Scraping-swishing noises cause my head to turn back toward the ice, and I see the players have arrived. They’re not wearing the jerseys they had on the other night, but rather some are wearing plain white jerseys and others are wearing yellow, and a few of the players have on red jerseys.

One player steps out onto the ice, and I recognize Alex immediately. Even with his helmet on, I recognize his build, his grace, his swagger. His eyes come straight to mine and hold me briefly before he takes off to skate a large loop around the arena. I watch him, admiring the long, smooth pull of his legs against the ice. When he turns the corner and heads toward the area where I’m sitting, his gaze slides over to me and I’m amazed I can recognize the blue of his eyes from so far away. As he skates closer, I can feel my heartbeat speed up, almost matching pace with his skating. As he draws even with me, he reaches his stick out and taps the glass right in front of my face. He then spins around on his skates, now gliding backward, shooting me a wink as he pulls farther away.

Yeah, I’m wearing a big ol’ goofy grin on my face right now. I so wish I could take a picture in here, because I would have killed a kitten to immortalize the look of happiness on his face as he went past. I’d then show it to him later, and say, “See…there’s still some love for the game inside of you.”

“How do you know Alex?” I hear from my right, and turn my head to see the platinum blonde has moved down to sit right next to me. The other woman has followed, and sits just to her right.

The question wasn’t asked in mere curiosity, and the frigid tone of her voice tells me to tread carefully.

“He’s a business colleague,” I tell her smoothly, because that’s absolutely true.

She runs her eyes down me with what I’m thinking might be disdain. I can’t help it when my own gaze drops, doing a quick check of my outfit to make sure I didn’t mistakenly wear something that clashed.

Nope. Dark washed jeans, a light gray, long-sleeved T-shirt and my black Converse Chuck-T’s. I’m confident I match and while I may not be oozing sex and pink fluffy angora from my pores, I think I look okay.

“Business colleague? You’re with the Cold Fury?” she asks.

“No. Alex and I are working together on a project for the Cold Fury.”

“How did you get a ticket to this session?”

I want to tell her, Just down the street at a little store that’s called “None of Your Freakin’ Business,” but I resist the very strong temptation.

Instead, and for some reason that I can’t quite fathom, I give her a sweet smile and say, “Alex had a courier bring it to my office for me last week.”

The woman’s blue eyes narrow at me and I can tell in that split instant that she has some type of proprietary interest in Alex. I’m not sure if she wants him, had him or maybe both, but there’s something there and damn if that thought doesn’t rankle me.

I am here on a business-related matter, I tell myself firmly.

I have no personal interest in Alex, I remind myself again.

I need to stop fantasizing about Alex and me naked, I practically shout to my vagina.

After repeating these words of motivation to myself, I give the woman a warm smile and say, “I assure you. This is just business. We’re putting together an anti-drug campaign the Cold Fury wants to sponsor, and Alex will be the spokesperson.”

A crack against the glass causes all three of us to jump, our heads whipping toward the sound. Alex stands there, glaring at the woman with blond hair, his finger pointing down the aisle of chairs. He’s actually pointing for the woman to move away—from me, I guess. He looks furious and it makes me so uncomfortable, I have the urge to flee. Then his gaze flicks to mine and he gives me a reassuring smile before he skates off.

“I’d get out of here, if I were you, Cassie. Alex doesn’t look happy. He could have you thrown out of here in a heartbeat.”

Turning around, I see a woman sitting behind me. She’s got medium-length, curly brown hair and her dark brown eyes are focused on the woman sitting next to me.

“It’s a free country,” Blondie seethes, causing me to whip my head back around to her. “I can sit wherever I want.”

The woman behind me says softly, but with absolute certainty, “You’re acting like a brat. No wonder Alex kicked you to the curb.”

I don’t bother turning to look back at her—my poor neck can’t handle the whiplash, but I see Blondie’s eyes go wide and then fill with rage. “Where did you hear that? It’s a lie.”

This is interesting…in a soap opera sort of way.

The brown-haired woman snickers and that causes me to look back at her. “What do you mean, where did I hear that from? I heard it from your sister,” she says as she nods to the woman sitting quietly next to Blondie. “And of course, she heard it straight from you.”

Okay, I want to see this reaction, because that was shocking. My head spins supremely fast back to my right, and I’m just in time to see the red flush creep up Blondie’s neck, over her cheeks and straight into her hairline. She opens her mouth to say something, slams it shut, then turns to look at who I’m now understanding is her sister.

“I can’t believe you told her that!” she accuses.

“I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t know it was a secret,” the other woman whines.

While the sisters start bickering, a soft hand squeezes my shoulder and I turn back to the woman behind me. “Come on…let’s go sit down a few seats away from this spectacle.”