Page 81 of Game On

“It is?” Frowning, she exited his office.

Dorian entered it.

And closed the door.

“Dorian!” Adriana’s voice was muffled through the wood. “What the hell?”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you.”

“That’s just mean.” She banged against the door. “I told you about my thing even though Mom and Dad said it was a business doomed to failure, and what did I hope to accomplish except proving that retail storefronts are a thing of the past?”

He whipped the door open. “They didn’t say that.”

“Sure did.” Hands on her hips, Adriana stalked into the office. “Along with, ‘Honey, have you really thought about this?’” She made a sound of disgust.

Dorian tried to make sense of it all. “But Mom and Dad have always supported you.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe all the times you came home with perfect marks or the lead in the school play or the first-place ribbon from the science fair, and Mom and Dad waved that in my face and went all ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?’”

“You think that means I had their support?” Adriana walked away, toward the window. Poppy had awoken, and though she hadn’t moved, her gaze arced between the two of them. “The perfect marks were forgotten about the next time I came home with a B, they didn’t actually come to see the play, and I got fourth in the science fair.”

“You had a first-place ribbon.”

“I traded it for a peek at my boobs.”

Dorian’s jaw dropped. “Addy!”

“What? They’re just boobs. Peter Trumball would’ve seen them on some other girl eventually. And besides—look at me.” She waved a hand at her own body, just as slim as Dorian’s. “My boobs were never that impressive.”

Jesus. Dorian leaned against the edge of his desk. Had he had it wrong all these years? He’d been compared to his siblings so often that he’d just assumed they’d always had their parents’ support and that he’d gotten the leftovers. He’d always pictured Adriana and Phillip as the main dish—the leg of lamb that people salivated over at a restaurant—and he was the white rice that was passed over in favour of the maple-glazed vegetable medley.

Had they had it just as bad as him? If so, why hadn’t he ever noticed?

Probably because he’d been so mired in his own shit that he hadn’t noticed anyone else’s. Didn’t help that Phillip was seven years older and Adriana four. They hadn’t spent much time together aside from the obligatory once-a-week family dinners and any events their parents dragged them to where they could show off their kids and pretend to be the perfect family.

“So.” Adriana meandered past him and nodded at his corkboard. “Spill. What’s this?”

Dorian sucked in a breath and bit the bullet. “I’m launching a seasonal subscription box that will feature products from small businesses across the province.”

“Oh.” She cocked her head, brow furrowed.

Tipping his head back, Dorian waited for the inevitable, his stomach already in knots.

“That’s a risky business, Dorian,” Adriana said, right on cue. “There are thousands of subscription boxes across the globe. Have you done the research? How are you going to make yourself stand out among all of the others? Are you sure this is the best use of your time? You seem to love your day job, so why not focus on that and?—”

“That’s really not what he needs to hear right now,” came a voice from the doorway.

Heart leaping, Dorian grinned at Jamie. Poppy scrambled up and ran over to greet him.

Dorian wished he could scramble over too, but he took a more sedate approach, rising slowly off the desk. “Hey.”

Christ, it was good to see him. To have him home. There’d been pictures of Jamie and some of his teammates plastered online in the last couple of days, taken in a board-game café in Winnipeg where Jamie and the other Orcas had been playing a game against a group of delighted fans. He’d looked so happy in those photos, and Dorian had been happy for him. It was about time that he stopped keeping his teammates at arm’s length and started getting to know them outside of hockey. Blair had said that there were no bad apples, and he wouldn’t lie about that.

“Hey.” Jamie picked Poppy up and ambled over, giving Dorian a once-over that had his blood heating. “I like your shirt.”

He wore a bright yellow button-down with frolicking bumblebees, the shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Thanks. Poppy helped me choose it.”

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