Whispered Words

Chapter Ten

Josh felt much better about things now that they knew what the bastard looked like. Sam had done well. They’d had enough of a head start to wave Chloe and Josh—her new boyfriend—under Hopkins’s nose before the asshole managed to disappear once more. But now that they had his scent, Josh knew they’d catch the guy.

To say it was an odd way to spend a Christmas Eve was an understatement, but if it got rid of the asshole, he was all in. Well, now that they were doing things his way.

He and Xavier had gone round and round about his vision, and Josh thought it now made sense. Even Chloe had agreed.

She wore the same shirt he’d seen in his vision, one of his overlarge flannel shirts, and a pair of panties. That was it. Xavier had been hiding in her house all day, getting ready for the big moment. The poor bastard had to be uncomfortable, but he’d endured it without protest. Well, without audible protest. He’d bitched like a motherfucker to Josh about it all damn day long.

Josh had spent Christmas Eve walking around town with Chloe, now a veritable winter wonderland with all the accumulated snow. He’d kissed her in public, patted her ass enough that he’d annoyed her and successfully staked his claim, and still managed to buy her a few things she’d hemmed and hawed over without her knowing.

“The guy’s off his rocker with jealousy. He was frothing at the mouth with it,” Sam had told them earlier in the day.

So now Josh and Chloe stood in her bedroom, laying it on thick, or at least trying to. They needed to make their loving look real, but Josh’s attention remained splintered between her and her stalker.

“I felt him enter the house an hour before you got here, but he threw some weird kind of psychic blanket over me. He’s here in the bedroom, but I don’t know where.

It’s weird. I couldn’t see him, but I heard him,” Xavier sent them both. “I just wish I knew exactly what more he can do than shield himself. Damn. Never mind me. The floor’s hard, and you get to make out with Chloe. Well, bro, make it look real.” Chloe frowned at Josh, glaring at him to make his move. But he couldn’t. Not with that bastard watching. How could he expose Chloe to that kind of sickness?

He’d swear he could feel the fucker getting excited. Sexually aroused just from the sight of her.

Or was that just him sexually aroused?

He buzzed inside, awkward and needy and just plain weirded out.

“I don’t know if I want to change my name.”

He frowned at Chloe. “Huh?” Talk about an out-of-the-blue comment.

“When we get married.”

He froze. She’d attracted Xavier’s full attention as well. “Say that again.”

“When we get married, I don’t know if I want to change my name.” The thought of Mrs. Chloe Cannon gave Josh chills, the good kind. “Bullshit.

You’re taking my name.” Our name. A surge of aggression hit him hard.

Chloe toyed with the buttons of her shirt, and Josh sucked in a breath. Her tits were unbound and played havoc with his control. Chloe had large breasts, and when she didn’t wear a bra, she attracted more than her share of notice. “How about you convince me, Joshie?”

Joshie? Despite the hated nickname, his dick rose. “Why should I?” He couldn’t stop staring at her hand toying with the buttons at her breast. “Xavier, by all that’s holy, keep an eye out, would you? I feel him here, but I can’t see him.”

“Me too. Don’t worry. I always get the shit jobs, but I come through in the end, don’t I?”

“I know. It’s just…I feel weird. He’s doing something to me, I think.”

“I don’t care. Use it, because this ends tonight. Make it look real with Chloe, damn you. Like that’s a stretch.”

“Why should you?” Chloe drew him back to her with those husky words.

“Because you want me on my knees sucking down your cum, don’t you?” She chewed her lower lip and looked at him from beneath her lashes. Damn if she didn’t seem really into this, the danger ratcheting her arousal. He knew the signs, because he felt the same.

The same and more. A perverted sense of entitlement and arousal filled him like a disease. “Bro, the family’s out there, right?”

“For God’s sake, just do her. Yes, they’re out there. So are a few of her people.

It’s up to you to draw the guy in, I’m telling you. Remember, you’re not in the picture when she’s in the vision, but I am. So do her, then split. We’ll take it from there.” Chloe drew her shirt apart and played with herself. Her fingers delved between her legs. “Come on, baby. You know how I get when I’m horny.”

“Oh man,” Xavier moaned within the walls of Josh’s mind.

He didn’t need to see any more. “Fuck. I’ll show you why you should change your mind. Turn around,” he growled.

