So why in the hell couldn’t she stop staring at Ian as Freya snuggled deeper agains his chest and drooled on his crisp white dress shirt? Why did it do funny things to her stomach? And why in the name of Gordie Howe did it make her all melty?

It wasn’t just the fact that his shoulders seemed broader or his hands bigger or that—

“Wanna switch seats?” Alex asked.

The question jarred her out of the hot-guy-with-a-baby trance she’d accidentally landed in and she startled, trying—and failing—to appear cool about it. “No. Why would I want to do that?”

The Ice Knights’ other first-line forward grimaced. “Because the things I’m reading on your face as you stare at him are making me uncomfortable.”

So much for not making an idiot of herself on her first official workday. Great. Fabulous. Wonderful. Why didn’t they give out parachutes when a person boarded just in case of extreme in-flight-embarrassment events like this?

“Stop making shit up to bust her chops,” Ian said, keeping his gaze focused on the empty chair in front of him as if it held the secret to winning the lotto.

“He speaks to me.” Alex let out a dramatic gasp. “Careful there, or between calling me when you used your get-out-of-jail-free card and addressing me directly, people might think you’d actually pulled your head out of your ass.”

Ian barely unclenched his jaw as he responded. “There is a baby here.”

“Freya isn’t going to repeat it.”

Even with the undeniable tension between Alex and Ian, there was something else, too—a connection that only really good friends or siblings had.

It made all of this back-and-forth idiocy tolerable because as an only child, Shelby had never experienced it. She’d only watched longingly as her friends fought with their brothers and sisters one minute and then zoomed into protector mode the next. What would that be like to have someone so firmly on your side? Ian and Alex were both morons for not seeing how lucky they were.

“Yeah, so you say.” Ian snorted, then went completely still when the baby wiggled around in his arms. The second she settled back in with a soft sigh and closed her eyes again, Ian kept his voice low. “Wait until Lucy comes after you because Freya’s first word is ‘ass.’”

“I’ll tell her you said it while holding Freya. It’s true. You just did. And you”—Alex turned his focus onto her, pulling her into the discussion from the sidelines—“were staring at him like you were ready to take a bite out of him—in the good way.”

“You’re mistaken.” There, that almost came out as if she wasn’t lustily remembering every touch, every stroke, every kiss that had happened between them.

Alex lifted an eyebrow. “Am I?”