Page 71 of Mistletoe Face Off

With fumbling fingers, I pull a few dollar notes from my purse and hand them to her. “Go get yourself another hot chocolate, okay, honey?”

Her face lights up. “Okay,” she says happily as she skips over to the counter.

I spring to my feet. “Harry, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t. I know you had nothing to do with this.”

“I need to fix it. This isn't right. You're an innocent victim and Stephen is living up to his name. Anything for a good story. Don't let the truth get in the way.” My blood begins to boil.

“What can you do? It's out there in black and white, and you just know this thing is gonna blow right up.”

“I don't know what I’m going to do, but I need to do something.”

“There's no point.” He shrugs, somehow looking smaller than he did a moment ago, his shoulders dropped. He sits down heavily on the bench and I sit back down beside him, wrapping my arms around him.

“I'm going to help. I don't know how, but I'm going to.”

I think of the scared teenage boy, changing his name and crossing the country to start a new life. He can't do that again. Not only is he a grown man but he's a famous NHL player.

“What you've done for Macy is nothing short of a miracle. I owe you, Harry. Let me help you.”

He turns to face me and the pain etched across his face makes my chest hurt. “How? This is only the beginning. Can't you see that? It doesn't matter what the truth is. My reputation will be in shatters and my hopes of the captaincy? I may as well kiss that goodbye right now.”

“Whatever it takes.”

He lifts his lips into a brief smile, his hands clutching onto mine, and in that moment I know exactly what I need to do.

Chapter Seventeen

Harrison

As a player in the NHL I'm used to people looking at me. Be it on the ice or off, people seem to find me pretty dang fascinating. They want selfies, autographs, or simply to tell me their opinion on the way I played in the last game.

But today is different.

As I arrive at the arena, everyone from the security guards to my team mates are looking at me like I'm some kind of freak, all of them gawking at me as though I’m an alien from another planet.

Eventually, in the locker room during the build-up to the game, I snap. “Why the heck are you all staring at me? I'm still the same guy who played alongside you in the last game,” I say with my arms outstretched at my sides. “What that journalist wrote about me isn’t the truth. I’m no cheat.”

“Yeah, but you are a poncy figure skater in disguise,” Lorcan spits, and to my shock, several of my team mates snigger.

“So what if he was a figure skater. Anyone could work that out when he pranced around on the ice as Santa,” Chase says, in my corner.

Which I appreciate, even if he did refer to my figure skating moves as “prancing.”

“Were you doped up then, too, Clarke?” Dion asks, winning a snigger from Lorcan. About the only time those two get on is when they’re getting at someone else.

“I bet he was. Anything to get that huge belly off the ice,” Lorcan sneers.

I narrow my eyes at him. “You're a total comedian, you know that?”

“Yeah, Lorcan, you should go on the stage,” Casey says.

“As the cleaner after the show,” Chase adds and the two of them high five.

“Don't let them get to you,” Fletcher says beside me as he hands me my jersey.

I lift my chin. “Thanks, man.”

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