She raised a brow.

“I said turn around.” Josh ripped off his shirt and unbuttoned his pants. He didn’t wear underwear, so when he parted his jeans, his cock met instant relief from the pressure of denim.

“Up on your toes and spread your legs.” He didn’t think he sounded like himself, and by the look on Chloe’s face, she thought the same.

Except instead of looking scared, she looked crafty. Strangely satisfied.

Pleased when she obeyed, he took a good long look at her legs and ass and stroked himself.

I hope this asshole is getting a show.

He hadn’t expected Xavier to answer. “He’s here, and he’s watching. The closet, I think. Chloe, do you have a crawl space up there?”

“Yes,” she answered. “In the closet, but I need a ladder to reach it.” She paused.

“Oh my God. I think I see a hole on the wall above my closet door. He’s got to be looking through that. The team is watching the house, and no one else is in here.

Josh and I already checked.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only place that makes sense,” Xavier hissed. “This sucks. I don’t like hiding down here while you’re in danger.” Josh hurried to interrupt, caught between his lust and his need to make sure they didn’t alter the vision he’d seen. “Don’t do anything but wait, Xavier. Please. If you change anything, you could kill her.”

“I won’t. Do it, Josh. Get her off, and make it work.” Xavier remained alert; Josh trusted his brother like no one else. He pushed all thought from his mind but Chloe.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice higher than normal and breathless.

“I see that pretty cunt. You’re wet, aren’t you?” He knelt down and continued to masturbate while he inspected her. He leaned closer and licked her, closing his eyes as he fought the urge to come. “God, you make me so hard just being around you. Your pussy is needy, baby. So how about it? Mrs. Cannon sounds good to me.” No matter how that psychic monster tried to spin things, at this moment with Chloe, it was all about Josh and his lover. Nothing more mattered to him.

Her breath hitched. “I-I don’t know. Convince me.” He rose and dragged his hands up her thighs, over her ass, and higher up her back. He lifted the shirt off her sculpted body and ground his naked cock between her cheeks. As he did, he reached around her to palm her breasts, loving the hardness of her nipples.

“I can make you want it. Maybe I can fuck the yes out of you. Would you like that?” he whispered overloud into her ear and smiled when Xavier moaned in his mind.

She rubbed her ass against him, and he saw stars.

“Oh shit.” He was no longer playing for her voyeur but for Chloe. He wanted to see her come, to feel her ripple around him.

“Please. I need you inside me.”

“Yeah, you do, Mrs. Cannon.”

Josh let go of her breasts and gripped her hips. He bent her forward and had to lift her up to manage. But Chloe barely weighed anything. The utter domination in this position aroused him to no end.

“Oh yeah. That’s it. Feel me?” He nudged his cockhead into the entrance to her pussy, loving the warm cream suddenly coating him. “Feel how hard you make me, Mrs. Cannon.”

She moaned, and he pulled her down, seating his cockhead inside her.

“More,” she begged.

“You’re damn right more.” He speared her in one hard thrust. “You stare at the goddamn wall and take it. Take all of my cock.” Fucking her like a man possessed, Josh consumed. But a part of him knew. He didn’t give a thought to her climax, only to getting off and filling her with enough cum to overwhelm her birth control. To impregnate her and force her to bend to his will. The force part of his fantasy felt foreign, though, giving him enough doubt to remain in control.

He could never in good conscience force Chloe to do anything, not unless she gave her express consent to some rough play. And this was anything but a fantasy.

It was a trap to set up a serial killer.

The odd sensation of possession stole through him, and as he fucked her harder and harder, he reached out to his brother.

Xavier answered. “I know. It’s him, but you’re in control. Just let him think it’s him. Damn it. I’m going to come in my pants again. You owe me for this, Josh. You both do,” he added to Chloe.

“I think…oh fuck. I’m coming. So hard…” Josh shouted as he came, pumping into Chloe with an animalistic need so driving, he couldn’t stop. Her cry of release gratified him, because no matter what, she wanted him. But damn if something—or someone—hadn’t ramped up his libido to the extreme.

To his shock, the room blurred. He could hear the bastard dropping from his place in the closet, could sense that Xavier knew it too. But neither of them could move, caught in the lust between them and Chloe. It was then that he felt the pinch at his neck. Despite everything, he hadn’t felt the bastard step behind him. Hadn’t seen a thing but Chloe’s fine ass.

