Page 15 of My Brother's Teammates

“That would be your buddy, Jace.” Mateo glances over his shoulder and winks. Fucker. “He had to have bacon and didn’t realize you needed to remove it from the pan before it started smoking.”

I open my mouth to give him a sarcastic response before promptly clamping it shut, grinding my teeth instead.

Motherfucker.

Roman slaps his hand down on my shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze, and I fight the urge to elbow his ribs. “You know Jace, he gets distracted easily.”

My jaw tics, and I swear my right eye twitches as I avoid looking at everyone, staring at this very interesting knot in the middle of the wooden floor instead.

My confession is right there on the tip of my tongue. I’m so close to telling him about our new roommate, but I don’t. “Are we going to practice, or are we going to stand here gossiping like a group of old women?”

“How do you know what old ladies do?” Mateo crosses his arms. That damn cocky smile of his spreads wide across his face, and it couldn’t annoy me more. As per usual, he’s dancing a little too close to the fire, and part of me is tempted to spill the beans and watch him burn. But if he goes down, we all do. He’s not the only one harboring the criminal, and I’m sure as shit not going to be the rat.

Harrison chuckles, completely unaware of the thousand-ton anvil hanging directly over our heads and our imminent demise. I push Mateo and Roman into the hallway while Harrison jingles his keys, leading the way to the elevator that will take us down to the parking garage. “Oh, he knows all about grannies. Did I ever tell you guys about the time his grandmother set him up on a blind date?”

I let out a loud groan as Mateo prods Harrison to continue. This must be karma coming to take a chunk right out of my ass for keeping our new roommate from my best friend. While this isn’t the only secret I’ve kept from him where Charlotte is concerned, it’s possibly the worst.

It was better when she was just his annoying little sister.

Everything was fine—until the summer she started laying out by the pool in this teal bikini I had a love-hate relationship with. That was when I realized exactly what she was hiding under the baggy shirts she liked to wear, and I had to pretend my eyes weren't lingering on her for the entirety of my junior year. And then I had to go and kiss her. I put myself out there and she didn’t kiss me back. Didn’t even move an inch. The rejection stung for a little bit but I had hockey to focus on, a career to start.

Too bad she doesn’t have those damn shirts now. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier.

As the elevator closes, I take a deep breath and will myself to relax. These are my friends, my family. And while Charlotte isn’t just a piece of ass, I have my priorities in line. I’m not willing to risk my career—or my family—for whatever insignificant spark might still be alive between us.

“So, we had just started winter break and Grandma Birdie had been harping at Jace for weeks about this friend of hers who had a granddaughter our age. Now, she’d been trying to set him up for years with every single girl within a ten-mile radius—Birdie didn’t get out much—but she’d finally worn him down.”

Okay, maybe these guys aren’t my friends after all.

“Jace puts on a nice pair of pants and his only clean shirt to go meet this young woman at the cafe two blocks away from Grandma Birdie’s house.”

Mateo leads us out of the elevator and into the parking garage, turning around and wiggling his eyebrows at me. “Please tell me Grandma Birdie was sitting at the cafe with a rose tucked into a book.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” I clear my throat, sliding into the front seat of Harrison’s black Lamborghini Urus. It’s the one thing he splurged on when he got his contract for the Phantoms last year. It’s fast, it’s sexy, and I’ll never admit it out loud, but I like how the leather feels against my skin. “But what movies have you been watching? A rose tucked into a book?”

Mateo scoffs, taking his seat behind me, pushing into my back on purpose. “Please, like you haven’t seen You’ve Got Mail. It’s Tom fucking Hanks. A classic.”

My eyes widen, and I very slowly turn around and buckle my seatbelt. I’m both surprised and disturbed to know that he watches chick flicks, and now the only thing I can picture is him sitting on the couch with a bag of popcorn in one hand and a box of tissues in the other. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen it.”

Mateo may have been watching romcoms with his mom for years after his dad died, but Grandma Birdie was more of a game show gal. She could never get enough of The Price is Right, Jeopardy, or Wheel of Fortune. And up until she died a couple of years ago, she swore Bob Barker was the sexiest man alive. He wasn’t my type, but who was I to ruin her dreams?

“Amateurs,” Mateo whispers under his breath as Harrison pulls out of the parking garage. “Please continue with your story. You were about to tell us about our boy here sitting down with his beloved Grandma’s pick for a date.”

Roman chuckles, and so does Harrison.

These fucking guys.

I cross my arms and sink down into the plush leather seat. You’d think I wasn’t sitting here doing Roman and romcom-watching-Mateo a solid, keeping my big-ass mouth shut. But because I’m actually a good friend, I grumble to myself and keep quiet, even though I’m sorely tempted to throw them both under the bus. Then back the bus over them again for good measure.

Harrison glances over at me, giving me a light and easy smile. “Nope, it wasn’t Birdie, just her friend Susan. She was recently widowed and thought Jace might just be the one to jump-start her libido.”

With a growl, I turn on the radio. Of course, Taylor Swift, Harrison’s favorite, comes on, and even though I detest pop music with every cell in my body, I turn it up. Anything to shut down this fucking conversation. That damn dinner with Susan was probably the second-most uncomfortable moment of my life, and I’d rather not relive the finer points of that evening, but I have a feeling that even the great T-Swift won’t be able to shut him up.

“Did he do it?” Roman raises his voice, the amusement in his tone clear.

I turn around, eyebrows raised, and he just gives me his best shit-eating grin. If it didn’t screw the whole team over, I’d be putting hot sauce in his jock strap or stealing his special stick tape that he uses before every fucking game. But knowing my current luck, he’d hit a losing streak and tank our chances of making the playoffs.

I’m sure as hell not going to be responsible for that. I want that damn Cup in my hands just as much as the rest of these guys. Maybe more.

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