Page 76 of Match Me if You Can

“I’m not going to bring up your right hook again…”

“Except, you kind of are,” I mutter.

“Or the fact that you stood up for my mom…” My breath catches. “Or that you called me on my bullshit I said at your apartment.”

My eyes go wide.

“You didn’t get in my face about it. But you made a point on the plane, made me see that I was being a fucking dick⁠—”

“You can’t help it,” I grumble, even though I know I’m spouting lies. “It’s the hockey player in you.”

He chuckles, taps the tip of my nose. “Fire.”

I sigh.

“I was up in my head about being back here—because, fuck, it brings up all sorts of shit I don’t want to think about, and because, aside from Noble and my mom, I’m torn between never wanting to see them again and hoping they get their shit together because they’re my family and I fucking love them.”

God, I know what it’s like to feel exactly that.

And I know the gulf it leaves behind when they don’t get their shit together.

“Ace,” I whisper.

“So yeah, princess,” he says, “your father is a fucking idiot. Because he missed out on all that’s you. They all did.”

My throat is so tight it feels impossible to get the words out. “The situation wasn’t⁠—”

“Easy?” he finishes. “Was it easy for you to have the mom you had? Was it easy to go into that lion’s den of assholes who blamed you for things that weren’t your fault?”

I shake my head.

“Exactly.” He sighs. “It was a shit situation for everyone and they had a choice on how to handle it. They chose wrong.” Fingers trailing along my jaw, a thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “But in the end, you survived and built something good, so fuck ‘em.”

I wonder what sort of shit it is that he doesn’t want to think about.

And why coming home makes it worse.

Then I wonder why he’s here, days before the Laurents are showing, soaking in all that worse when he could just breeze in and out for the wedding.

But before I get the chance to ask him, he smiles and it’s one of those beautiful ones, the ones that make my chest tight and my pulse pick up its pace and my brain forget that he’s one of them.

An asshole hockey player.

And maybe…that’s because he isn’t.

“Right.” He touches my cheek. “Now, was that so bad?”

“It was pretty bad, Ace.” And I’m not referring to this conversation.

His expression gentles. “Yeah, princess. I know it was.”

Damn. That hits almost as hard as his smile.

So hard my chest goes tight and my eyes go damp.

But when I open my mouth to say something (I don’t know what, exactly, other than it’s definitely going to change the subject), he asks, “Do you really do a weekly DoorDash?”

I frown, that tightness going away as I wonder why he sounds amused. “Yeah, every Monday night.”