Page 4 of Brace and Chase

“Since I can’t make you sign an NDA right here and now I’m going to need you to promise me on the life of someone you love very much that if you don’t take this deal you’ll never speak about any of this with anyone as long as you may live.” She says the last part almost mocking the common phrase and her mood shifts are giving me fucking whiplash. Still, I doubt she’s about to tell me about anything illegal, so I agree—of course I fucking agree.

“I swear on my father’s grave, ma’am.”

“Well, damn,” she says after a silent moment, clearly hearing the truth in my voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to get that serious, but this is serious for me.”

“I figured it was.”

“Right, so here’s the thing.”

As I listen to her explain the “predicament” she’s in—her words, not mine—my eyes grow bigger and bigger. It gets to the point where I start to feel the dryness of the air hitting my eyeballs and have to force myself to blink.

In the end, there’s not a lot I can say, just...

“Are you sure you needmefor that?” It all seems a bit excessive and...

“Dramatic, isn’t it?” she asks, lamenting, and sighs heavily. “We’re all a bit dramatic over here. I bet you could use some real drama in your life, get your blood pumping.” She’s clearly just messing with me, and her light chuckle confirms that. “Look, I know this is all unorthodox, but inmy professional opinion you’re, at the very least, one of the top three defenders of the league. I get that you might want to stay retired, God knows you should have more than enough savings to get by for the rest of your life, but I can only give you one day to think it through.

“I have to start putting things into place in case you say yes and in case you say no. By the way, Laney wants you, I thought you’d want to know that. Fire got injured last week and we could really use you. And I concede that you might want to talk about it with whoever it is you talk about these kinds of things with, but I ask that if at all possible it’s not with someone who’s in the league or around it, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Not my agent for sure. I’ll talk it over with my mom.”

“Cool.” She’s all calm and breezy again. “Momma’s boys are my favorite boys. So call me tomorrow, you’ve got my number.”

“Okay,” I whisper, barely audible.

The line goes dead a second later and I can only stare at the black screen of my phone.

What the actual fuck just happened?

TWO

SANTA

Five Days Before The Season Starts

Pacing upand down the locker room isn’t how I wanted to spend today.

Learning that the man I despise the most in this world is now going to be my teammate definitely wasn’t something I worried about when I woke up this morning.

Now I just have to find a way to fix it.

How in the hell will I fix this?

If Gab announced it to the whole team in our annual start-of-the-season celebration, with everyone and their families present as witnesses, then I bet every penny to my name that the contract is already fucking signed.

What—

I whirl around when a hand clamps on my shoulder, my lizard brain somehow convinced that it’s Charlie fuckingHeart himself coming here to torment me even though Gab said he won’t be here until next week. But it’s not.

It’s Bear.

“Come with me,” he says gruffly. His eyes look steady as always and meet mine head on. As the second tallest in the team he’s the only one who can more or less meet my gaze without having to tilt his head way up.

I follow him out the door and to the end of the hallway where the elevator is. I’d follow Bear anywhere and everywhere.

Jules “Picard” Dupont—now Dupont-Sterling—is our captain, yes. He’s the leader of this team and has been almost since the moment he got here when I was already in my third year in the league. He’s also our best player. Hell, he’sthebest player in the world and has three Stanley Cup wins, a couple of Olympic medals, and a whole bunch of other trophies to prove it.

I have the Stanley Cup wins as well, but it’s not the same.

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