Make Your Move (Aston Archers Hockey #1)

1. Lincoln

CHAPTER ONE

LINCOLN

I never imagined I would be back here again.

Standing on the sidewalk, I adjust my weight on my feet and stare up at the Victorian-style home. The warm summer air dances across my skin with the soft breeze that blows. The summers in Aston don’t particularly get hot, and it’s much warmer than it normally is this late at night. The nights tend to be a little cooler, but there’s been a heat wave this late August.

In a few short months, we’ll be back to the cold weather, cloaked in sheets of snow. My stomach quickens at the thought, and I inhale deeply, sucking in the fresh mountain air. I missed it. It’s been ten years since I’ve been back here. Ten long years that I’ve been living what has felt like a different life, over a thousand miles away.

The Orchid City Vipers were good to me for the time I spent playing with them, but it was almost as if life decided to have a full-circle moment. The news came last week that I was being traded. It was a little out of nowhere, but I wasn’t completely surprised by it. They were in the process of trying to rebuild with younger players. I was worth enough money that they could trade me for some significant picks in the next draft.

It was bittersweet leaving Orchid City. I had grown close with the guys I was playing with there, but my ties to Aston were still just as strong. When Nash and I were playing juniors, we always dreamed of one day playing professionally together, and now it was happening. We were both officially players for the Aston Archers.

Nash never ended up having anyone else move in with him, and he claimed my old bedroom was just like I left it when I moved. I hope he at least cleaned it or else that room has to be covered in dust by now.

I walk up to the front gate and let myself into the yard. The concrete walkway stops just at the bottom step leading up to the front porch that wraps around the house. The moon above casts its light across the ground, and I pause when I reach the first step. My head tips backward, and I look up at the full moon perched behind wisps of clouds.

My breath catches in my throat, my chest constricting around the memory of my last night in this house. The night I looked up at the moon and made a wish.

She’s not the only one who thinks of someone when they look up into the sky.

The light above the front door flickers on, and the deadbolt unlocks as I walk up onto the porch. The heavy door behind the screen door is pulled open, and Nash stands on the other side. A smile breaks out across his face, and he pushes open the other door for me.

“Hey, bud,” Nash says as he flashes his gap-toothed smile at me. My eyes drop down to the empty space next to his left front tooth. “Come on in.”

Nash lost the tooth two years ago during a game after he took a puck to the face and had a temporary put in place. It’s a standard procedure with professional hockey players. They don’t put in a permanent replacement until retirement due to the intensity of the sport. Having a permanent replacement knocked out could do a lot of damage.

I step into the house, and it feels like I’m stepping back in time, but with a little bit of an upgrade. There’s new furniture inside, and it’s bright and cleaner, but it still smells like vanilla. There’s a faint scent of roses, but I push it away from my mind. “Thanks again for letting me move back in. I promise it will just be temporary until I get a place.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nash says as claps his hand on my shoulder. He pushes the door shut behind us and motions for me to follow him. “My house is your house.”

“Where’d your tooth go?” I ask him as we walk into the living room, past the sectional couch that occupies most of the space.

Nash picks up a stuffed animal and tosses it onto the couch. “I lost my temporary during practice the other day. I have to go get another in a few days.”

Losing a tooth playing hockey wasn’t uncommon. I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have a temporary or prosthetic tooth in their mouth. It’s only a matter of time before it eventually happens, but I’ve been counting my blessings that it hasn’t so far.

“Coach wants you at practice tomorrow morning,” Nash informs me as we walk into the kitchen. He walks around the island that’s situated in the center, and I pull out one of the stools and take a seat. There are two stacks of poker chips and a deck of cards in the center of the island. “When will your stuff be here?”

“It should be here tomorrow evening,” I tell him as I fold my arms in front of me on the counter, careful not to mess up the cards that are in front of me. My eyebrows pull together as I watch Nash collecting a pink sippy cup and a small plate from the other side before he drops them into the sink. “I put some stuff in storage and just moved what I absolutely needed.”

I decided to rent my condo out in Orchid City, and I left all the furniture there since I can always get new stuff after I find a place here. The main things I packed to bring were my clothes and my TV and some random things. I don’t want Nash to feel like I’m invading his space.

Like I told him, this is just going to be temporary.

“I told you, bro,” Nash starts as he turns back around to face me. His dark blond hair is a mess of curls on top of his head, and he wipes his hands on a towel. “This is your home too. It always has been, so please don’t be all fucking weird and shit. Treat it like you used to.”

“I’ll try,” I tell him, forcing a smile onto my face. Nash and I remained friends over the past few years even though we didn’t see each other often. The only time we really saw one another was if we ended up playing each other, but that was only a few games per season.

“It’s good to have you back, Linc.”

The plastered smile becomes a real one as I let out a breath. “It’s weird to be back, but it feels good. Orchid City never really felt like home, so I am glad to be here.”

“Jesus Christ, that took longer than I thought it would.”

The sound drifts across my eardrums like a long-lost melody. The call of a siren. A moon-dancing, light-streaming siren.

Nova Simmons.

