When the call came, I’d been expecting it. Layton had warned me that he’d been talking to his counterpart down in Dallas, and that the net was closing on Marianna, or Susan Kenton – I didn’t know what to call her in my head anymore. She was a serial blackmailer, but I’d been with her for a month; how the hell had I let myself get into that situation? I didn’t recall a specific time when I’d thought she was fake; I just knew that toward the end of us she had become very interested in the possibility of a new contract with the Railers.

I’d bet she’d been expecting the kind of money the big guys got; my less-than-a-million payout probably seemed puny to her, but still she’d gone after it.

“You okay?”

Connor leaned on the same wall as me, bumping elbows. He was clearly there as representation, or support, something confirmed when Toly arrived as well. My captain and the player rep? Maybe I should have called my brand-new agent for her to be in the room as well.

“I’m good,” I said, shuffling from foot to foot, really wanting to get inside Layton’s office to find out what was going on.

“It’s been some season,” he said dryly. “What with Ten and Jared, and now you and your blackmail.”

“And sleeping with the pretty-boy figure skater,” Toly said with an added chuckle. “I like your pretty-boy.”

I shot the Russian a quick look. I could never tell whether he was joking or not; he had one of those faces that gave nothing away.

Connor cleared his throat dramatically, and Toly laughed even louder. “He is very good on his skates,” Toly pointed out. “That is all.”

Connor cursed under his breath and Toly gave something back, the two of them bickering and teasing, and it flowed over me with familiar warmth.

I loved it there. I never wanted to be traded, I wanted to play out my years there. Of course, that wouldn’t happen. I’d do well there, or I wouldn’t. I’d stay, or I’d get traded. Whatever happened, I was there right now, and coming off last night’s win against Vancouver and the gloating rights that gave me over Dad, I was in a good place.

I wasn’t even that nervous about this meeting.

Or at least not as nervous as I could have been.

“Did you hear that?” Connor said, loud enough to break through my internal ramblings.

“What?”

“’Toly is wearing a purple-and-green suit to the wedding.” He was clearly shocked by this, but then he would be. He was the best-dressed guy on the team by far, with his designer suits and his neat beard. Quite a few sports magazines had had his face on the cover, alongside one GQ spread where even I’d found myself disappointed he was straight.

The wedding was the occasion of the Railers’ year, between our marketing lady, Emma, and her fiancé Paul. We’d all been invited.

I fist-bumped Toly. “Trent was muttering something about scarlet.”

Connor rolled his eyes.

I opened my mouth to tell them about my dark navy suit and plain shirt, but Layton’s door opened.

I gestured for Connor and Toly to go in first, and was just about to step in myself when a loud voice came from behind me.

“Am I too late?”

Gayle, Trent’s agent and now my agent, stood there looking like she’d run up all five flights of stairs.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” I offered lamely.

“Trent said you had a meeting. You should start telling me these things, idiot.”

She swatted my arm and went into the meeting, and I followed, cowed by her chastisement and also by the mood of the room. Everyone looked so serious.

“What?” I said, and looked right at Layton, who was standing behind his desk.

“She pleaded guilty,” he said in one simple sentence, no exaggeration or explanation. I was lost for what to say.

“What does that mean?” Connor asked, vocalizing what I wanted to say but couldn’t.

“It’s over. Some statements, but she’s plea-bargaining, and we could get past this without your name attached to it legally.”

“That won’t stop it from being made public,” Gayle said. I was thankful for her and Connor’s presence.

“No, it won’t, but there will be no video release, no stills, and no money paid, so I think we can call this a win.”

Even thirty minutes later, out on the ice, running drills, I was still dazed – so much so that I skated into the net, narrowly missing a very irritable Stan. He pushed me forcefully away from his crease, causing me to fall, then stood over me telling me off in a mess of broken English and angry Russian. I just lay there and took it, but when he stopped talking, obviously wanting me to comment, I got up and hugged the big guy. After a while he patted my back.

We parted, and I skated away, snowing the guys waiting at the other end.

“What was that about?” Ten asked, inclining his head at Stan.

I shrugged. “I skated too near him, he didn’t like it, he said some shit none of which I understood, and we hugged it out.”

Practice was skills and stretches, and afterward lunch at a local bar. Life with my teammates and friends was good.

But I missed Trent.

