Page 60 of Puck You Very Much

As if he didn’t exist, as if none of it had ever happened. As if she were trying to change the past through sheer willpower.

With narrowed eyes, he stared at her as he glided across the ice. He noticed how her hair curled at the ends, how the tip of her ponytail brushed her shoulders…

He hit the boards so hard with his shoulder that he almost fell backward.

“What are you doing back there, Temple?” Gray barked from the bench. The Hawks coach hadn’t been happy with him at all in recent weeks, and his annoyed expression now confirmed that. “You’re supposed to be warming up for the game, not practicing body checks, which I don’t want to see from you today, anyway!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered and turned his back on both Gray and Lucy. Ridiculous. He was being downright ridiculous.

“So, will today be the first game where we both manage not to play like shit?” someone next to him asked a second later and he turned.

Jack was skating by his side.

Great. Just what he needed.

“It’s about time, isn’t it?” Jack continued. “I mean, now that we’ve been photographed as best friends, it shouldn’t be that hard to pretend to be best friends on the ice, right? Man, you looked so cute in those horns…”

“Would you like me to practice body checking on you instead of the boards, Jack?” he suggested kindly. “Keep it up.”

His brother chuckled softly. “What’s wrong, Dax? You seem a bit grumpy.”

That wasn’t true.Grumpydidn’t even come close. “Mind your own business, Jack,” he said tonelessly, picking up the pace. But the bastard followed close behind.

“Lucy disappeared rather suddenly after the shoot,” he remarked. “Any idea why?”

“Nope,” he replied darkly.

Jack snorted before glancing over his shoulder and adding in a lowered voice, “You know, our teammates may be blind, but I’m not.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. I just wanted you to know…well, I’m sorry,” he murmured urgently. “For flirting with Lucy. I wanted to annoy you, but I…” Hesitantly, he bowed his head. “…obviously underestimated how important she is to you. And that you can’t take a joke when it comes to her.”

Dax twisted around to face his brother. “She’s notimportantto me,” he clarified, his voice barely louder than the sound his blades made on the ice.

Jack raised his eyebrows, amused. “Right. Of course not. It doesn’t matter. I’ll stop. She was never interested in me, Dax. She’s all yours.”

And that was the problem. She wasn’t his. No matter how much he wanted her. “Very kind of you, Jack,” he remarked dryly. “But I still don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not interested in Lucy. She’s the most annoying woman in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’d be better off without her.”

His brother sighed heavily and looked at him with pity. “You still haven’t learned that the asshole doesn’t win, have you? That only happens in movies and books. In real life, women don’t want a man who’s mean to them. At least not for life. If you keep talking about her like that, you’ll never convince her that you’re not an idiot.”

Dax’s hands took on a life of their own. “I honestly don’t need dating advice from you, Jack,” he growled. “And I’m mean to Lucy because she annoys me! Because she never does what I want her to do.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied lightly. “I think you’re mean to her because you like her and that way you get more attention from her.”

Dax snorted and rolled his eyes. “We’re not in high school anymore, Jack.”

“I know. So quit the bullshit! She’s too smart to fall for a stupid come-on like that.”

“It’s not a come-on!”

“Yes, it is,” he said, amused. “I know you, Dax. I know how you used to flirt and how you do it now.”

“I’m not flirting with Lucy!” He was merely having sex with her. “And if you truly want me to stop hating you, you should stop saying crap like that!”

Jack stopped and Dax did too. For a few seconds, his brother just looked at him thoughtfully. Then he muttered, “You’re right. I wish you would stop hating me. Right now, though, I’m just doing the right thing. Besides…” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Do you know, Dax, what made you so good at hockey? The desire to be better than me. And do you know what made me so good? The desire not to have you succeed. So maybe a little competitiveness isn’t such a bad thing. Either way, I’m planning to win the Stanley Cup this season—and if you could stop pining after Lucy for a moment, if you could just forget who I am…we’d probably be amazing on the ice together. We used to be.” He shrugged meaningfully before speeding up and continuing his laps alone.

Dax watched him go, lips pursed.

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