Page 38 of Match Me if You Can

Then it’ll be exactly like before.

Pain creeping in. Medicine barely a balm. Sleep the only cure.

Because my brothers, my dad⁠—

“It was definitely sneaking,” he says, refocusing me, pulling me into his memories and away from my headaches, away from when they started and what they meant for me growing up. “We’d tiptoe up here, and do…” His lips twitch. “…teenager things⁠—”

“Under the watchful eyes of bikini models?”

He slants a glance around, as though he’s seeing the contents of his bedroom for the first time in a long time. “Definitely.” Grinning, he withdraws his fingers from my hair, making me shiver in the process. “And I have to say, my horny teenage self had great taste.”

“And you haven’t bothered to redecorate since then?” I tease.

His smile grows, and even in the shadows it’s beautiful. “I’m here a couple of weekends a year and moved out when I was sixteen. There’s nothing to redecorate.”

“Sixteen?” I ask, though I don’t know why I’m surprised. My brothers did the same thing—moved out to live with billet families, moved away from home to play at higher levels of hockey than our city could offer, to take advantage of opportunities in different places they wouldn’t have found within driving distance.

They all left.

Eventually, I had too.

“Sixteen,” Ace agrees, nudging me back onto the pillows, drawing the blankets up and over me, tucking me into a warm cocoon of fabric. “I was lucky to get picked up by some good teams then to play on the national team for world juniors. Basically, from the time anyone would take me to play, I went, worked my ass off, and luckily, I succeeded in dominating.”

I smirk a little. “And that’s the story of why the world has Ace Ambrose.”

He shakes his head, even as he moves around the bed and slowly lowers himself onto the other side of the mattress, as through he’s trying not to jostle me.

“No?” I ask, heart skipping a beat.

“No,” he says. “That’s the story of why I get to do what I love.”

I can’t deny it. Those words hit me hard. His love of the sport and his incredible drive—I know it’s why he’s the most talented Ambrose brother, the one who is head and shoulders above his siblings.

Same as I know it’s why Oakes is so jealous, and why the eldest Ambrose brother is likely going to be retiring after this season.

Oakes is good, like all the Ambroses.

But he’s—they’re—not Ace.

They won’t be remembered the same way.

They won’t be in the record books.

Well, maybe Noble will get there too.

But the rest?

Mentally, I shake my head.

“What?” Ace asks quietly.

“Is that a show of modesty from the infamously cocky Mr. Ambrose?” I ask, because teasing is easier than thinking about why this conversation feels different.

He turns his head to the side, eyes hitting mine and I don’t miss the humor glimmering through the deep brown depths. “I know my fiancée can’t be buying my humble bullshit.”

“Maybe not,” I say.

That amusement disappears and he rotates his head again, breaking his gaze from mine, pointing it up at the ceiling as he asks, “What was it like growing up with the Conrads as your brothers?”