” The man puffs up like he’s the one who did it. “We’ve been working on her breathing.”

I take a sip of my drink to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Good for her, but I came here to shake hands and fake a few smiles for a good cause, not hear a TED Talk on toddler breaststroke.

“She’s going to be an Olympian,” the guy adds, like we should ask for her autograph.

“No doubt,” Cole says with the same grin he uses for reporters. “Gold medals and cereal box covers are definitely in her future.”

I lean in close and mutter, “The gold medal for most annoying fuckwad goes—”

Cole elbows me without breaking his smile, the picture of polite interest as the guy across from us launches into another long-winded story.

Frowning, I scan the room, searching for an escape route, another drink, or both, ideally. The ballroom is packed to the brim with donors, fans, and executives, here to rub elbows with the reigning Stanley Cup champs and support the Boston Bobcats Foundation.

I’m about two seconds from pretending to get a phone call when Sloane, our team’s PR manager, moves through the crowd with her signature no-nonsense stride and that “I need to fix this problem before it blows up” look on her face.

She spots me and jerks her head to the left, summoning me.

I quickly excuse myself and take the out, meeting her off to the side.

Any gratitude I have for her interruption disappears when she greets me with: “Okay, so don’t get mad.”

I blink. “Continue.”

She takes a breath and straightens her shoulders as if preparing for impact. “You’ve been added to the live auction lineup. Congrats. One lucky attendee is going to win a date with you. For charity, obviously.”

My gut sinks. “No.”

Sloane doesn’t bat an eye at my brusque dismissal. “Sorry. You seem to be misunderstanding me, Cameron. I’m not asking you; I’m telling you.”

“And I’m telling you no.”

She raises a perfectly manicured brow. “Do you want to stomp your foot for good measure? Or can we move on from the back and forth so I can fill you in on the details?”

“Oh, it’s obvious what you need me to do.” I sip the last dregs of my drink, more desperate than ever for a refill. “And I’m not doing it.”

“It’s for charity.”

“I’ll just donate more money.”

She rolls her dark brown eyes. “Great, but that doesn’t get you out of the auction. We needed another name people would recognize.” She pats my chest like I’m a show pony. “C’mon, it won’t kill you to have dinner and drinks with a fan for an hour or two.”

“It may,” I tell her. Seriously. “Is donating a kidney an option?”

I only need one of them, right?

A bulky blond barrels into my side, a wild look in his blue eyes. “The British are coming, man! The British are fucking coming.”

Sloane tilts her head in question, but I shrug. I’ve got no idea what Logan is referring to. I rarely know what he’s yammering on about, but he typically doesn’t require a response, just a stage. That’s what makes our friendship work.

Still, I take the bait. “What are you talking about?”

He waves. “Didn’t you major in history? You should know Paul Revere’s famous line about—”

I rub my forehead. Shit, the conversation about the kids’ swimming class would be preferable to this. “I know what Paul Revere said, Logan, and it was ‘the Regulars are coming out.’ Most colonists still considered themselves British, so that phrase is more myth than fact.”

He studies me, brows furrowed, then shrugs. “I’m pretty sure you’re wrong, but whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that Gigi is here.”

The name sends a chill down my spine, and I take a full step back. Shit. “Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?”

“I tried. You’re the one who went all history professor on me and—”

“Boys, focus,” Sloane snaps. “Logan, Gigi’s here?”

Logan nods, his hair flopping against his forehead.

“Yup. She just walked in, and she’s already chitchatting away with a glass of wine in hand.

” He peers over his shoulder. “I bet it’s not even wine.

It’s probably a witch’s brew filled with children’s tears and virgin blood.

” With a deep breath, he turns his attention to Sloane completely, wagging an accusatory finger.

“If she’s back from the depths of hell, isn’t that something you should have known? ”

I’m wondering the same thing. Sloane is up to date on everything going on in our world, so the return of the owner’s granddaughter—who, oh yeah, happens to be my ex—should’ve been on her radar.

“I only found out this morning,” she says, scrutinizing me like I’m a bomb and she’s looking for signs that I’m about to detonate. “I hoped I’d have more time to figure out how to tell you without causing… this. And I obviously didn’t think she’d be here tonight.”

“Why is she back? I don’t actively hope that Sanders is dead, but if he is and she’s only in town for his funeral, I also wouldn’t be upset,” Logan says, tapping his black dress shoe in an increasingly quick tempo.

