Page 166 of Cold As Ice

“She has a name.”

His eyes went wide, and I mentally kicked myself for sounding so defensive. But this was all new to me and I didn’t exactly have myself under control where Madison or my feelings for her were concerned.

“Jesus, you have it bad. So is that it now? We can expect to see you attending family hour at—”

“Can you just stop?” I blew out an exasperated breath.

“Yeah, give him a break, Holden.” Mason came to my defense. “The guy’s in love. He’s not used to—”

“Oh, fuck off, both of you.”

Their laughter did little to quell the nervous energy skittering around my stomach.

“So when can we meet her? Officially?” Noah asked.

“If I have my way, never,” I muttered.

“Oh, don’t be like that. You should bring her to TPB one night.”

“Millers might be a better call,” Mase added. “Less bunnies.”

I groaned. The two of them were enough to give me a major headache. And I already had one of those thanks to the lack of sleep.

“It’s too early for that,” I said.

The last thing I wanted was to overwhelm her.

Madison was already cautious enough about me. About the fact I was still in college and played hockey.

I didn’t need these assholes ruining things for me.

“Too early? Nah. You need to introduce her into the fold, give her plenty of time to get her head around what she’s getting herself into,” Noah grinned but I didn’t return it. “Oh, come on, don’t be such a—”

“Okay, people. Let’s move it along,” Coach Walsh bellowed. “Coach Tucker wants us out on the ice in five. We’ve got a big couple of weekends ahead of us.”

Thankfully, the guys took that as their cue to stop giving me shit and we all got suited up as quickly as we could.

“You know, before I met Rory,” Noah said to me as we filed out with the rest of the team. “I thought that hockey was the only thing that mattered.”

“And now?”

He looked up at me and grinned as if he was about to let me in on some big secret. “Win or lose, I’m going home to the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Nothing will ever beat that feeling.”

A few weeks ago, if he said that shit to me, I would have shaken my head in disapproval. But now…

Now I had a feeling I knew exactly where he was coming from.

* * *

Meeting the girl of your dreams in the lead up to some of the biggest games in your hockey career to date, was never going to be easy. But after a sloppy win, followed by a draw at home, Coach Tucker demanded more from everyone. More team meetings, more practice time on the ice, and more focus.

It made finding time to see Madison outside of her shifts at Sugartown and O’Shea’s even harder.

I’d seen her once in the last five days and she’d had Imogen with her. So there had been no time to show her how much I missed her.

The team was away this weekend, but I refused to leave without seeing her, so as soon as classes got done Thursday, I hopped on the bus out of town and headed to Sugartown.

“Austin, this is really not a surprise.” Kayleigh laughed as I approached the counter. “Madi is just out back. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

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