Page 1 of Power Play

two years ago

prologue

lo

TWO YEARS AGO

“I can’t believeyou convinced me to do this,” I tell my sister as we walk up the steps of my brother’s townhouse across town. Demi scoffs and rolls her eyes.

“You havegotto take it easier, Lo,” she says, reaching the top step and pulling on the front door handle. But before she goes inside, she turns to me. “Look at me, little sister.”

I lift my eyes to her slowly. My stomach has been in knots all night.

“Harper is safe. She’s home with Dad. She’s sleeping, and she doesn’t even know that you’re gone. You haven’t had a night ‘off’ from momming in almost two years. Twoyears. You are only twenty years old. You deserve this. Levi is home. Spending a night with your siblings and having a little bit of fun does not make you a bad mom. Do you hear me?” she asks.

I blow out a breath and nod slowly, and she smiles. We walk through the door, and the house is already full of people. I always feel a little out of place at these things anyway, because I’m so much younger than my brothers and sister. But it’s good to see familiar faces.

“There they are!” my brother Tyson calls out from across the room. He’s behind the kitchen island, pouring some sort of frozen drink into about ten red cups that are in a line on the counter. We walk toward him, and he hands us drinks before he even hugs us. Then he rushes out from behind the island toward the middle of the living room where the one and only Levi Buck stands—professional hockey player and my brother’s very best friend. The man whose photo I learned to, ahem, self-satisfy with.God,he’s gorgeous. More gorgeous than he was in his teenage years. He’s in his thirties now, but he’s aging like he’s part god. I smile as I watch them all crowd around him. This is one of the first times he’s been home for longer than a night or two since he was drafted over ten years ago. I want to say hello, but I don’t want to be like the rest of the people here. That hometown-hero syndrome, where they start to see him as an object of value rather than a person. So I just hang back. He’s hugging people left and right, smiling, laughing, but for a brief second, our eyes lock from across the room. He pauses, and for a second, I think he might walk over to me. But then someone else throws their arms around his neck, and he’s lost into the crowd again. In no time, Demi is sucked into the crowd of people, laughing and joking and drinking. Tyson is in the corner with another group, and I am having casual conversations with people I’ve known most of my life about how much I’ve grown up. How young I look. How I’ve bounced back after having a baby.

What every mother wants to hear.

Congrats! Your body that just grew and shoved out a whole human is acceptable by society’s standards once again.

Like that should be our main concern.

I can’t seem to drink fast enough for the alcohol to drown out my anxiety over leaving Harper at home. So then I decide against drinking altogether—you know, just in case she needs me. I’ve checked my phone a thousand and one times, but nothing from my dad. The house seems to grow more crowded and louder, and I walk down the steps toward the basement. I feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I need a minute. I walk down the hall to the laundry room and make sure no one is watching before I open the door and sneak inside.

I walk to the back of the tiny room and lean up against the shelves, drawing in a long breath and putting my hand on my chest, just like my therapist and I talked about. I suck in a breath for four seconds, and just as I’m about to exhale, the door opens, and I jump back.

“You havin’ your own party in here?” Levi asks as he slips through the door, closing it behind him. My jaw drops. I’m essentially in a closet alone with Levi Buck.

“Did…did anyone else…” I start to ask, but he shakes his head.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t blow your cover,” he says with a smile. “I guess I thought time would stop the last time I came back.” I look at him and raise an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

He smiles.

“I guess I thought you’d still be seventeen,” he says. I laugh nervously and shrug.

“I guess we’ve all grown up some, huh?” I say.More than you know, Buck.Except, he doesn’t know just how much I’ve grown up. And I don’t intend on him finding out tonight. I’ve done a good job of not letting him in on it over the last two years. I’d like to keep it that way.

Then, he walks across the closet toward me and wraps his arms around me, lifting my feet off the ground. He’s so freakin’ tall I swear the weather is different up here. “How have you been, girl?” he whispers in my ear as he holds me, and I’m suddenly thankful I decided to wash my hair and actually wear deodorant today. I squeeze him tight while he holds me.

Oh, Levi. You have no idea how I’ve been.

“I’ve been good,” I tell him as he sets me down slowly. “But what aboutyou?This is the longest I’ve seen you since…” I lose my train of thought when I realize that he’s staring down at me, his eyes tracing what feels like every inch of my body. I smile, nervously biting my lip. “Levi…what…” I start to say, but he takes another step toward me.

“Did he…that night, at the party, when Tyson and I came... Was that guy…did he…” he starts to ask, and his eyebrows knit together. But I take a step toward him and press a finger to his lips.

“Don’t,” I say to him. He lifts his eyes to mine slowly. We stand like that for a moment, locked in on each other. And then he bends down, tilting my chin up toward him. His eyes bounce back and forth between mine for a minute, and then he leans down and presses his lips to mine. It starts soft, his lips moving gently along with mine. But then I feel his fingers weaving through my hair to grip the back of my head, and I feel mine reaching up to run through his.

He slides his hand down my back slowly and then down to the curve of my ass, and a tiny moan escapes me as he bites down gently on my bottom lip. I lift my leg up, and he grabs the crook of my knee to give me a boost. I wrap my legs around his waist as he spins us around, sitting me on top of the dryer. His other hand slides down my body and over the curve of my breast as his lips leave mine, headed for my jawline and then my neck.

And then his fingers dance up the inside of my bare thigh, stopping just before the hem of my sundress.

And then we hear my brother calling his name outside. His hand freezes, and I feel this Levi-induced high bursting into flames. He hangs his head for a minute, letting it rest on mine.

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