Chapter Nine
Maddie
One of the other guys on the team helps me up as I continue laughing, all while my cousin smirks at me like he’s done something impressive. The only impressive thing about that oaf is the size of his forehead.
“Why are you staring at my forehead?” he wonders, his smile dropping as he narrows those matching blue eyes on me.
I smirk while I continue to stare, because giving him a complex just before practice is always fun. When suspicion builds in his expression, and I can tell my staring is getting to him, my grin forms.
“Knock it off,” he demands, an obvious warning in his tone as he points his hockey stick in my direction.
Obviously, I don’t. Sure, I’m an only child, since Mom and Dad were happy enough to deal with raising a hellion like me, their words, not mine, but I’ve never been lacking in the pseudo-sibling department.
Morgan, along with his sister, Billie, and brother, Denton, have always been more like siblings than cousins.
We argue and aggravate one another as such, but it’s all done with love, which is why I keep staring at a particular spot on his forehead, going so far as to squint at it.
“What? What the hell are you looking at?” Morgs blurts, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm, looking down at his white and blue jersey as soon as his arm lowers.
It’s then that I strike, swiping out with my own hockey stick and sweeping his feet from under him again. The moment my cousin collides with the hard floor of ice beneath him, a chorus of laughter breaks out all around me.
Pointing my stick at him, grinning widely, I inform, “Make better choices, my dude. That was payback. I’m gonna have a wet spot on my ass until I get home now.”
“Fuck my life,” Morgan groans, huffing under his breath as he drops his head back with a shake that makes me snicker.
The rest of my cousin’s team comes over for more high-fives and pats on the back, enjoying the ridiculousness between me and my family. I mean, there’s never a dull moment, that’s for sure. We might be grown, but there’s always time to act a fool with one another. Aging doesn’t remove the silly.
Leaving my cousin on the floor, I skate over to my uncle, grinning when I spy him covering his mouth with his hand. I point at it, snickering, “I just know you found that as funny as I did.”
“I’ll deny it if anyone asks,” Mack volleys, wiping away the grin I know is hidden behind his palm, leaving a respectable smile in its place.
I flash him a grin before leaning on the board that surrounds the rink, removing my helmet as I turn to look over at Morgan, who’s currently being dragged around the rink by his blades once more, the guys chanting what a dumbass he is while they take him on an adventure across the ice.
I love it when the team follows in my footsteps.
My eyes stray to the two guys speaking to Lawson and Oscar, Morgan’s besties and extensions of him, because where there’s a Morgan Brady, there’s a Lawson Beckett and Oscar Nash, and the butterflies in my belly somersault, especially when Caiden laughs and Baxter grins at whatever shit Oscar is spewing.
Shaking my head, I turn back to my uncle, only to find him watching me closely enough that I instantly go on the defensive. “What? What’s that look for?”
“I’ll tell you what mine is if you explain what yours is,” he quips, eyeing me with a scheming smile I don’t like one bit.
The last time he wore that smile, Morgan and I were forced to do a photo shoot that advertised deodorant.
I don’t even know why I was dragged into it, since I’m far better behind the camera than in front of it.
My photo was plastered over countless magazines when the campaign ran, and I’ve always been wary of that damned smile ever since.
“What look? I didn’t have a look. Unless you’ve forgotten what amusement looks like. Because that’s what it is, especially since your son is currently taking on a lot of ice under his jersey,” I slowly answer, eyeing my uncle carefully. “What’s your look for?”
Mack snorts, but he does answer me. “Just looking at the expression on your face when you look at those two newbies. Don’t know which one takes your fancy, but let’s hope their dicks aren’t the size of a thumbtack.”
The bastard.
Shock has me snapping my head around to gape at my uncle, only it has a ripple effect that sends me teetering on the ice like a newborn deer.
With how my body moves, there’s no righting myself, and so, with arms flailing and body tilting, I lose my footing entirely and land heavily on the ice, hissing when the unforgiving floor catches my ass with a hearty thud.
My breath escapes with a whoosh of air the moment my back collides with the cold beneath me, knocking the wind out of me so thoroughly that not a single sound leaves my chest. Ice stings the skin between my leggings and shirt, scraping at the smooth skin with a sharp scratch, while my entire body bounces off the ice once before I’m left sprawled over it in a heap.
