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“Scott Donelly?” I ask when the call connects.

“Yeah,” comes his young voice—fuck, so fucking young. I can hear his excitement, nerves, and even the fear I bet he has to be feeling. I can picture him in my mind, this tall kid from Calgary who probably still has two inches to grow, all gentle off the ice but a beast of a defenseman on it.

I’m about to make his biggest dream come true, and this might actually be the best feeling in the world.

“Tucker Barclay,” I announce myself. “How do you feel about being a Demon?”

That is the highlight of a pretty great first draft day, for me, but another pretty cool thing was watching one of my alternates, Reed Lawson, embrace his little brother in a crushing hug when he was the thirty-first pick—to Chicago.

A goalie getting picked in the first round is abnormal enough that everyone was making a big deal out of it—because it was, and because little Sean is a wizard in front of the net—and since I know firsthand what the Lawsons have been through, I can’t help but tear up just a little.

But then my mind starts to spin, and when I look, I can practically see the gears in Sarah’s brain doing the same.

Today is the first day of unrestricted free agency. Any two teams who agree on a trade should be able to make it fast enough, so there are a lot of other deals happening besides trading draft picks. Learning about all of those and trading a few ourselves keeps us busy enough, but I also get to enjoy verbally destroying picks other teams make with whoever comes close enough to chat.

All because I know that Sunny is safe at Eli’s.

When the first day of the draft is done, Eli texts me he drove Sunny home himself and made sure he made it in safe and set the alarm before going to sleep.

He might’ve also told me he napped for two hours and still looked exhausted, so when I finally make it back home, Wes and I are as quiet as possible—though his look is as loud as church bells when he sees me open the door to Sunny’s room instead of walking up to mine.

He’s happy and intrigued, I can tell, but barely whispers a good night before closing the door to his bedroom.

I change in the bathroom to lower the chances of disturbing Sunny, and when I’m ready for bed, I slide in beside him, and tell myself I can damn well keep my distance.

I’m not going to wake him up just because I want to cuddle, dammit.

I try to fall asleep fast—it’s been a busy enough day that it shouldn’t take long—but I swear half an hour passes with my brain still buzzing before Sunny rolls around and throws an arm over my chest and slides right up.

Now I can fall asleep.

July 3rd

These two days that were supposed to be the dazzling start of my tenure as the owner of the franchise get wonderfully overshadowed by one single fact that I couldn’t ignore even if I wanted to—and I don’t.

I, Tucker Barclay, am in love.

It’s not only the fact that I have to make myself stop thinking about him most of the time. It’s also that I don’t only think about how hot he is, how his ass is starting to fill up with our gym sessions, or how fucking beautiful he looks every damn day. I also think about how I want to know every thought he has, how I want to vanish the worried looks from his face, how I want to give him the world but know he’d hate that, so I want to be next to him when he achieves everything he’s ever wanted.

I’ve never been in love, but I think this has to be it. If I felt any more, then it surely would be called obsession. And okay, I might be a little obsessed with the way he tries so hard to keep himself in check, how strong he’s had to be and continues to be to fight for a life that will make him happy.

Maybe it was seeing him argue with us about not killing the man who’s hurt him so much that showed me what a precious soul he is. Maybe it was my protective instincts flaring up when he damn near passed out.

I don’t think the moment matters really, what matters is that now I know, and I will fucking do something about it.

I barely got to speak three sentences to Sunny yesterday morning before I needed to head to the office again, but he did manage to convince me he’d be fine at home all day.

And from the one minute of lucidity I had last night before I fell off into dreamland, I think he did have a pretty good day at home.

I want to hear all about it, so I’m disappointed when I wake up to find the space next to me empty.

It’s still Sunny’s room, so I assume he did sleep here. Why isn’t he⁠—

I reach for the phone and my eyebrows shoot up—it’s eleven thirty.

I don’t think I’ve slept in this late . . . ever.

Going up to my room is a necessity. I want a change of clothes and a shower and . . . an idea forms.