Hockey had always been Kris’s secret passion. Secret because it wasn’t a proper hobby for a Nast, especially a Nast heir. There were two sports a Cabal son was expected to play. Golf, because so many deals were brokered on the greens, and racquetball, because there was nothing like a kick-ass game to show your VPs why they should never cross you in the boardroom. Baseball and basketball were good spectator sports for impressing prospective partners with skybox and courtside seats. But hockey? That was little better than all-star wrestling. Nasts did not attend hockey games, and they sure as hell didn’t play them.

As a child, Kristof had never so much as strapped on a pair of skates. Not surprising for a native Californian. At Harvard, he’d had a roommate on the hockey team. Get Kristof close to anything that sounds like fun, and he has to give it a shot. Once back in L.A., he’d joined a league, using a false name so his father wouldn’t find out.

When we’d been together, I’d gone to all of his games. Yet I’d waffled about it every week, telling him maybe I’d show up, if I had the time, but don’t count on it. Of course, I’d never missed a game. I couldn’t resist watching him play, beaming behind his face mask as he whipped around the ice, grinning whether he scored, missed, or got knocked flat on his ass. Even sitting in the penalty box, he could barely manage to keep a straight face. How could I miss out on that?

He’d joined this ghost-world team about six months ago, and by then, we’d been close enough that I’d made sure I was always in the stands to watch.

I checked the scoreboard and wondered whether I should wait for the period break or head back to the hospital and try to muddle through on my own. I was about to teleport back to the return marker I’d laid, when Kristof hit the boards beside me, hard enough to make me jump.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said.

He pulled up to the side and grinned, his smile so wide it made my heart do a double-flip. Impossible for a ghost, I know, but I swear I still felt it flip, as it had since the first time I’d seen that grin; the gateway to “my” Kris, the one he kept hidden from everyone else.

As he planted his forearms on the boards and leaned over, a shock of hair flipped up from the back, mussed out of place by his slam into the boards. I resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it down, but let myself move a step closer, within touching distance.

“I thought you were in the box,” I said.

“They let me out every once in a while.”

“Silly them.”