Chapter 4
As was our Saturday tradition, my brother came barreling into my house at nine.
“I feel like beignets today,” he said by way of a greeting. “I was thinking we could hit the food trucks on South First.”
“Hello, Andrew,” I said. “I missed you too. My trip was lovely, thanks so much for asking.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I talked to you almost every day while you were gone, drama queen.” But he still walked over and wrapped me in a hug.
“I did miss you, little brother,” I murmured against his shoulder. I could practically feel him roll his eyes, the way he always did when I made mention of the fact that I was older—by a whole seven minutes. And I made mention of it often, just because I knew it bugged him.
“You look good, Ace,” he said, pulling back to scan my bare arms. “You almost have a tan.”
“Miracle, isn’t it?” Andrew and I had the exact same coloring—dark red hair, green eyes, and pale freckled skin that burned easily. “I think I was there so long my skin forgot it was supposed to be pale and pasty.”
The intelligent eyes that I knew so well searched my face.
I felt exposed, the way I usually did when he looked at me that way, like my brother knew all of my secrets at a glance.
I didn’t even think it was a twin thing, at least not entirely.
Andrew looked at most everyone that way.
His big old genius brain was incredibly perceptive.
I was sure his ability to read people had a lot to do with his success.
“You’re feeling better,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I am.”
“So you’re over the asshole then?” He didn’t try to hide the look of disgust. “I never liked that guy.”
“Have you ever liked any guy I’ve dated?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Maybe you need to stop dating so many douchebags.”
I laughed, pushing him away. “You’re one to talk. When’s the last time you dated a decent woman?”
“When’s the last time I dated anyone?” he shot back, smirking.
He had a point. My brother didn’t really date.
He was way too busy for that, what with running his empire and all.
He did hook-up a whole hell of a lot, and the local papers just loved to photograph him with the revolving cast of one-night stands on his arm.
“Besides,” he went on. “We were talking about your love life.”
I snorted. “If you can even call it that.”
“He hasn’t tried to call you, has he?” There was a hardness in Andrew’s eyes.
He had threatened to beat the shit out of Matt when he found out what had happened, and I was pretty sure he would have if I didn’t stop him.
He might be a world-famous billionaire now, but my brother had a long history as a scrapper.
He didn’t really have a choice, growing up the way we did, but the guy had gotten in more fist fights than I could count over the years, and I was sure his left hook was every bit as dangerous now as it had been then, ten-thousand-dollar Brioni suits and all.
“He called a lot at first,” I said carefully. “But then I blocked his number.”
He nodded. “Good girl.”
“Let’s change the subject.” I didn’t like the anger I could still see in his eyes. I didn’t want to be the cause of my brother’s temper fracturing. “Are we getting beignets or what?”
He held out his arm for me. “Let’s get to it.”
Andrew and I met for brunch every Saturday when we were both in town.
It was a tradition that we’d started in college, the first time in our lives we’d been separated.
I’d followed Andy to the University of Michigan after they recruited him for hockey, getting an academic scholarship of my own.
So we’d been at the same school, but our dorms were on opposite sides of campus.
That small distance would have been welcome for most siblings, but our shitty history ensured that we weren’t like most siblings.
For our entire lives, my brother and I had exactly one person we could count on—each other.
The line at the food truck was long, but well worth it when we finally had our piping hot beignets in hand. “Let’s find a bench,” Andrew said. Once we were seated, I pulled a thermos of coffee from my bag and offered it to him.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, mouth already full, powdered sugar all over his lips and chin.
We munched in silence for a few moments and I let my eyes wander.
The weather was nice, not quite as blazing hot today as it had been yesterday, and lots of people were out enjoying it.
I watched a couple pass with the cutest goldendoodle puppy.
“Maybe I’ll get a dog,” I murmured, watching the hyper little thing tug on his leash.
“I thought spinsters were supposed to have cats,” Andy said, and I pinched him.
“We can’t all buy professional hockey teams when we hit a midlife crisis.”
He gave me a sheepish smile. “I was waiting for you to bring that up.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me you were considering it?”
He shrugged. “It seemed like a long shot. I thought the league’s board of governors would take a lot longer to decide. I figured I would still be in negotiations well after the season started and I’d be lucky to have the team moved next year.”
“Why’d they act so fast?”
He wiped some sugar off his mouth before taking another swig of coffee. “The team’s been hemorrhaging money. I offered to make the problem go away and they took me up on it.”
“You threw a lot of cash at them, you mean.”
He shrugged again. “I did what I needed to do.”
I watched him while he bit into his last beignet, trying to get a sense of where his head was at. My brother was a lot harder to read than most people. Unless he was angry—that he wore on his sleeve for all to see.
“You never mentioned this was something you wanted to do eventually,” I finally said, my tone careful. “I thought you were over the whole hockey thing.”
After his injury, Andy acted as though the sport ceased to exist. He never watched games, never even talked to his old teammates. Once he couldn’t play anymore, he put every ounce of his time and attention into his business.
He was quiet for a long time, eating his breakfast. Finally, he wiped his hands on a napkin and turned to me.