“Dropping…out. All yours, bro.”

“Got it. I’m good now. Bastard is heightened by the sex. Now move,” Xavier ordered, and Josh felt free to let go. As he withdrew from Chloe’s body and fell back onto the bed with Hopkins’s help, he heard Xavier add, “Chloe, get ready. He’s behind you.”

Chloe had heard the bastard leave the closet the moment the door had shifted, its squeak no longer noisy. No doubt the psycho had oiled it to be quiet. Oddly enough, she didn’t think Josh had sensed him. Hopkins had done something to her man, and she didn’t like it. Oh, she loved the orgasm, but it didn’t seem right. That and Xavier’s mental shouts to beware had done more to help her than anything.

The moment Josh withdrew, she readied for action, though she kept her body intentionally loose.

“Josh? Can I turn around now?” she asked in a purr, completely aware of the much smaller hand now gripping her shoulder.

“No, baby. Let me do it again. I’m so hungry for you.” Another man’s voice, another man’s hand touching her ass, and she’d had enough. “You fucking whore.”

“Chloe, move now!” Xavier’s warning came just in time.

She twisted to the right, and the blade that would have stabbed her between her shoulder blades hit her shoulder instead. She staggered away as Xavier shot her stalker’s ankles from beneath the bed. Then another four shots hit the bastard one right after the other in the heart. Kill shots, dead center.

From the bed, Josh stared up with a dazed expression, aiming the gun that had been hidden under her pillow at her would-be attacker before Josh slid off the bed onto the hardwood floor.

“That was oddly anticlimactic.” Relieved it was over, she pulled the knife out of her shoulder, swore at the pain, and bent down to help Xavier out from under the bed. Once he was out, she moved to Josh.

But Xavier shoved her aside.

She quickly rolled to her back and saw, to her shock, her attacker stand on bloodied ankles. He didn’t seem to feel his wounds, and the blank expression on his face freaked her the hell out. What the hell were they dealing with here?

“No pain, no gain,” he sang, that creepy voice forever etched into her brain.

“You’re mine, Chloe. Until I’m done with you. And I’m not done with you yet, you bitch.”

The doors downstairs slammed open, the gunshots obviously penetrating the psychic bubble that seemed to prevent others from sensing the man.

Like she remembered, Hopkins had even features and an average frame. But the sheen of crazy glittered in his eyes like emeralds. He smiled down at Josh. “Felt good, didn’t it, pretty boy? Coming inside that hot snatch? Bet it tastes even better now with us inside her.”

Josh shook his head, obviously trying to shake free of his confusion as he tried to get to his feet. Chloe wanted him to stay down. They didn’t need an unstable hero in the mix.

Hopkins reached into his pocket and withdrew a switchblade. One he pointed at Xavier. “Your turn.”

Xavier stood tall and strong in front of Chloe. “Josh, bar the door.” Josh rolled away faster than she would have thought him able and slammed the door right as Ian appeared. With a raised hand, Josh turned the antique lock and sealed them inside. “We got this,” he slurred.

Not exactly the heartening cry of support she’d hoped might calm her rescuers.

But at least this way she knew that Hopkins wouldn’t evade justice. Not now.

“Chloe!” She heard Ian, Nathan, and Keegan calling her name. And she knew there were others outside as well.

“Not yet,” she shouted. “I got this. Keegan, don’t you dare tear down the door!” The telekinetic could easily rip it away, but she had to handle this. Josh had seen her and Xavier and no others. Who knew what might happen if anyone else became involved? “My voices said it’s just me and them and Hopkins. Don’t fuck with me on this.” She hoped like hell she didn’t sound as shrill as she thought she did. But she couldn’t stomach the thought of anyone else dying at the hands of this psycho. And certainly not her friends.

“Oh goodie. You know my name.” Instead of sounding worried, Hopkins laughed with delight. “We’ll put it on our wedding invitations in blue and gold.

Whore takes Hopkins as wife.”

Chloe was really getting tired of being called a whore. The anger helped stave off the fear inside her.

“We got this,” Xavier yelled as he ducked the blade aimed at his throat.

Hopkins had an uncanny ability at hand-to-hand combat.