“Heavens above, who taught you to fix a tie?” Trent asked. He attempted to tie it again for me, but the height difference was kind of an awkward mess of me stooping and him on tiptoes. In the end, he cursed under his breath and clambered up on the coffee table, putting his height a little above mine. That way he could concentrate on getting my sapphire-blue tie as perfect as he wanted it.

“You know I’ve been doing my own ties for years now,” I said. Not that I minded that he was so close to me, fiddling with my clothes. In fact, I might well have made today’s effort a little messy just so he would come to my rescue.

This close, I could see the warmth of the brown in his eyes, the sweep of color on his lids, and the smudge of liner. He’d put gloss on his lips – this was the third time, because I kept kissing it off him. I couldn’t help it; his lips all slick like that were enticing. He straightened the tie a little, then tutted just before I kissed him again.

“Stop that,” he said, but there was no heat in his words and he deepened the kiss. I lifted him, and he wrapped his legs around me.

“We should kiss some more,” I demanded, and attempted to do so. He avoided my kiss and wriggled free of my hold.

“We’ll be late,” he said, checking his lips in the mirror and applying more gloss. I watched him the same way I did every time he did that, and caught a glimpse of the shine on my own lips. I wasn’t quite ready for a public appearance with gloss, and wiped at the slick of it with a tissue, but it wouldn’t be long before I had my lips on his again.

When we arrived, I spotted Toly immediately in his purple-and-green suit. He looked good, and of course Connor was front and center looking like the GQ model he was. Ten and Jared were hand in hand, and Layton stood so close to Adler it wouldn’t be long before that secret was out.

As for me, I took Trent’s hand and tugged him toward the group. Trent fit in there, despite his scarlet suit, his dark hair with streaks of red, and his makeup. He was a skater – ice was his mistress, the same way as it was for all of us.

The wedding was beautiful, as weddings are, and afterward it was back to Connor’s place for a surprise. He wouldn’t tell us what it was, but it was something that Trent had organized, so God knew what I expected.

We were all handed champagne – just the tiniest of glasses, because Connor was way past responsible at all times – and then he instructed us to take a seat in his home cinema room. Yep, he was that player, with the cinema seating and the large screen, and he’d even set up extra chairs; there were hockey players sprawled everywhere. I was lucky enough to get one of the cinema seats, and Trent decided to sit on my lap.

Since we’d arrived, he’d been a little twitchy, and I held him close; maybe someone had said something, or he was worried about whatever was happening here.

“What is this?”

“They’ll have made me a figure of fun,” he whispered to me, his voice tight with emotion. “Please don’t be too embarrassed.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, but I didn’t get to say anything else, because Connor turned the lights off and took a chair.

“Ready?” he asked, and we all nodded, and then in unison said yes, because hockey players aren’t stupid – we’d all come to the same conclusion that it was dark and no one could see our nods.

The screen lit up, a flashy image in sparkling diamonds that segued to ice in the sun, then moved on to a rink.

“This winter,” the announcer said in a typical movie voice, “join Trenton Lawrence, Olympic figure skater, as he attempts to corral a rink of hockey players…”

Oh, it’s the show, or at least some kind of trailer.

Trent’s face appeared, and he was smiling, and then the image zoomed out to us, the big hulking hockey players that dwarfed him. We were standing in a semi-circle, like we’d been placed; I recalled they’d stood me to one side to balance Stan, or something like that. That single image was so telling. How was this itty-bitty figure skater going to handle us?

The presenter said some other stuff. I wasn’t listening – I was holding Trent tight and hoping to hell this went well.

The picture disappeared into diamonds again, and this time we had Stan on the screen, jumping, arms extended, in full goalie gear, ending in a cartwheel.

Over the top, Trent’s voice. “Only by learning the basics can we work with the strength…”

The camera had caught Stan tumbling to the floor, then moved right to Ten, who barreled into him mid-spin. I couldn’t help smiling, and I heard Stan’s Russian and Ten’s snort of laughter in the room.

They weren’t poking fun at Trent; in fact it was the complete opposite.

The film showed other falls, then moved on to some of the things the guys had learned, brief glimpses of before and after stats.

“So join Trent and his friends for a Christmas launch of the new reality show…”

I tuned out again, seeking Trent’s lips with my own and kissing him.

Then I said what I thought he needed to hear. “I couldn’t be prouder.”