Prologue
BRENDAN
The rink always smelled the same….sharp, clean ice mingled with the tang of sweat and the faint burn of rubber from puck marks.
It should have been comforting, grounding, the one place where I could strip everything away and just be Brendan Fitzgerald Pontelli—the hockey player, the teammate, the guy who thrived under pressure.
But today, something kept pulling at my focus.
Then I caught sight of them in the bleachers.
Breanna stood with a small group of girls—Ana, maybe—and Gianna, front and center, laughing like the world didn’t include a rink full of grinding blades and flying pucks.
Gianna had been Breanna’s best friend for as long as I could remember. Practically family. She’d been around so long it was hard to separate memories of my sister from memories of her.
My chest tightened, shoulders stiffened. I had to keep it together. Drill after drill, stride after stride, I pushed harder, faster, sharper.
The puck slid across the ice exactly where I wanted it, and the slap of my teammates’ hands against my back and my coach’s booming praise faded into white noise.
I told myself I was skating like I always did, but my mind kept drifting back to the bleachers, to them, to the way Gianna’s laughter had hit me.
Of course, it was her. Gianna.
Blond curls escaping her messy bun as she waved her arms like she was trying to summon a storm.
Her voice cut through the usual clang of skates and sticks, echoing off the boards. “Go Pontelli! Show them who raised you!”
Her grin was impossibly confident, that knowing curve of her lips that said she knew exactly the effect she had.
I hid the smirk behind my helmet and dug in deeper, pretending her cheers didn’t make my pulse skip.
They weren’t meant for me. Not really. I was just… focused.
Then I saw movement. Breanna and the girls stood abruptly, grabbing their bags and heading toward the exit.
Confusion shot through me.
What the hell…? And then I spotted him.
Chance F-ing Johnson, moving through the bleachers with that frustrating ease he always had, chasing after them.
My stomach tightened into a knot.
Seriously? Can’t he see Breanna isn’t interested?
Every instinct in me screamed to intercept, to put myself between my sister and that idiot, to make sure he didn’t get close enough to ruin whatever fragile calm she had left.
Before I could react, the final whistle cut through the rink….sharp and loud.
Practice was over.
Guys slowed, peeling off toward the bench. I skated hard one last time before turning in, adrenaline still humming in my veins.
Breanna was off-limits. Always had been. And apparently, I was the only one enforcing it.
As I reached the bench, I grabbed my water bottle and took a sip, forcing my breathing to steady.
That’s when I caught it.
More than one pair of eyes drifting toward the bleachers.
Toward Gianna.
Liam’s smirk lingered a second too long.
A flicker of irritation slid under my ribs—sharp, unwelcome, and completely out of place.
What was that?
“Hey, Fitz! That was some speed!”
I stopped mid-stride. Liam, a third-year defenseman I’d probably exchanged a total of three words with, slapped me on the back a little too hard like we were lifelong buddies. I raised a brow.
“I saw you had some fans,” he said, still grinning. “One of them was really cute—”
“Back way the fuck back,” I said, voice low and dangerous, my teeth gritted. “You’re talking about my sister—”
TJ swooped in with an arm around my shoulders. I shrugged him off. TJ I liked, he was first-year like me, I’d known him from hockey camps back home. “Yeah, man, he does not play about his sister,” TJ laughed.
I was ready to bolt, Chance was somewhere in those bleachers, and I needed to find him—when Liam added, almost too casually, “Hmm… I don’t think that was his sister. The cute blond one…”
My eyes snapped up. My pulse stuttered. I took a slow sip from my water bottle, aiming for indifferent even as something tightened low in my gut. “What about her…?”
Gianna. Of course he meant Gianna. My chest tightened. My jaw locked.
“Like I said, she’s cute. Just my type.” His eyebrows wiggling in that infuriatingly suggestive way, and something in me went still.
Something dark twisted in my chest.
No. Not jealousy.
Just irritation. Protective, maybe. A reflex.
I wasn’t the type to get worked up over who Gianna talked to or dated. I never had before. This wasn’t about her.
It was about Liam.
Something about him felt off—too smooth, too confident. The kind of guy who mistook any attention for interest.
I set the water down, sliding my feet fully into my shoes, already moving toward the exit. “I saw someone I need to speak to… really quickly,” I said, letting the words hang as I dashed past them. I didn’t need to explain.
Not that she was mine. She wasn’t. Gianna was her own person. Her business, her life.
But still, there was no universe where I’d help Liam get anywhere near her.
Then I was out before he could say another word—before I had to figure out why the hell Liam suddenly looked like a problem I needed to remove from the equation.
First priority: Chance. Get him to back off. My sister comes first. Always.
As I walked back from my run-in with Chance, the anger simmering in my chest had finally cooled to something manageable. I’d told him—again—to back off, but he still hadn’t gotten the message. Typical quarterback ego.
I’d stormed out of the arena so fast I hadn’t even bothered to shower. At six-three, sweaty, broad-shouldered, with my wavy brown curls plastered to my forehead, I probably looked like I’d fought a bear and lost.
My hazel eyes still burned with leftover irritation, and the dimple in my cheek, the one Gianna always teased me about, was hidden by the scowl etched across my face.
I was just going to take a quick shower, grab my gear and get the hell out, but then I saw him.
Liam fucking MacGreggor.
Leaning against my locker like it was his. His head was down, pretending he wasn’t obviously waiting for me.
I seethed internally. He sure knew how to pick the worst time.
“Hey, uh….listen,” Liam started, shifting his weight like the smug bastard he was. “So you were saying about your sister’s friend…”
He wasn’t even trying to be subtle.
“As a matter of fact,” I said dryly, yanking my hoodie over my jersey, “I don’t remember saying anything at all.”
I stripped down to my compression pants, staring him down, daring him to keep talking.
He cleared his throat, eyes darting anywhere but my face. My murderous glare had him sweating—but the idiot kept going.
“I was just wondering… is she single?”
A strange, unwelcome jolt hit me low in the gut. I shoved it down immediately, keeping my expression bored.
“Who?” I asked, voice flat. “You’ll have to be …more specific.”
“Your sister’s friend,” he said again, quieter this time.
I played dumb. I didn’t even know why I was dragging this out, only that letting Liam anywhere near her felt wrong. Too wrong.
“My sister has lots of friends,” I shrugged. “Ask her.”
“The blonde one,” he clarified. “With the curls and the—hot bod—”
Before he could finish that sentence, I slammed my locker shut so hard it echoed through the room.
Liam flinched, actually stumbling back. I stepped forward until he had no choice but to meet my eyes.
“Look,” I said, low and cold, “I don’t keep tabs on my sister’s friends like that. Excuse me. I’m hitting the shower.”
I brushed past him, shoulder colliding with his a little too hard, and headed toward the stalls. I didn’t wait for his response.
⸻
By the time I’d rinsed off and started getting dressed, my phone buzzed.
Gianna: Looked good out there. Show off 😜
A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it. My chest puffed a little, just a little.
I hid the grin and typed back:
Brendan: It’s not showing off when it’s just how I am every day. Taking a page out of your book,👃
The nose emoji—her “Big-nose” nickname—earned me a groan and an eye roll every time. She hated it.
She loved it more.
I found myself smiling again as I packed up my gear and slung my bag over my shoulder.
I started walking straight toward Breanna’s dorm.
I needed to check on her myself—make sure Chance hadn’t completely freaked her out.
And it didn’t matter that Gianna would be there too.
I’d only get to tease her in person. That was all.
That was all there ever was between us.
Right?
