Page 8 of Fake Shot

Just Colt.

To Jameson, Colt is family. He has no idea about my complex emotions around the man—how I went from idolizing him when I was younger, to a terrible crush that just about ruined me, to doing everything I can to avoid him. Since Vegas, I’ve used sarcasm as a defense mechanism. But there isn’t enough sarcasm in the world for me to be willing to be around him without my entire family there to serve as a buffer.

“No.” I pick my glass up off the counter and walk around the table to the sink.

“Jules, I need you to be okay with this,” he says from behind me, his voice placating like he’s talking to an unreasonable teenager. I stare out the window above the sink, looking at the back of the brownstone across the alley behind our house.

How do I tell him I can’t live with Colt, without also telling him that everything that happened in Vegas was a result of feelings I had for him back then?

“Why? This is Colt’s problem to deal with, not mine.”

“I don’t see why it’s a big deal,” he says, exasperation creeping into his tone.

I can’t tell him the truth, so instead I say, “He’s a grown man. He can find his own damn accommodations. Stop babying him.”

Colt’s got the kind of golden retriever energy that draws people to him, makes them want to do things for him. He and Jameson were best friends as teammates, and since Jameson became his agent, he’s basically managed Colt’s life—gotten him out of trouble, made him a fortune with endorsement deals, and brought him into our family since he doesn’t seem to have much of a relationship with his own back in Canada.

“I’m not babying him, Jules. He’s a grown-ass adult. But like I said before, he doesn’t have time to find a place. He’s leaving next week for his first playoff games, and I can’t riskanythingtaking his focus away from hockey right now,” Jameson says.

I hold in my questions about whether Colt could spendless time being a man-whore and use that time to find his own place instead—because I do have a filter, even if no one believes it.

“There’s too much on the line,” Jameson says when the dubious look on my face must speak for me, “for his career, and for the whole team.”

Well, fuck.Even as much as I hate hockey—or have said I do since the All-Star Game in Vegas—I don’t want to be responsible for this screwing with his focus and the Rebels ending an amazing season at the beginning of the playoffs. I know how important this is.

“Just until playoffs are over, then.” I sigh. A few weeks.I can manage that, right?“After that, if his condo isn’t inhabitable, he needs to find his own place.”

Jameson reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Thank you, Jules.”

“Tell him to stay out of my way. I don’t want him in my space.”Can’thave him in my space is more like it.

“I’ll mention that.”

“Jameson, make sure heunderstandsit. He can stay in your apartment, but aside from coming in and out, I don’t want him around.” My words are practically a desperate plea, and he eyes me like he’s trying to figure out what’s going through my head.

For the past six years, Colt and I have bantered as he tries to antagonize me, but I’ve never indicated that I don’t want him around. It’s always been easier to keep him at a distance, pretend like he’s just another older brother to me. I don’t want to think about how the truth would change things between him and Jameson. I can’t be responsible for that.

“I will. And I’ll make this up to you,” he says.

I sigh again, thinking about everything my brother has sacrificed for me in the past, and how in comparison, this is a small ask. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him.

“You already have.”

Chapter Four

COLT

“You couldn’t have hired a fucking moving company for this?” Jameson says through clenched teeth as we carry my mattress across the gleaming black marble entryway of the high rise that houses my condo.

“We’re moving a bed and some suitcases. We don’t need a moving company.” I readjust my grip because this king-size mattress is heavy as hell. “Or are you too weak in your old age to carry heavy shit?”

“Fuck you,” he spits out.

We met during our rookie year on the Rebels together, but he’s a few years older than me because he came to the NHL after college, whereas I came up directly through the Canadian league. And I never let him live down the age difference.

“Really, though,” I say, as we walk slowly across the lobby, “if you need me to get someone else to help, just let meknow. I should have asked Jules. She’s probably stronger than you, old man.”

Jameson leans forward on the mattress, pressing it into my chest so that I almost stumble backward and lose my balance. Almost.

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