Page 90 of Punked By the Playmaker
Poking my nose inside, I didn’t see the face I was looking for and frowned.
“Lost, Nixon?” a member of the press pack joked, causing the others to laugh.
“Not exactly. I was wondering . . . Does Bristol Cooper still travel with you guys?”
The only woman in the room replied, “It’s Bristol Sterling now, but yeah. She should be here in a minute.”
My eyes widened at the mention of her name change. I’d done such a good job avoiding anyone associated with the Speed for the past seven years that I hadn’t known she’d gone and married their coach.
“Levi?” a surprised yet familiar voice said from behind me, and I spun around.
Seeing Bristol pregnant caught me off guard, and I huffed out a laugh, gesturing to her stomach. “Wow, you’re . . .”
Her blue eyes lifted to the ceiling, and she blew out a breath. “As big as a whale. Yeah, I know.”
“I was going to say glowing.”
Gaze softening, she said, “That’s nice of you to say, but I know this”—she smoothed a hand over her large bump—“is your worst nightmare come to life.”
Back when she knew me, yeah, it was, but a lot had changed since then.
“Is this your first?”
A smile touched her lips. “No, we already have a four-year-old boy, Kit.”
“Born with a hockey stick in his hand, no doubt,” I teased.
She hummed. “You’d be surprised. He prefers his toy guitar over the mini rink setup we have.”
My eyebrows rose. “You’ve got yourself a musician?”
Bristol nodded. “We both know he sure as hell didn’t get it from me.”
I laughed. The woman was a notoriously terrible singer.
“I guess the universe has a sense of humor after all,” she mused.
She could say that again.
There was no easy way to do this, so I decided to just spit it out.
“You were too good for me.”
Her mouth dropped open, and before either one of us could say another word, a gruff voice boomed, “On that, we can agree.”
Bristol turned toward her husband, and her entire face transformed—a breathtaking smile curved onto her lips, her eyes sparkling with love. She’d never once looked at me like that, like I was her whole world.
“Hi,” she breathed as he stepped in to press a kiss to her temple, looping a protective arm around her waist.
Maddox Sterling trained his distrustful green glare on me. “Nixon.”
“Sterling.” I crossed my arms.
There was certainly no love lost between us. The last time we’d been this close—outside of when I played against the Speed and he was behind the bench coaching them—his fists had been getting intimately acquainted with my face.
I’d done, and said, some things that I shouldn’t have—shocker, I know—and the physical altercation was Maddox’s way of expressing his displeasure.
The giant ex-pro—dude was literally massive; why the hell had I ever thought I could take him?—didn’t mince words. “What do you want?”
