Page 24 of Top Shelf

“I did not rescue her. She came willingly… Eventually.”

Chase’s head snaps toward me with alarming speed. “Heidi was on your bike?”

“No,” I lie, but sigh when I catch Reid's brows rising. “Yes.”

Chase’s whole face lights up with interest as Reid leans against the wall. “Was she okay?”

The worry beneath his amusement doesn’t surprise me. Heidi is not a stranger to him. She is Carina’s best friend and one of the people Ivy reaches for if his or Carina’s hands are full.

“She was shaken,” I say. “Angry. She threatened me with a PowerPoint.”

Chase shakes his head with a grin. “God, I love Heidi.”

I turn my head slowly, and he lifts both hands. “In a supportive, friends-only way!”

“Good.”

“Possessive,” Chase murmurs.

“No.”

Reid’s amusement strengthens, and I nod toward him. “You also, no.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Chase makes a strangled sound of joy. “Interesting.”

I ignore them and turn, pointing toward the locker room. “Game.”

This conversation is over, even as Chase’s smile stretches wide as I push past. Reid lets me go, but I hear the amusement in his voice.

“Good luck, Vik!”

I suspect he does not only mean the game.

Inside the locker room, the noise closes around me and settles my blood. This part, I know. Suits on hooks, tape pulled and torn, skates lined beneath stalls. The music starts low at first, then grows louder when someone gets control of the speaker who should not have control of the speaker. This is a room of men hiding nerves by doing what they always do in exactly the same order.

Eli Parnell stands near the middle of the room, half dressed already, while Logan Miller sits across from him, taping a stick with the relaxed face of a man who irritates Eli for sport and still somehow earned his trust.

Jake Brooks sits two stalls down, laughing at something one of the younger forwards says while still looking as though he is thinking three shifts ahead.

Chase drops into his stall beside mine and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

“I’m just saying,” he says, “Heidi on your bike feels like information we should be aware of.”

“It is unimportant information.”

Logan glances over at me. “Heidi got on Priscilla?”

“Yes,” Chase replies before I can answer, waggling his eyebrows. “She did”

Jake laughs from down the row. “Leave him alone.”

“Thank you,” I reply.

“I wanna hear it from Carina—she gives better detail.”

Traitor.