Defender (Seattle Sharks 9)

If I didn’t, I might be able to keep her, but she wouldn’t be my Harper.

If I didn’t, I couldn’t save another Nicholas.

“I’ll do it.”

“What?” She pushed up on my chest, her hair closing us in a curtain.

“I’ll wear the helmet.”

“You…” She shook her head. “I can’t test it on you. There’s too much at stake.”

“There’s too much if you don’t.” Resolution sat heavy in my stomach. “Fit the insert to my Sharks helmet. I’ll wear it.”

She was still blinking at me, wide-eyed and conflicted when my phone lit up on the table beside us. I picked it up, reading the message from Lukas quickly before dropping it onto the table.

Well, wasn’t that just ironic.

“What was that?” she asked.

I smiled, and brushed my lips against hers. “You’ll be testing that helmet out in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Detroit and Anaheim just finished in double overtime. The Sharks are in.”

Chapter 18

Harper

“I feel like I’ve barely seen you the last few months!” Faith hugged me before we found our seats in the family box. Today was a playoff game—a big one, Nathan had explained last night—one where everything was on the line. “And the time I see you, it’s at an away game in Charleston.”

“I know,” I said, sitting next to her. “I’ve been swamped.”

Faith waggled her eyebrows, and I laughed, batting her hand away. “Stop it.”

“You stop it!” She nudged my side. “Spill. All. The. Details.”

A flush crept over my cheeks, and I bit my bottom lip. “I can’t.”

Faith sucked her teeth. “You made me tell you about Lukas,” she groaned. “So I need to know. How amazing is Noble?” Her words rang out in a rare quiet moment in the box, and I sank lower in my seat, shushing her while waving innocently at Bailey and Paige—Gage’s and Rory’s wives—who had turned around with knowing smirks on their faces.

“Could you be louder?” I hissed when the attention went back to the announcer stating the lineups.

“I can be,” Faith said. “If you want me to.”

“He’s amazing, okay?” I fanned myself despite the chill in the rink.

“Not enough.”

I shifted in my seat, wishing like hell the game would start already so I could have that as an excuse. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell her everything about Nathan, but telling her would mean admitting how deep he’d sank in my soul. And that led to nothing but heartache.

I love you.

His words echoed in my head. The tenor in his voice like warm honey. Fucking hell, that man.

“Whoa,” Faith said, her eyes shifting from teasing to serious. “You…whoa. How much have I missed?”

“A lot,” I admitted.

“How much?”

I sighed, that tender spot in my chest cracking under my BFF’s stare. “Faith…I…Nathan is…”

Faith, reading something in my eyes, covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes saying, you’ve fallen.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding at our silent conversation.

“And you move in…”

“Less than a month.”

“Harper,” she said, dropping her hand and shaking her head. She looked to the ice, where they were now saying Nathan’s name and number. “I’m sorry. I had no idea this would happen.”

I chuckled softly. “It’s not your fault—”

“But Sweden. I made you come with me. Then I left you with him.”

“I can take care of myself, you know,” I teased. “And, honestly, Sweden was one of the best times of my life. And everything after has been, too. It’s the move, my dream job, that is haunting me.”

She wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”

I nodded but sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m living in a fun place called denial.”

“I’ve heard good things about that place.”

I laughed with Faith, happy to have my friend with me, giving me no judgment or advice…simply being there to share the weight. “I’m going to miss you, too, you know?”

Faith clamped down on her lip like that would stop the emotion from showing on her face. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “You never know. Lukas could get traded to the expansion team, and then I’d live next to you and he’d be a—”

“Reaper.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Noble hasn’t been talking about the expansion has he?”

I shrugged. “A little,” I said. “But he feels pretty confident he’ll stay a Shark. He’s in his prime and has done nothing but elevate the Sharks.”

“But if he was—”

“Faith,” I said, pleading. “I can’t wish that. That’s not fair to him. His dream has been to be a Shark. He is one. He loves it. It’s his family. I can’t wish for that to be wrecked because I’m…selfish.”

“You are not,” she said, the game starting now. “You’re allowed to want things. You work incredibly hard. You deserve happiness right alongside all that work. And you know as well as I do that there is little choice in who becomes a Reaper and who doesn’t. With the exceptions of the guys who have no-movement clauses in their contracts and the ten players the Sharks choose to protect, the Reapers can literally take any one player they want from every team. ”