What surprised her even more—so did Xavier. She’d seen him and Josh in the woods and knew the pair could hunt. But his skill at bare-knuckle brawling astounded her.

Despite sharing the dizziness Josh must have felt, Xavier met her stalker blow for blow, avoiding the knife while backing the bastard into the corner. Chloe used the distraction to grab the pistol Josh had dropped.

Hopkins slashed at Xavier. He managed to draw blood before Xavier reassessed the situation enough to avoid more than that wound to his forearm.

She fired twice at Hopkins’s legs, but nothing happened. The gun must have jammed. She worked to free the bullets and reload the magazine. “Fuck.” Then she saw Xavier’s pistol near their enemy’s feet. Josh recognized the danger at the same instant. As if reading her mind, he rolled for it at the same time Hopkins threw the knife at him.

Xavier intercepted the psycho, and Josh and caught the blade in the meat of his arm. He fell just as Hopkins picked up the gun.

But Chloe was two steps ahead of him. She’d cleared the rounds and reinserted the magazine, never more glad of her time served as a cop who lived and breathed her pistol. She fired a bullet right between Hopkins’s eyes. And if that wouldn’t stop him, she’d keep shooting until the fucker flat-out died.

The single bullet did the trick. As he fell, she noticed the protrusion of what looked like a protective vest underneath his shirt, explaining his ability to resist four bullets to the chest earlier. The ankles, though, those wounds should have incapacitated him.

Banging on the door alerted her to hurry up before they broke it down. “I’m good. We’re fine. Hold on,” she yelled.

Thankfully, they didn’t bust down her door. She buttoned up the shirt she wore while Xavier helped Josh tuck himself back into his jeans and button up. All she needed was for her friends to see her and Josh half naked.

“With cum dripping down your leg,” Xavier added and tossed a T-shirt at her.

She realized she’d been thinking out loud.

She cleaned up, blushing like crazy, and threw on a pair of sweatpants as Xavier unlocked and opened the door.

Five men tried to bust through the opening at the same time. It would have been comical had she not been so keyed up on adrenaline and worried about what Hopkins had done to Josh.

“There’s a car waiting downstairs,” Ian said quickly.

“Good,” Xavier growled. “We need to get Josh to a hospital. The idiot got himself drugged.” “After he got to come inside you. Next time I’m playing bait while he hides under the bed.”

Xavier sounded cranky and out of sorts but otherwise healthy. The blood dripping down his arm didn’t bother her as much as Josh’s near-comatose state.

Xavier saw the direction of her worry and swore.

“And again I’m bleeding, and he gets all the concern. You owe me, Chloe,” he started whining as Ian prodded him out the door. “I’m wounded, and she goes to him. Again.”

“I know. Women. Why do you think I prefer men?” she heard Ian say as he escorted Xavier downstairs.

“I love you, Xavier. I’m worried about you too. I swear.”

“Well, okay, then.” He sounded sulky until he laughed. “Had you going, didn’t I?”

“Jerk.”

“Witch.” He paused. “Don’t worry. I can feel what my bonehead brother feels.

He’ll probably wake up with a hell of a headache, but he’s okay. Just sleeping it off.” She sighed with relief. And then Keegan shoved everyone else out of the way and lifted Josh up again. Like déjà vu. She burst into tears and scared the hell out of her boss, who’d surprised her by showing up. She didn’t really mean it, but the tears acted as a kind of catharsis, and she felt much better. Too, she was freaking Jack out. And she liked it.

“You are one evil woman, Chloe King.” Xavier laughed with her as Jack went out of his way to calm her down. “No wonder I love you.”

“Tell me again how much you love me.” More than a week later, Xavier was really making her pay for staying behind with Josh. Not that his mother hadn’t healed all three of them easily once they’d been taken to her clinic.

She sighed, and Josh snickered. “I love you. Idiot.”

“I heard that. I’m so heartbroken, I don’t know if I can manage.” Josh had catered to Xavier for a good week, feeling guilty over making his brother handle most of the crap that night while he’d had all the fun with Chloe.

Chloe tried to glare at him. “You can manage. I said I’d take your last name, didn’t I?”

They grinned at her like fools. In a desperate attempt to put Xavier in a better mood, she’d relented to changing her name…when they got married. At this point, it was more like an if they got married. She’d moved into their home, had consented to living with them while she spent time getting to know their weird family. A family she loved like her own. Those Cannons really knew how to throw a Christmas party.