The world around me comes to a screeching halt. My heart slams against my ribcage with a force that is enough to break a rib. Nash looks past me, looking at his sister as she comes over to the island and drops down onto the barstool next to me.

My movements are slow, almost like I’m caught in a dream as I turn my head to the side to look at Nova. “Hey, Nova.”

“Holy shit.” The two words are barely audible and come out on the tail end of a breath as her eyes widen at me. The color drains from her face, but she quickly recovers. “Lincoln Matthews. What are you doing here?”

“Shit, I didn’t tell you, did I?” Nash mumbles another curse under his breath. “He got traded to the Archers.”

I resist the urge to narrow my eyes at my best friend. I’m not surprised he didn’t tell her, although it would have been nice if he had let me know she was going to be over at his house. Nova and I didn’t keep in touch—why would we? We weren’t friends. She was simply my best friend’s sister and nothing more.

Nothing more than a wish.

“It’s so great to see you,” she tells me, smiling brightly at me. Nova looks just as I remembered, just a little older. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a French braid with wild curls breaking free around her face. The softest makeup highlights her features, and her blue eyes shine back at me. “Where are you staying?”

I stare at her for a moment, glancing at Nash from the corner of my eye. “Here,” I tell her at the same time Nash speaks.

“He’s going to stay with us.”

Nova’s lips part, and my heart comes to a full stop for the second time in the past five minutes. I don’t look at Nash. “You live here?”

Nash never mentioned Nova moved in, but then again, he didn’t talk much about her. The only thing he talked about was his niece, Posey…Nova’s little girl. He told me about her after Nova found out she was pregnant. Nash didn’t like the guy she was with at the time, but he was over the moon about becoming an uncle.

Whenever he brought the two of them up, I tuned him out. Nova was living her life, supposedly happy, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more for her. I knew we didn’t have a chance of there being anything between us, but that didn’t mean I didn’t hope for it.

That hope died the day I found out she was having a baby with another man.

Nova nods, looking a little unsure of what to say next. “I moved in about a year ago.” She turns to look at her brother, her eyebrows scrunching together for a second. “You didn’t tell him any of this?”

Nash shrugs with indifference, as innocent as can be. His phone vibrates on the counter, and he lifts it up to look at the screen. “It never came up.” He looks at me. “Give me like five minutes, it’s one of the athletic trainers.”

“Sure,” I tell him with a nod, and he answers his phone as he slips out of the room. Tension hangs heavily in the air between Nova and me and it’s borderline suffocating.

“Well, surprise, I suppose,” she says as our eyes meet again. “I’m sorry Nash didn’t tell you I was living here too.”

I stare at her for a beat. “It’s not an issue at all,” I tell her with nothing but honesty. I don’t plan on staying here for very long, and I have every intention of keeping my distance from Nova Simmons. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she tells me with a sigh of relief. There’s a peaceful smile that settles across her lips. “Posey has been keeping me busy. She just started day care, so I’m finally getting to head back to work part time.”

It’s been so long since I last saw Nova, it takes this moment for me to realize what a complete stranger she has become. I know nothing about her, nothing about her life, and certainly nothing about her little girl.

“How old is she?”

“She’s two, although some days it feels like she’s going on thirteen,” she tells me with the softest laugh. The corners of her eyes crinkle as her cheeks lift. “We are currently in the throes of the terrible twos.”

I laugh with her, unsure of what to say to her. I have no experience with kids, and if I’m being honest, they scare the shit out of me. They’re so fragile and so reliant on other people. I can’t even imagine what it would be like. The sound of our laughter trails off.

“How have you been?” Nova asks me, her voice quiet. “It’s been so long since we last talked, I feel like I know nothing about your life.”

I swallow roughly. “There’s not much to tell.”

Nash reappears back in the kitchen, appearing a little flustered. He pulls one of the bar stools over to the side of the counter and sits down. “Remind me not to get injured again.”

“What happened?”

Nash leans forward and grabs the stack of cards from the center of the island and begins to shuffle them. “I got a concussion when I lost my temporary tooth and just got cleared earlier today to get back on the ice. One of the trainers wanted to check in and go over some things.” He sets down the deck. “It’s just annoying. Do you want to get in on some poker?”

Nova abruptly stands up and slides her chips over to me. “Here, take mine,” she tells me with an encouraging nod. “I’m going to head to bed.”

“Thanks,” I tell her softly, a little taken back by how she’s rushing out of here.

Nova says good night to her brother and goes to leave the kitchen. She pauses in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder to look at me as a ghost of a smile dances across her face. “Goodnight, Lincoln.”

Nova disappears, and Nash turns around to face the fridge as he pulls the door open. “Do you want a beer?”

After the past twenty minutes, I need something stronger than a beer, but I’ll take what I can get.

“Absolutely,” I tell him as I grab the deck of cards and reshuffle before dealing them. Nash pops the tops off the bottles and hands me one of the beers before we cheers. I lift the rim to my mouth and swallow back a large gulp of the liquid while Nash does the same.

I need something to make me forget the memory of how his sister’s lips feel.

And the fact that we’re now living under the same roof.