Page 145 of Cold as Ice

It was easy—too easy, maybe—to hide away from the world with the man he loved. Facing reality and its sometimes harsh turns was part of life. It gave and it took away, but either way, he’d always have Malcolm by his side. That was the one thing Elliott knew he could always rely on.

Mal reached down and took his hand, squeezing it firmly, and Elliott knew he was thinking the exact same thing.

They’d have each other. Always.

Epilogue

Five months later . . .

“How’re you doing, honorary brother?” Nina nudged Mal with her shoulder. Mal knew he’d been staring, eyes glued to where Elliott was giving an interview to one of the media outlets.

It was an absolute circus, which made sense, since this year’s draft was being held in Vegas. So many people, and a lot of them wanted to talk to Elliott. And surprisingly, a lot of them wanted to talk to Mal, too. But right now he was hiding by Elliott’s table, using his sisters as human shields.

Elliott, on the other hand, looked calm and relaxed, laughing at a question that the reporter had asked.

“Honorary brother implies that your brother and I are related, not dating, and that’s illegal,” Mal said.

Nina just cackled though. “I can’t call you my brother-in-law,yet.”

Mal let himself crack a smile. More like forced himself to crack a smile. Not like Toronto’s front office was going to divulge who they were picking in the first round, especially to aplayer currently working their way through their developmental system. But they hadn’t explicitly told either of them that theywouldn’tbe drafting him, either, and from what Mal heard—and so many analysts had predicted—chances were better than ever that by the end of the night, Elliott Jones would be a Toronto Maple Leaf.

Did that mean Mal was resting easy?

Hardly.

Still, he was here, plastering a supportive smile on his face, after reassuring Elliott—and himself—a million times that it didn’t matter what team drafted him. They were going to stick together, even if he was three thousand miles away.

But Mal didn’twanthim to be three thousand miles away.

He wanted Elliott in his bed, every night. He wanted him on the ice, right across from him.

He’d take him however he could get him, but Mal knew exactly what he wanted.

“We’ve only been dating a few months,” Mal reminded Nina.

“Eight,” Macey chimed in, sticking her head into the conversation. “Nine if you count the time before you and Ell actually discussed dating and were just fucking.”

Mal flushed. Every time he told himself he was going to get used to Elliott’s sisters, they slyly threw something in that made him sure that he wouldn’t.

“Mace, you can’t say that shit to Mal. Makes him uncomfortable,” Connie reminded Macey.

But Macey just shrugged. “He did it, he can at least own up to it.”

“Nine months then,” Mal said hurriedly, hoping that by acquiescing to Macey’s timeline that this whole conversation might change to a new subject. He could always tell Macey that Ramsey was going to be here after all, and he’d introduce them, even though Elliott had made him swear that he wouldn’t.

But literally anything had to be better than enduring the three of them interrogating him about his and Elliott’s sex life.

“Hey, if Ell was a girl, he could be pregnant right now, just about to give birth,” Connie said. “Orhe wouldn’t even have to be a girl.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nina said.

“It’s in those books she reads,” Macey chimed in.

“Well, he’s not going to get pregnant, which is a good thing, if he’s about to become a professional hockey player,” Mal said, straight-up desperate at this point.

“And how do you know that it wouldn’t beMalwho’d be impregnated?” Macey asked archly.

Oh, God.

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