Sloane stares at him, a look of disgusted confusion on her face. “Did I just hear that correctly? You want the team owner dead?”

“No,” he replies. “But if she’s back for her grandpa’s funeral, that means she’s leaving again.”

I tune out the two of them and focus on breathing, trying to wrap my head around the actual issue at hand.

Gigi Sanders.

We were fire and gasoline from the start.

For a while I thought that meant passion, but now I realize it just meant destruction.

She’d twist my words until I doubted my own memory and get me to apologize for things I hadn’t done.

Every fight circled back to how I wasn’t enough.

How I was too closed off, too cold, too focused on hockey.

She accused me of cheating every time the team traveled, turning my phone into evidence and my teammates into suspects.

I bent over backward, trying to prove my loyalty and defending myself against accusations I never deserved.

Then I found out she’d been sleeping with someone else for months. One of my ex-teammates.

The irony would’ve been funny if it hadn’t gutted me. I spent so many nights on the phone for hours, missing team dinners, so I could reassure her, explaining every text and every conversation, and in the end, she was the one who’d already checked out.

The day I finally ended it, a switch inside me shut off permanently.

Now she’s back, and I have no idea what her angle is.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Sloane murmurs, more to herself than to us.

“What?” Logan asks.

If our PR manager hadn’t been a friend since before I signed with the Bobcats, I probably wouldn’t recognize the brief glimmer of panic in her eyes. “Gigi’s going to bid on the date with you.”

Logan squawks, his eyes going comically wide. “His cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs ex is here, and you offered him up to be trotted around like some spring chicken at a market?”

“Spring chicken?” I jerk back. “Seriously? You couldn’t have said prize ox or something?”

The fucker winks at me.

“As I said, I didn’t know she’d be here,” Sloane says to him, ignoring his outburst. “We need to focus on ensuring that she doesn’t win a date with Cameron… right?”

I shoot her a scathing look, offended that she’d even suggest I still hold a flame for my ex-girlfriend. The only flame I carry for her is left over from the burning hell she put me through.

God that sounds dramatic. I’ve been friends with Logan for too long.

“Right.”

“Fuck, okay. We just need someone to outbid her,” Sloane says, her words full of determination but also a hint of desperation. I didn’t make her job easy when Gigi and I broke up, considering I’m curt and burly on a good day.

“Maya would do you a solid and bid on you, but Cole would kill you,” Logan muses, tapping his chin.

“It can’t be Sophie. That’d be too Game of Thrones Lannister-esque if you catch my drift.

Jake might bid on you, but since neither of you bat for my team, I don’t know how viable of an option that is. ”

My jaw hinges open. “The only three options you can think of are our captain’s girlfriend, my sister, and my best friend? Seriously?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m your best friend, not Jake, and sorry, but you don’t have many female friends, Cameron. Even your list of male friends is alarmingly short.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I grumble. “We don’t even know for sure that she’ll bid on me.”

Logan chuckles like I’m an idiot. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this not the ex-girlfriend who hid an AirTag in your equipment bag to track your movements because she was convinced you were cheating on her?

You. A man with the social skills of a sloth on painkillers and zero free time. Or the ex-girlfriend who—”

I hold up a hand. “Point taken.”

“What about Kennedy?” Sloane suggests. “She’s here and single.”

If Gigi’s name sends a spike of fear through me, Kennedy’s does the exact opposite.

It’s not relief, exactly. More like a hum under my skin, low and constant and impossible to ignore.

With Gigi, I always felt like I was scrambling to catch up, to say the right thing, to stay in her good graces.

Kennedy? She just… is. I’ve spent a decent amount of time around the blond baker since her best friend Maya started dating Cole, and never once have I felt like I had to perform for her approval.

She knows who she is, and that certainty creates space for everyone around her to be themselves.

I scan the crowd as if saying her name will magically conjure her. Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t spotted her yet. Kennedy walks into every room like she owns it. People notice her. They turn. They make room. They gravitate to her like she’s the sun.

“Why is she here?” I ask, my tone sharper than intended.

“Crumb & Co. donated a personalized dessert experience to the silent auction,” Sloane says.

“There was a silent auction, and you volunteered me for the live one?” I ask, not bothering to lower my tone. “What the fuck, Sloane?”

“High. Ticket. Item,” she says, punctuating each word with a poke to the chest.