The Mistake

A smile stretches across my entire face. “Damn right I will.”


I leave the kitchen with the sound of my brother’s laughter at my back and sprint out of the house. From the porch, I see Grace in the pickup, her feet raised on the dashboard and her nose buried in her textbook. Her peripheral vision must have caught the front door flying open, because she lifts her head and turns it toward the porch, and I must still be grinning like a fool, because a little smile curves her sexy lips.

I quickly descend the porch steps and make my way to the truck. It’s still gloomy out. The trees are swaying ominously. The clouds are a thick, dark mass undulating overhead. The sky is more black than gray.

And yet my future has never looked brighter.





Epilogue




Grace


Two Years Later

Man, this executive suite at TD Garden is fancy-pants. I feel like a queen reigning over her kingdom as I lean forward in my plush leather seat and sweep my gaze over the massive arena. Thousands of screaming hockey fans fill the seats, an endless sea of faces, a blur of black and yellow occasionally broken up by the white and turquoise of the Sharks fans who happen to be in attendance.

“This is so intense,” Hannah whispers in my ear, and I know she’s trying to keep her voice down so the three beer-sipping wives standing five feet away don’t tease us again about our novice status. Or mine, at least. This is Logan’s first season with Boston—he played in the AHL for a year after college, until the Bruins finally decided he was ready and signed him.

Since Garrett had an amazing rookie season last year, I figured Hannah would be an old pro by now, but when we were being led into the private suite, she confessed that she’d sat in the club seats last year because she’d been too intimidated to sit up here alone.

We haven’t stopped marveling since we arrived. Each time the other people milling in the suite turned their heads, the two of us have oohed and aahed about something else. The private bar across the room. The gourmet spread on the granite counter. The seats. The view. No detail has gone un-oohed or un-aahed.

I’m hoping we’ll learn to restrain ourselves after we’ve had a few games under our belts, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this kind of luxury.

“A part of me keeps expecting security to show up and throw us out,” I whisper back. “I’ve never felt so out of place.”

She laughs softly. “Me too. But I’m sure we’ll adjust.” Her green eyes focus on the rink below us. The players are still warming up, and I know the moment her gaze lands on Garrett, because her entire face lights up.

I’m pretty sure the same thing happens to me when I look at Logan.

“Do you think they’ll get a lot of playing time?”

I think it over. “Logan…probably not. Garrett…absolutely. He and Lukov were an unstoppable force of nature last season.” Thinking of Shane Lukov brings a smile to my face. When I met him in person for the first time this summer, he spent ten minutes teasing me mercilessly about the “endorsement” he gave, and how he credits himself for my relationship with his new teammate.

“Okay, I need to ask you something, and no bullshitting me.” Hannah leans in close again. “Do you really love hockey now, or is that just the line you’re feeding Logan?”

I press my lips together to keep from laughing. “Well, I don’t hate it. And I definitely don’t find it as boring anymore, but…” I lower my voice “…I’d still rather watch football.”

She snorts.

The dark-haired woman who slides into the seat beside me is not as amused. “Shame on you, Grace Ivers,” Logan’s mother chides. “I thought we’d succeeded in converting you.”

“Sorry, Jean, not yet.”

She sighs. “Well, I’m encouraged by the ‘yet’. Means there’s still hope that you’ll see the error of your ways.”

Hannah and I laugh.

God, I adore Logan’s mom. She’s sweet and funny and so damn supportive of her sons. Her husband David, on the other hand, is one of the blandest men I’ve ever met in my life, but he’s so good to Jean that I can’t help but like him.

And if I’m being honest, Logan’s father is growing on me too. He’s been sober for nearly two years now, and he seems determined to keep it that way. Though sometimes it’s hard to reconcile the charming man I’ve gotten to know with the drunken mess Logan used to have to scrape off the floor.