Page 1 of Troublemaker
PROLOGUE
LUCY
When I was seven years old, I fell in love.
He was tall—almost a giant—with dark hair, eyes so dark green they were almost black, a square jaw, and a stern, serious look on his face—even back then.
He was one of my father’s hockey players. See, Elijah Braverman owned…well, he owned a lot of things when he was still alive. But one of those things was The Gehenom Beasts: our city’s NHL team. And on that day—the day I fell in love—at my seventh birthday party, the whole team had come to celebrate with me. Supposedly. Really, it was because they had to.
My mother had left me with a somber black dress and pointy, uncomfortable black flats. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wear the pink dress I’d picked out, or why she wanted my birthday to feel like a funeral. But then Anastasia Braverman always preferred when I wore black, probably because I could blend in better with the uniformed staff that way. She never cared. If she had, she wouldn’t have ordered the chef to make a carrot cake for my birthday cake.
I was allergic to carrots.
So I was in a sad little black dress and painful shoes, sulking over not being able to have my own birthday cake, when I first sawhim.
His name was Blake Samson. He was twenty-five. Based on the way the other players teased him, he took himselfwaytoo seriously. And he, of course, didn’t notice the child whose birthday it was—until I tripped over my own uncomfortable shoes and fell on the grass, scraping my knee.
I felt like a baby, but it hurt, and I was embarrassed, so I cried.
My parents were nowhere in sight—probably at some business meeting disguised as party fun—and almost everyone ignored me. Birthday girl or not, they were here to suck up to my dad, not his only child. I was an afterthought to everyone, like usual.
Except Blake. He spotted me crying, curled up on the ground, sad, lonely, and hurting. And he walked over to me and knelt down on the grass, ignoring the way it stained his pants.
“You okay, kid?” he asked gruffly.
I nodded, not wanting to show how pitiful I felt. But Blake must have seen through it, because with a small, knowing smile, he shook his head.
“No, you’re not. Let me look at that knee.”
“I didn’t know hockey players could be doctors,” I said. It probably came off rude, but I was hurting and not used to someone paying attention to my pain. I didn’t trust it.
Instead of getting defensive, he shrugged. “Nah, but I’ve seen my fair share of cuts and bruises.”
It seemed like a weird thing to say, but maybe it was because hockey was such a “violent sport,” like my mother always said. I would’ve asked Blake, but he was too busy looking at my knee, like it was a serious injury.
He glanced at me. “Tell you what, it looks like a bad scrape. I’m going to go get some stuff to clean it up. Wait here.”
He disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared with a first aid kit.
“I keep it in my car,” he said at the question in my eyes, squatting down. He still towered over me. Carefully, with the precision of a surgeon, he cleaned out the cut, apologizing for the sting, before placing a bandage over it.
“There you go, kid,” he said. “Should be all better.” Then he spotted my fingers. I always bit my nails, which my parents hated, but it was one of the few things that calmed me down when I was anxious or sad.
“Why do you bite your nails?”
“Um…” I hesitated, feeling shy.
“You know, I used to bite my nails, too. Whenever I got scared, or lonely. But instead, I came up with something that didn’t mess with them. Do you want to know what it was?”
“What?” I was curious and entranced by his kind face.
“I tell myself stories. No matter how silly, I tell myself stories with happy endings and it makes the bad feelings go away. You should try it.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling shy.
He shrugged. “Anytime. Stay out of trouble from now on, okay?”
And with that, he was gone—and I was head over heels.
