Offensive Edge (Delay of Game #5)

Prologue

DRAFT NIGHT

Theo Lane had spent his entire life working toward that night. Draft night. The night where his hard work would (hopefully) pay off, and he would (hopefully) get chosen by an NHL team.

At the moment, there was nothing special happening.

He was just in another bland hotel room with Rowan Foley, his best friend.

His other half. Since joining the OHL, Theo and Rowan had figured out how to do almost everything together, from playing on the same line, to losing hours to Mario Kart, to finding the best restaurant in Michigan for Detroit-style pizza.

Now, they were figuring out draft day together.

Primping in front of a hotel mirror together was familiar. Rowan standing next to him, fiddling with his tie and resisting asking for help was familiar. What happened when they left the hotel room was the great unknown.

Theo sighed and manhandled Rowan against the counter so he could fix his tie.

He learned how to tie a tie on another person as well as on his own neck specifically for this well-wrought situation.

They didn’t wear suits in junior, but they did shirts and ties, and even after two years as a Flint Jaguar, Rowan still hadn’t figured it out.

“You’re going to have to find someone in Texas who can do this shit for you,” Theo said, his words hurting as they came out of him. He didn’t want anyone else to touch Rowan like this.

“You don’t know it’s going to be Texas,” Rowan said, and Theo rolled his eyes. Texas had the first overall pick, and if there ever was a first-overall player, it was Rowan Foley, Generational Talent ? .

“You’ll be in Texas. I…won’t.”

“Texas has two first-round picks,” Rowan said. He was sweet for suggesting it, but Theo wasn’t getting his hopes up. He pressed a kiss to Rowan’s lips anyway, for luck.

Theo nudged him around to face the mirror again.

He wrapped his arms around Rowan. Rowan hung his hands off Theo’s arms. He looked at Rowan in the mirror.

His dark hair always made him look almost sickly pale, and being right next to Theo, who looked significantly less vampiric with a pinker undertone to his skin and dirty-blond hair, didn’t help either.

Theo hunched down a bit to rest his chin on Rowan’s shoulder.

Theo was mid-growth spurt, but Rowan’s doctor said he was all done growing.

They both had gotten haircuts at the behest of their mothers.

It was nice that their moms were such close friends.

Theo’s mom, Michelle, felt a little better about him spending all his time with Rowan because she knew Christine Foley so well.

Theo didn’t know what parental math went on there, but he’d take it.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get picked today. I only have one suit.” Draft night was only the first round. Subsequent rounds would be picked on Saturday.

“You can wear my tie, since you already tied it,” Rowan said, leaning back against Theo’s body. This was what Theo always wanted. Rowan right here, in his arms, trusting him with his entire bodyweight because he knew Theo had him.

It felt like grains of sand falling through his fingers. The tighter he held, the faster they slipped out of his grip.

“You know you’re going first round,” Rowan said, trying to make Theo feel better. He knew teams were interested in him, but every team in the league scouted Rowan in the last two years. Their situations weren’t comparable.

Rowan’s phone buzzed on the bathroom counter. His mom. Rowan leaned over to read the small text on his phone screen. Theo dropped the arms he had around him.

“They have a ‘draft day present’ for me. Okay, I guess. I’ll be right back.”

Rowan didn’t even put shoes on to walk down the hall to his parents’ hotel room. Meanwhile, Theo packed up his hair wax and the sample of cologne he only put on because Rowan liked it. When he opened his duffel, there was an envelope tucked inside with his name on it in Rowan’s shitty handwriting.

Theo sucked in a sharp breath. Rowan didn’t write him notes.

The day was weird enough as it was. He brought it over to the bed and sat on the edge, trying not to wrinkle his dress pants.

Rowan sealed it just at the point of the envelope flap, and inside was a two-page, handwritten letter, and a few photos of the two of them.

Rowan always dragged around a giant DSLR camera with him, and while he wasn’t exactly a good photographer, he was consistent.

The photos spanned their two years playing together, and being…whatever they were to each other. Rowan wasn’t his boyfriend, but they had always had something going on between them. Theo was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was in love with Rowan.

He was also sure that in the fall, they wouldn’t be playing on the same hockey team anymore.

He skimmed the letter. Rowan had such a colossally difficult time talking about his feelings that receiving something sentimental like this absolutely baffled Theo.

It hit him, in that moment, the enormity of what was about to happen. Their lives would change completely in just a couple hours. They had already played their last game together. And here was a sweet note from Rowan, telling him how much the last two years meant to him.

But he knew what this note was actually telling him. Goodbye.

He felt a sudden swoop of nausea in his stomach.

His hands felt hot. Jesus, Rowan was saying goodbye to him.

He knew, abstractly, that they would go to different teams, but he hadn’t thought that meant goodbye.

At least not in a write a note about it way.

Maybe he was just na?ve, but he had imagined their relationship staying the same, just long distance.

Apparently, they were not on the same page about that.

Theo would read the letter in more detail later, but he couldn’t handle that level of emotion right now. He shoved the letter and the photos back into his duffel just as Rowan got back to their room. There was a big smile on his face, and a new watch on his wrist.

Theo loved his mom, but he knew he wasn’t getting a fancy new watch. It was expensive enough for her to even be there for the draft.

“Ready, Teddy?” Rowan asked him. No one ever called him Teddy, except for Rowan when he was feeling especially soft for Theo. With how raw his heart felt in the moment, it was a knife to his chest.

Theo needed to hold it together. If he cried like he wanted to, his eyes would be red for the rest of the night.

“Yeah,” Theo lied. They had to head down the street to the Xcel Energy Center.

The Minnesota Northern Lights were hosting the draft this year.

Theo was disappointed it wasn’t in Florida, but he just wanted to be as far away from what he was feeling as possible, and his feelings were currently in the Midwest.

Rowan pulled him into a big hug, and kissed him, his body as familiar against Theo as his own body was. Fuck, he would miss this.

“I love you,” Rowan said, holding Theo’s face close to his. Another atypical admission of feelings.

All Theo could do was respond in kind. And then they left, their hotel room door shutting with a definitive click. Time was moving forward inexorably, no matter how badly Theo wanted to freeze them into being Jaguars forever.

He could already feel the fault lines forming on his heart. There would be no escaping how badly this was going to hurt.