Page 47 of Off The Ice

Maggie sashayed up to the stage, looking far tipsier than I’d seen her in a while.

“DJ,” she called out to the guy swaying his head to the music he was projecting into the bar. “We want to do the karaoke!”

Her words were slightly slurred, but I never felt nervous around her the way I sometimes did around drunk people.

Maybe it was because Maggie was never an angry drunk or a sad drunk and never got to a point where I really had to take care of her. She just got silly and laid back, even more so than usual.

He asked for her song request, and she made a dramatic tiptoe across the stage to whisper in his ear.

“Hey, I thought you said I could pick.” I laughed when she returned to me, picking up one of the microphones.

“I know what song you’d pick.”

She put a hand on my shoulder as if to reassure me. Her eyes looked so much like her brother’s in color and shape, but the expression they held couldn’t be any more different.

Liam’s gaze was sharp and intense as if it could cut through any bullshit, no matter how thick someone was laying it on. Whereas Maggie had an open, uncaring ease to hers, making her far more approachable than her brother.

The opening beats toSOSby Abba came on, and I grinned at Maggie, shaking my head at how cheesy her choice was. But she was right. It was my pick. It healed something in my heart to know that she knew me so well.

Maggie swayed across the stage like she didn’t have a care in the world, singing, not always correctly, to the lyrics of the song. I didn’t have the same drunken courage that was coursing through Maggie’s veins, so the idea of singing into a microphone in a bar full of people seemed less than appealing.

Maggie noticed and made her way over to me at once, singing loudly while offering me a disappointed pouty face at my lack of voice.

I looked into the crowd, relieved to see that no one was really paying us any mind. The hockey guys were mostly engaged in trying to chat up women around the bar. There were a few couples already engaged in more than chatting, andeveryone else who occasionally glanced our way seemed entirely disinterested.

There was only one person who sat alone with eyes glued to us the entire time.

Liam.

I told myself I didn’t have to be embarrassed by what he thought. I was with his little sister, and he probably just viewed me as an extension of her. Little sisters did embarrassing things all the time, didn’t they? So why shouldn’t their friends? It wouldn’t reflect on him in any way.

Maggie pleaded with her eyes, reaching out her hand to me until I finally sighed, found my courage, and started singing along with her. It took a few moments to ease into it, but by the chorus, we were full-on belting, holding each other up to support each other from falling off the stage in a fit of laughter.

Sometimes, life felt like it was falling apart. Sometimes, I didn’t know how to move forward when the future I’d envisioned seemed so far out of reach. But moments like this—when a good song played, and a friend stood beside you—made it feel like maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

Chapter Sixteen

Liam

There was a bizarre feeling in my chest. It was uncomfortable and foreign in a way that I couldn’t quite name.

But I was certain it wasn’t anything good.

Not when the reason for it was the little blonde dancing on stage with my sister.

I shouldn’t have feelings in my chest for my sister’s friends. And definitely not the one currently living with me.

Shake it the fuck off,I ordered myself, trying to tear my gaze away. But despite my best efforts, my eyes were glued to her.

She was beaming, and I couldn’t even be mad at myself for staring so blatantly when it meant that I got to watch that smile overtake her. She’d been so broken that night she came to me, so hurt and small and injured. And now, just a few short days later… well, it looked like she was getting her light back.

It was a testimony to what happened when you evicted dickheads from your life.

Off-key singing filled the bar, and I snorted at their terrible harmonizing, but still, I couldn’t fight the smirk that found its way onto my begrudging lips.

Until my least favorite interruption found him.

“Hi,” came a sensual voice, and I practically rolled my eyes before I even saw her.

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