Page 93 of On Thin Ice

“I’m so happy you’re here,” I said, hugging my best friend and ignoring the tears that wouldn’t leave my eyes.

“Me too. I missed you a lot.” She squeezed me back, and then we headed down the hallway to the bedroom that was no longer mine.

Not that I minded sleeping—or not sleeping—in Dom’s room every night.

Ugh.

I needed to know how he was feeling.

DOM

“She told me not to send you into the boards, but if you hurt her, or if this is just a bit of fun for now, sending you into the boards will be the least of your worries,” Harty said.

“Are we going to have another showdown during warm-ups?” Flower asked. “Come on, Harty. Dom’s a good kid, and Ally’s happy, so don’t be a dick.”

I was grateful for Flower’s support and secretly loved that Ally had told her brother to play nice. Probably pissed him right off.

“Nope. Just stating my intentions,” Harty said, his gaze still on mine.

I knew Ally had met up with her brother before the game, but I’d already been at the arena. Plus, I figured it was good for the siblings to talk without me there since Harty always had a pole up his ass when it came to me and his sister.

“Dom?” Flower asked, drawing my attention.

“Look, Harty, I have strong feelings for your sister and I’m not going to go into them further until I talk to her, but just know that I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be exactly what she needs me to be for her and our daughter. Just try not to be an ass around me because it frustrates her. Ally means a lot to me, and yeah, we didn’t have the smoothest beginning, especially because we were super young. I know she was flirting with me all those years ago just to annoy you, but I’m not that guy anymore, and she’s not that woman. Hurting her would destroy me, so learn to deal with seeing me around for a long time.”

My heart was racing as I held his gaze. He tilted his head as if trying to read my expression, but I wasn’t giving him anything but honesty. I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d fallen in love with her. At least, not before I told Ally first, and I had no clue when or how I was going to do that. The thought of her saying she didn’t feel the same made my throat seize.

“Fine. I still don’t love this, but she seems happy,” Ethan grumbled.

“See? That wasn’t hard. Now, we’re all going to play nice—well, as nice as any hockey game is,” Flower said with a chuckle. “Good to see you again, Harty. Sorry about your loss tonight.”

Harty barked out a laugh. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Then he gave me a nod and skated off to join the rest of his teammates.

“He’s all bluster right now, but he’ll get over it. Nice seeing you put him in his place, Dom,” Flower said. “And it’s not my business about you and Ally, but she seems happy, and you aren’t that punk rookie anymore. I could’ve told you that last year.”

I swallowed hard. “Thanks, man.” It felt fucking good hearing Flower’s words. He’d been a vet I’d looked up to since I started on the Strikers, and I was glad he was still my teammate here in Denver.

“Now, how about we knock our old teammates down a peg and get those two points,” Flower said.

I glanced over the center line toward where the Strikers were warming up. Some of our old teammates caught my gaze, offering me a grin or a nod. I was so ready to kick their asses. “Done.”

He chuckled and slapped my shoulder before skating back in line with the rest of our current team to finish out our warm-up.

“Glad you and Harty had a heart-to-heart,” Baz said as he shifted in front of me, trying to block me from taking my shot on goal halfway through the first period.

“We chitchatting now?” I fired back, attempting to deke around the big, burly defenseman.

“I can multitask,” he said as he moved to poke the puck away from me, flashing me a grin that I knew was toothless under his mouth guard.

I skated back slightly and knocked the puck over to Haldy before skating around Baz. “Too slow, old man,” I taunted.

We were still scoreless, and I was trying to rectify that, but my former teammates weren’t giving me any breathing room tonight. At least I hadn’t had any run-ins with Harty so far, but the night was young, and I wouldn’t put it past him to send me into the boards, no matter what Ally said to him.

Hell, I’d probably do the same if I was in his situation.

I turned my focus back to where it needed to be, just as Haldy passed the puck back to me. The guys knew I wanted to get on the scoreboard tonight against my old team, so they’d already started feeding me the puck.

“I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble your daughter gets into over the years,” Baz said as he moved back in front of me again. The man was a fucking menace.

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