“Chloe. I feel so unloved.” Xavier’s wicked grin made him less than believable.

Josh smiled and leaned back against the door in the changing room leading to the employee’s hallway.

“Guys, I thought you wanted to see where I train.” They stood in the same changing room with the hidden door leading to the secret downstairs facility. Jack’s one concession to being all James Bondish. This hidden entrance. She’d teased him about it unmercifully since they’d opened. Too bad she had yet to get a rise out of him. Even when she’d been crying all over him last week, he’d just patted her back harder.

Josh sighed. “Chloe, I hate to say it, but my brother has a point. I remember seeing a lot of blood.”

“Yes, blood,” Xavier said sadly.

“I think you owe him some tenderness, don’t you?”

“You have been less than compassionate lately.” Xavier fought a grin.

She rolled her eyes. “You know, it’s hard to play along with you laughing.” He coughed to hide his smile and blinked hard. “I think I’m going to cry.”

“Okay. I give. What can I do to make it all better?” She hadn’t expected him to whip out his cock. In a dressing room her peers could enter at any moment. “Good God, Xavier. Put that thing away.”

“I would, but it hurts. It’s so unloved lately.” The bastard turned her on in spite of herself, and he knew it.

“Come on, Chloe. Better do it fast before someone catches you,” Josh whispered. Then he pushed down his sweatpants to reveal an equally hard cock. He took the towel from around his neck and held it close. And she knew he planned to come while she blew his twin.

“Oh hell.” Not even pretending she didn’t want it, she dropped to her knees and took Xavier to the back of her throat.

He hissed his appreciation. “Yes. God, Chloe. Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“Because he does. Shit. That tongue just kills me.” Josh moaned, that gravelly sound in the back of his throat that never failed to get her going.

Then Xavier wrapped his hand in her hair and started fucking her mouth.

Since that night in her bedroom, when the guys had discovered how much she liked it a little rough, they’d been driving her crazy with their shows of dominance. The hair thing made her wild.

“Do it,” Xavier whispered. “Get yourself off while I come in your mouth.”

She moaned and shoved her hand beneath her shorts and underwear. She fingered herself, not surprised to feel herself so slick.

Xavier tightened his hold on her hair. His balls felt hard under her palm. Then she gripped the base of his cock and sucked harder while she rubbed herself with faster fingers.

“Oh yeah. That’s good. Here it comes,” Josh warned, out of breath, and came into his gym towel.

At the same instant, Xavier poured into her mouth, his cock so big and thick, she could do nothing but swallow as he released. Knowing she’d brought them both pleasure, tasting her lover, pushed her over the edge. She came and swallowed the last bit of Xavier before he withdrew.

Her pleasure left her throbbing. And consumed with joy.

“Let me.” Josh folded the towel, pulled down her shorts and panties, and used the clean side to wipe her up. “You get so wet. If we weren’t already behind on our tour, I’d eat you out and watch you come again.”

“Dibs.” Xavier held up a hand.

Josh set her clothing to rights. “Bro, I just facilitated an A plus blowjob for you. You can’t call dibs.”

“Can too. I just did. And don’t act all self-sacrificing. You got off just as much as I did.” As they turned the argument into a silent battle of words, Chloe smiled ear to ear. They playfully fought…over her. Could she get a better present than that?

Their first Christmas together had been magical. She didn’t know when they’d done it, but her lovers had purchased the matching rings they all now wore. She suspected Rory, Keegan and James’s wife-slash-lover, had something to do with it.

But the closemouthed woman had only smiled and refused to say anything more than “welcome to the club.”

Though their wedding hadn’t been scheduled yet because her lovers hadn’t figured out which of them she’d marry, Chloe knew it would happen. She’d never been so happy in her life, and she had her voices to thank.

“You will marry your choice of perfect men,” she heard the familiar voice, but this time Xavier’s loving tones framed the order.

“But I don’t know which one to pick,” she teased as she unlocked the door and they walked downstairs. Out loud, she expressed the concern she still had.

Relationships were hard enough with two people. Add a third to the mix, and you had a recipe for problems. “I’m afraid whoever I pick will hurt the other person not chosen.”

Xavier and Josh stopped her when they reached the floor.

