“Half the time and the same money?” He tilted his head. “Seems like a raw deal on your end.”
I shrugged. “Your image is going to make Lusso that income back in spades. I’m not concerned with the financials.”
“What are you concerned with, Bristol?” he asked, leaning forward again. For a second there, he looked like he truly wanted to know.
“You,” I answered honestly.
He shook his head. “I stopped worrying about you a long time ago, Duchess,” he said, and each of his words stung. “You should really do the same.” He pushed back from the chair, and I mirrored his moves.
My hands trembled with adrenaline—anger and pain and guilt beating through my veins. I jutted my chin up, just a tad, as I held that fiery stare of his. “Do we have a deal?” I asked instead of posing the thousands of questions racing through my mind: Do you really hate me that much? Can’t you give me a chance? Would it be so awful to work with me for a handful of months?
He reached for the door, swinging it open. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes trailing the length of my body before he shook his head. “It’s going to be a long fucking six months.”
He slammed the door behind him.
3
Cormac
“You were on fire today,” Sterling said as we both collapsed onto the bench in front of our lockers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast.”
“Thanks. You weren’t so bad yourself.” I started ripping my gear off but paused at my elbow pads. The faster I went, the sooner I’d be in the shower, and then I’d be…
Don’t think about it.
“It was like you were possessed,” Sterling added, taking off his bulky goalie pads. His hands stilled behind one of his calves. “Does this have something to do with Bristol McClaren being in town?”
“What would you know about that?” My chest seized up with that half-nauseated, half-excited feeling I got whenever I thought about Bristol, which in the last ten days since she’d barged back into my life, had been too frequent. How the hell do you know how many days it’s been?
“London heard from Langley—”
“Ah, girl gossip.” I shed my elbow and shoulder pads. “Not that we’re any better here in the locker room.” Fuck the Real Housewives of Whatever—if television wanted drama, all they needed was to keep a camera in the locker room.
“You’re fucking slow on your glove side,” Maxim snapped at Sterling as he took his seat on the bench directly across from us.
“You’re fucking slow in general,” Sterling fired back.
The brothers had gone from barely speaking to each other to hurling insults with predictable regularity in the last couple of weeks, but hey, at least no one had thrown a punch in a few days. In any other family, I might have been worried, but seeing that they were half-brothers and Sterling had been wholly abandoned by their father, there was bound to be some animosity.
Add to it that Maxim had made a play for London over the last couple of months, and it was pretty impressive that I hadn’t gotten a call from Sterling to help him bury Maxim’s body.
“Damn, I’m glad I don’t have a brother,” Caspian muttered, shaking his head from beside Maxim. Those two had been best friends since they’d been drafted to Las Vegas, then traded to the Reapers.
Relationships got kind of…well, incestuous around here.
“Not yet, but maybe soon,” Sterling countered with a shit-eating grin as he tossed his pads into the locker behind him.
Caspian’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I know you’re not thinking what I think you are.” He took off his skates, never once looking away from Sterling. “You just got back together with my sister what? Last week?”
Brogan took his seat on my other side and started removing his gear in typical Brogan fashion—silently. He’d switched spots last week after one of the rookies pissed him off. Greene was still sporting a shiner from that one.
“Ten blissful days.” Sterling grinned, radiating the kind of happiness that made every single one of us roll our eyes.
“Right.” He drew out the word slowly. Guy was still getting used to having a teammate date his sister, especially since they’d kept it under wraps for months.
“So, are you going to tell us the whole Bristol story?” Sterling asked, completely ignoring Caspian. “Because I swear you turned fucking white the second she stepped on stage. And how the hell did she get you traded?”
“Is no an option?” I asked, shucking my skates and starting on the gear on my lower half.
“No is a great option,” Brogan muttered next to me.
“Come on! She’s fucking hot, and we’re all curious.” Sterling shrugged.
“We’re not all curious,” Brogan mumbled.
“Hey, you’re dating my sister,” Caspian snapped.
“Hell yeah, I am, and she’s way hotter than the McClaren—” Sterling paused. “Wait. McClaren like…Crossland McClaren? The owner up in Calgary McClaren?”