“I’ve missed it. I tried to ignore that, but it was there. The idea of buying a team…I guess it was always at the back of my mind. And once I let myself seriously consider it, I realized how badly I wanted it.”
“I’m glad,” I said, and I genuinely was.
For so long, hockey had been my brother’s escape from the reality of our lives.
A part of him had died when his knee went out and I hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to get it back.
Maybe this team could help him regain something that had been lost all those years ago.
That would be worth anything to me. Even running into Liam O’Conner around town.
Once again demonstrating his uncanny ability to read my mind, Andy grinned. “You’re not even going to ask me about him?”
I attempted innocence. “Who?”
He laughed. “Uh huh. You’re definitely fooling me, Ace.”
I dropped the futile act. “You could have at least warned me,” I muttered, tearing off the edge of my last fluffy donut. “I ran into him at the bar last night.”
His eyebrows went up. “You’ve seen him already?”
I nodded. “And it was hella awkward, so thank you for that.”
“You should thank me. I brought the love of your life to town.”
I snorted. “Give me a break. I never even dated the guy.” I didn’t add that I had spent more time with him in high school than I had any of my friends. Nor did I mention our one, perfect kiss.
It had all been in my head anyways. Liam never felt the same way I did.
“I don’t understand why you traded for him in the first place,” I muttered. “You always hated Liam.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
I just stared at him until he finally grinned. “Fine. I was not the golden boy’s biggest fan. Maybe I brought him here for you.”
I might kill him, seriously. Was there a rule somewhere that brothers had to be obnoxious?
“Can we just talk about something else?”
Andy gave me one last smirk before changing the subject. “What’s on the agenda now that you’re home? You get into the classroom this week, right?”
I tried to shake off any thoughts of Liam, or how insanely attractive he had looked last night, of how little I had been able to sleep with my mind filled with blue eyes and strong arms.
“Yeah, I can start setting up on Monday. Meet the Teacher night is Wednesday, so I’ll get to see some of the kiddos then.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Those curriculum changes you worked on last spring go into effect this year, right?”
I hid my smile, pleased but not surprised that he remembered the curriculum committee I had chaired last year.
This was one of the best things about my twin brother—he always took my job as seriously as he took his own.
He may own a multi-billion-dollar international tech conglomerate, but he never made me feel lesser for being a mere third grade teacher.
We chatted for a few minutes about my classroom and the things I was looking forward to teaching.
Throughout our conversation, Andy’s phone dinged in his pocket no less than a dozen times.
He never once took it out to check the messages.
My brother was the busiest person I knew and half the time we had to cancel these brunches because his work constantly took him out of the country, often at the last minute.
But whenever we were both in town, he was here with me, completely present.
For one hour out of his weekend, at least.
But his buzzing phone made me think of something else, something I was reluctant to tell him.
“Mom called me last week,” I finally muttered when there was a lull in our conversation.
He immediately stiffened. “Why in the hell did you answer?”
“Because she would have just kept calling back.”
He made a scathing noise. “I’ve managed to go five years without speaking to her, Grace. It’s not that hard.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t all have assistants screening our calls,” I shot back.
He finally pulled the buzzing phone from his pocket. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Deb and asking her to hire someone to answer your damn phone.”
I knocked his hand away from the screen. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m serious.” There was a bite to his voice that told me he was, in fact, serious. “If that’s what it takes to keep you from hearing her voice, that’s what we’re going to do.”
“It’s not really a big—”
He glared at me. “Don’t tell me it’s not a big deal. You get upset every time you talk to her. I’ve seen you after you’ve been on the phone with that woman.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, hard. I wanted to tell him that she was my mother. That of course I would find it upsetting to talk to her after the way she treated us. But that didn’t make it any easier to completely cut her out of my life.
But I didn’t say any of that because I knew exactly what his response would be.
He would tell me that it hadn’t been at all difficult for him to cut her out.
He’d tell me I just needed to be tougher.
And maybe he would be right—maybe it was my own thin skin that allowed me to be hurt by her over and over again.
But I’d never been too successful at toughening up.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft, and I realized he was once again searching my face. “I’m sorry. I just hate seeing you upset. She isn’t worth it, Ace. You know that, right?”
I nodded. But somehow, knowing that had never made it much easier.
His voice turned firm, colder. “We have everything we need right here. Jobs we love, good friends.” He squeezed my hand. “The only family that matters.”
I grinned over at him, all of my tension about our mom wiped away just like that. It wasn’t very often my brother got sentimental and I could tell by the rough set of his clenched jaw that he hadn’t enjoyed it much. But he’d done it anyways. For me.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for the beignets, little brother.”
“Thanks for the coffee.”
“Any big plans today? Do you want to catch a movie or do you have world conquering to do at the office?”
His grin turned mischievous. “Actually, I’m heading over to the arena to officially meet the team. You wanna come with me? Since, you know, you have no long-lasting feelings for any of my new players.”
I glared at him and he laughed, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, big sis. I want to show off my fancy arena. I promise you won’t have to talk to any former flames.”
“He was never a flame.”
“Is that a yes?”
I sighed, crumpling up my sugary napkins. “Fine. Let’s go see your shiny new toy.”