And with that, I leave her office happier than when I came in.
8
COLLETTE
Game day energy is a living thing. It hums through the building’s walls before anyone’s even laced up, buzzes under the fluorescent lights, and vibrates through the concrete floors. The hallways smell like fresh ice and industrial coffee and whatever cologne Bouch bathed in this morning. Practice was sharp with barely any chirping, everyone is locked in because tonight is the LA game. It’s the exhibition match the boys have been waiting for since Felix and Pierre arrived. Everyone knows what happened to Felix with that team. Everyone knows what Stephen Carter did. And everyone knows my brothers well enough to know that tonight is not going to be pretty.Good. I hope Pierre breaks his face.That’s not professional, Collette.I’m not feeling professional with those assholes.
The girls and I are set up outside the players’ entrance, filming arrivals. Game-day style content that the fans lose their minds over, it’s the guys walking in looking sharp for the cameras. The late afternoon light catches the building just right, and Billie has angled the camera to get the golden hour glow.It’s easy, it’s fun, and it gives us behind-the-scenes material that pulls huge numbers.
Emmett arrives before everyone because the captain doesn’t do fashionably late. Dark navy overcoat, crisp white shirt, no tie, top button undone. It’s simple and clean, the kind of outfit that says I didn’t try, and yet somehow costs more than everyone else’s combined. He walks past the camera with a polite nod to Billie and keeps moving. No performance, no posing, just quiet authority that fills the entire entrance without him saying a word.
“That man is dangerously attractive,” Marlowe murmurs once he’s out of earshot.
“And completely unavailable, emotionally,” Zara adds.
Sully is right behind him, because where Emmett goes, Sully follows. Camel coat, cream shirt, dark trousers, and loafers, no socks. He spots the camera and gives it this slow, knowing smile that’s all mischief.
“Ladies,” he says, tipping an imaginary hat as he passes.
“Sully gives me old Hollywood energy,” Billie says. “Like he should be in a black and white movie holding a martini.”
“Oh, here comes Nelly,” Marlowe says as the Swedish wall of a man strides in wearing a black turtleneck and caramel overcoat like he’s about to assassinate a Bond villain or he is the villain.
Bouch is next in a fitted leather jacket, dark jeans, and boots that probably cost more than my rent.You don’t pay rent.Well, if I did, it would be the same price as his shoes. The French-Canadian in him would never let him leave the house looking anything less than effortless. He spots the camera, blows a kiss, and adjusts his collar like he’s about to walk a runway in Montreal. I make a mental note to slow-mo that for the edit.
“It’s giving main character,” Billie adds, and she’s not wrong.
Evan walks in behind him, head down, earbuds in, always dressed in all black everything. Black coat, black shirt, and blackjeans. There’s no acknowledgment of the camera, no smile, just pure Russian energy radiating off him like a warning sign. The temperature drops three degrees when he passes.
“He scares me a little,” Marlowe whispers.
“He scares everyone a little,” I tell her as we laugh.
“It’s wild that he and Fish are best friends. They are complete opposites,” Zara adds. “One is black cat energy, and the other is total golden retriever vibes.”
Speak of the devil, Fish walks through the door, and I hear Billie inhale beside me. Navy suit, white shirt open at the collar, hair pushed back like he rolled out of bed looking like that, and honestly, he probably did. The suit fits him like it was sewn onto his body, and I hate that I notice. He spots the camera and gives it his signature grin, the one that makes women on the internet lose their collective minds, the one that makes the engagement spike every time I post it.Stop staring at him.I’m working. This is literally my job to look at the players.Your job doesn’t require your heart rate to increase.
“It’s not fair how handsome he is,” Billie says, shaking her head.
“No wonder he’s been picked up to be the face of the menswear brand, James Eyre.”
“Men want to be him, and women want to do him.” Billie chuckles.
She’s not wrong, but I’m not going to say that out loud.
Next are my brothers, Pierre in a charcoal suit, clean-shaven, jaw set, looking like he’s heading to a board meeting where he plans to fire everyone. Felix is in a designer hoodie, oversized, with sneakers that haven’t even dropped yet, totally different vibes. Pierre looks like he’s about to go to war on Wall Street, and Felix looks like he’s about to DJ a set in Brooklyn. Together, they look like the most mismatched siblings on the planet, which is kind of our whole family brand.
I’min the tunnel with the mini mic catching guys as they come off the ice after warmups. The air is colder down here, sharp with the smell of fresh ice shavings, rubber, and the metallic tang that clings to everything near the rink. The energy is different from a normal game, tighter, meaner. You can feel it vibrating off the guys as they file past. I catch a few of them for quick sound bites. Emmett gives me his usual one-word answer, those green eyes already somewhere else, probably replaying defensive formations in his head. Sully stops long enough to say, “If anyone asks, I’m calm and focused,” with a grin that says he is neither of those things, before heading back toward the locker room.
Then Issy finds me between takes, pulling me into a quiet corner away from the cameras. Something about the look on her face makes my stomach clench before she even opens her mouth.
“I need to tell you something, and you need to keep it together.”That’s never a good opening.” Josh has leaked AI-generated nudes of Harper.”
The words land like a punch. My hand grips the mini mic so hard the foam compresses. “What?”
“They’re fake. They’re not her body. But they’re everywhere. She’s at home dealing with it, and she doesn’t want Felix to know before the game.”
I close my eyes for a second. Gorgeous, fierce, brilliant Harper, who has dealt with more shit from that psychopath ex of hers than any person should have to, and now this. Fake images of her body are plastered across the internet for strangers to gawk at while she sits at home alone.Keep it together.