“Chloe, we love you. We don’t—”

“Want you to worry. Xavier and I—”

“Talked it out. We don’t care.” Xavier shared a grin with his brother.

“I thought I’d need the label to feel like you were mine,” Josh admitted. “But now, knowing you love me, feeling it, is all that matters.” He kissed her.

Then Xavier kissed her.

“We love you, Chloe. Marry us.”

She blinked. Behind them stood her night crew. Ian, Nathan, and Avery stood near Jack, who waited with his arms crossed.

She looked back at her lovers. “Um, far as I know, bigamy isn’t legal.”

“It’s not.” Ian agreed. “But if you have the right papers, anything can look legal.”

Her men grinned at Ian. Chloe scowled. “Ian Ryder. You aren’t forging again, are you?” She’d arrested him at least three times before she’d made anything stick.

And then the sly bastard had evaded jail time. She still wanted to know how he’d managed that, since he’d supposedly also been on the outs with the PWP who didn’t officially exist.

Jack raised a brow at him, and he quickly backed down.

“No, no. Nothing like that.” Ian coughed. “But you know, there are ways around certain, uh, legalities.” He glanced at Josh, who nodded.

“We’ll talk to her later,” Josh and Xavier said together.

She loved when they spoke at the same time. The closeness between the three of them only continued to grow. But she’d noticed the twins’ unity tended to alarm other people.

Avery and Nathan stared from Xavier to Josh and shook their heads. Then they walked away but not after starting another argument that made little sense to Chloe.

She glanced at Jack. “Time to separate them again. Want Avery back on the day shift?”

“No. Let them work it out. We’re past the third grade.” He gave Xavier and Josh a hard look. “Treat her right, or we’ll have a heart-to-heart you won’t forget.” The cold look in his eyes even scared Chloe.

But her lovers nodded and said without a worry, “Sure thing, Jack.” Chloe had to grin. “You know, that’s the same look their mother gave me the other day when she told me the same thing.”

Jack nodded. “Julia Cannon doesn’t mess around. Guys, tell the Doctor of Death I said hi, would you?” That said, he left them, headed back into his office, and shut the door behind him.

“Like a friggin’ mole in there,” Ian murmured.

“I heard that,” Jack yelled.

“We have got to talk to Mom about that name. ‘Doctor of Death’ isn’t going to inspire a lot of confidence in her patients.” Xavier frowned.

Josh nodded.

“Time for me to head upstairs before our great lord and master shackles me below.” Ian gave Jack’s door a wary look and walked to the stairs. But before he stepped up, he shot them a sly smile. “Oh, and guys? Thanks for the show. I thoroughly enjoyed it.” He popped a piece of gum in his mouth and flashed them a Doublemint wrapper. “Yum.”

Josh took a step toward him, and Ian raced up the stairs, laughing all the way.

Chloe groaned. “Oh hell. I forgot the security camera in the changing room.”

“You recorded that?” Xavier’s eyes widened.

“No one actually changes in there. We’re not all perverts, Xavier.” He laughed.

Chloe sighed. “You do realize Ian will probably make a recording.” She’d get it out of him later.

“Aren’t you at least a little bothered about that?” Xavier asked as they walked toward the training area.

“Nah. Ian’s gay.”

At that, Josh and Xavier paled, and she laughed. “Besides, I’m proud of my big stallions.” She wiggled her eyebrows at their sweatpants and ran to the middle of the training area, where Nathan and Avery sparred in the corner.

Josh tackled her to the mats, and then Xavier was there, kissing her and tickling her while Josh pinned her so she couldn’t move.

“Guys, please. This is a gym. Take it somewhere private. Really.” Nathan looked embarrassed for them.

“Yeah. We work out on those mats. Is nothing sacred?” But the smirk on Avery’s face as he eyed Josh amused the hell out of her, and she laughed even harder.

Chloe smirked. “Love me some gum.”

“She’s losing it,” Nathan said sadly and kicked at Avery’s head.

“Probably not enough exercise. Her brain’s turning to mush.” He blocked a punch and landed a blow to Nathan’s cheek that would have had Chloe’s ears ringing.

“You heard him, guys. Time to head home. I need some exercise from the Misters King.” She giggled when Josh picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. “I like that. Has a nice ring, don’t you think?”