To add insult to injury, the hockey stick clutched in my hand goes flying into the air, using its newfound freedom to free-fall straight into my face, the thickest part of the stupid stick clocking me in my eyebrow before clattering against the ice.
“Oh, shit. You good, kiddo?” Mack rushes to ask, right before I hear several hisses that indicate several someones are coming to my rescue.
The one body I don’t expect, however, is that of a worried Caiden. I have no idea how he managed to get to me so quickly, one glance at his knees telling me more than words that the crazy man likely hauled himself over the barrier and skidded to my side.
“Fuck. Someone get a cloth or something,” he demands, scooping me up off the ice like I weigh next to nothing, placing my head on his sweatpants-covered lap while he peers down at me with a pinched brow and a tight mouth.
I open my mouth to ask what the hell the problem is when I feel a trickle of warmth spill from above my eye, slowly trailing down to my temple.
Enough injuries over my lifetime tell me that damned hockey stick has cut me, the pulse just above my brow throbbing enough to know that it’s likely a deep gash that’s probably going to scar.
“Oooh, you’re a dead man, Uncle Mack,” I seethe without much gusto, groaning when the ache in my head suddenly blooms with the knowledge that I’ve been bested by hockey equipment. “Just wait until I tell Mom and Dad what you did.”
Mack scoffs, though it lacks any kind of emotion other than worry, as he says, “You learned to skate before you walked. How the hell was I to know you’d lose your balance like that? Jesus, kid, are you all right?”
“Oh, yeah, just peachy,” I whimper, raising my hand to the new slice in my head.
A warm hand stops me before the pads of my fingers connect, and my eyes snap to a pair of pale-green eyes that remind me of freshly tumbled aventurine crystals. Whoa. How did I not realize how pretty his eyes were? A girl could get lost in those.
“Don’t touch, Blue. You’ll get blood all over you,” he gently commands, linking his fingers with mine to keep them from reaching for the cut again.
Not that I would, since I’m growing increasingly distracted by the pretty hue of his eyes, the pale green ringed beautifully with a more emerald shade that really makes them pop.
“Anyone ever told you how pretty your eyes are?” I wonder mindlessly, my mouth twitching with a smile when a beautiful, white-toothed grin appears on the jokester’s face.
Because that smile? Hell, I’d go to war for that smile, and I can’t even kill a fly without sobbing over it.
I wouldn’t make a good soldier, but I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t be the first on the front lines if it meant seeing that smile again.
And those eyes.
And that face.
Christ, what’s in the water these guys have been drinking? Because surely it’s unnatural and against the law of… something, anything, to be as good-looking as they are. Just hand me my helmet, tank, and Nerf gun. I’m ready to serve my country.
I’m like a moth to a flame as I stare at a chiseled jaw lined with intentional stubble, the smallest divot in his chin, and the beauty spot just beneath glittering green eyes. That’s not even touching on the peek of muscle I can see beneath the collar of his shirt.
Caiden licks his lip as though he’s trying to dampen his grin before he charmingly quips, “Only one that matters is you telling me they’re pretty.”
Snorts echo around us, and I realize then that we’re surrounded by The City Titans, their coach, and a worried-looking Baxter Marshall.
Huffing a laugh, I drawl, “This feels like a fever dream or something.”
“Better check she doesn’t have a concussion,” Uncle Mack points out, eyeing me with humor in his eyes now that he knows I’m only slightly wounded and not on the brink of death.
“If I do, it’s all your fault, you jackass,” I grumble, reaching my free hand around to my back and feeling the scrapes over my skin left behind. “I’m definitely telling Dad that you injured me.”
“Don’t you even think about it, you shit,” he laughs, just as Oscar comes hurrying over with a pristine white towel that’s about to have its life ruined.
Instead of handing it to me, the sweetheart presses the towel against my forehead, cringing when I wince and gasp in pain.
“Sorry, firecracker. Got yourself good with that stick,” he apologizes, pressing the towel more securely to my eyebrow while I continue to lie on the freezing-cold ice, water seeping through my leggings quicker than I’d like.
Snorting and groaning when it hurts, I try to nod and say, “Felt like a good hit. Reckon it’ll scar?”
“Oh, for sure,” Morgan quips, making me grin.