14. Kingston
Kingston caught a fast pass from Evans and tipped the puck into the net so smoothly it was as if they had been playing together for years.
Their teammates rallied around him, pushing him to the boards with hugs and loud praises, but Kingston couldn’t hear or feel anything over the smile Evans was giving him.
It was just a practice game on a Sunday afternoon. It was just a well-aimed shot with a bit of luck to get it over their goalie’s glove. It was pointless to celebrate when they were four points behind their teammates on the opposing side.
So, why did Kingston feel like he’d won the Stanley Cup?
Or at least he thought this was what winning the Cup would feel like.
The joy of feeling like he belonged on a team for the first time since he was a kid.
The energy he felt from the guys as they fist-bumped and playfully shoved him, erasing the tension and stares he’d earned from being a dick to them when he first showed up.
All of the negativity was gone, leaving Kingston buzzing with hunger. He was hungry to play his first NHL game once the season began. To score his first NHL goal. To finally make something of himself on a team he believed in.
And finally, to sate the rest of the gnawing hunger inside, he was going to kiss Riley Evans before he punched him.
Kingston had never been attracted to men. Not once. He didn’t know why it was suddenly a problem when he was nowhere near the age for a midlife crisis. But every day, without fail, Kingston found himself constantly holding back when he was near the dickhead.
It had been two weeks since their awkward conversation on the couch about attraction, and although Evans hadn’t helped him figure shit out, it had opened the floodgates in Kingston’s mind.
He had been questioning his thoughts before he saw the texts with Evans’s reluctant admission that he thought Kingston was good-looking, and reading those words had shot everything to hell.
Kingston wanted to kiss the damn idiot and get the urge out of his system so he could move on, but there was a problem with that plan. Two, really.
One: since the day he had played nursemaid for Evans, they had been getting along well enough that their game had improved exponentially. Kingston didn’t want to mess with the new flow they had and ruin everything, especially with lines being finalized soon.
Two: Kingston was worried that after he kissed Evans, it would have the opposite effect he was looking for. What if he wanted to kiss him again? What if he wanted to do more than kiss him? What if he couldn’t get hard around a girl after he kissed him?
Kingston couldn’t accept that. He was straight—or at least ninety-nine percent straight. Maybe ninety-seven percent since Allen and Jake were haunting his fucking dreams, too.
Kingston didn’t want to be bisexual, and it scared the shit out of him when he thought about kissing Evans and liking it.
He didn’t know what else to do other than try it and see what happened. Evans was a useless source of information since he apparently wasn’t crushing on his friends, and despite being invited to hang out with Allen and Jake, Kingston hadn’t worked up the courage to go.
If he hung out with those two again, they would smell his indecisiveness. Sure, they were probably the best guys to ask about the whole ‘I think I want to kiss a boy’ debacle, but he didn’t think he was ready to hear the answer.
And it didn’t help that Evans was being so goddamn nice to him. He wasn’t getting angry when Kingston bitched at or insulted him, and the cheeky smile he kept giving him when he acted up was making matters worse.
It would be easier to hate him. If Evans were to go back to antagonizing and ignoring him, it would help, but no such luck.
“Why are you making that scowly face?” said the creator of all Kingston’s misery as he skated over to tap him with his stick. “You’re going to get wrinkles.”
Kingston stared at Evans, brows furrowed as he watched the weirdo take off his glove and touch his sweaty, sticky thumb to Kingston’s forehead. The touch should have been gross, but it was sending tingles through his nervous system, racing straight down to his dick.
“Are you fucking anointing me or something?” Kingston said, slapping the hand away from his face. “And I’m scowling because you keep smiling at me. Stop doing it, or people are going to think we’re friends or something.”
Evans shoved his glove back on and gave a quick jerk of his broad shoulders. “Well, we are, aren’t we?”
Their teammates were gathering at center ice for Coach Sullivan’s rundown of the play, but Kingston felt welded to the ice. Everything about Evans was driving him crazy, from his appearance to the stupid fucking words that came out of his mouth.
“We’re rivals, and I tolerate you,” Kingston said, fighting to keep his tone even. “I can’t be friends with a guy with weird hair and shifty eyes.”
Kingston pushed toward center ice, grinning when Evans made a choked sound of disbelief behind him.
“Why do you keep saying that?” said Evans, skating beside him and matching his pace. “You literally make no sense.”
There was enough noise with multiple drills happening, and the coaching staff’s booming voices calling out through the empty arena, so Kingston wasn’t worried about being overheard when he broke into his rant.
“Your eyes—what colour are they? Sometimes they’re brown, sometimes green, blue, grey, fucking—yellow. Are you wearing contacts? I don’t understand why they keep changing.”
Kingston gently bumped Evans on the head with his gloved hand.
“And your hair. It’s either brown or blond. Sometimes it’s a mix, and I feel like I’m getting gaslit here. Are you dyeing it every couple of days, or are your eyes and hair just weird like you?”
Evans had blue eyes today, and his hair was brown. Kingston hated how much he noticed the small, insignificant details about a guy he was supposed to dislike, which made his urges all the more confusing.
“My eyes don’t really have a colour,” said Evans. “I’m not sure what the official term for it is, but they’re so light that they reflect the colours around them, so they change depending on where I am. They’re even listed as multicoulored on my driver’s license.”
Kingston knew he was still scowling, but it was out of confusion instead of annoyance this time.
“As for the hair,” Evans pulled off his helmet and tossed his hair around, like he was a proud, preening peacock. “I have no idea, man. It’s darker now because it’s winter and the sun isn’t out as often, but once summer hits, I’ll go back to being blond.”
Go back to being blond. As if Evans was a fucked-up werewolf shifting into a human after a full moon.
“You’re still glaring,” said Evans. “Was my explanation not satisfactory?”
They made it to center ice, pausing the conversation for now to listen to what Coach wanted to see for their next play.
Kingston pushed the information about his multicoloured friend to the side and locked in.
He wanted to prove himself to Coach Sullivan more than he wanted to unravel the mystery that was Riley Evans.
Teams were switched. Rookies against veterans.
They had done this before, but none of the veterans had played seriously enough to give their younger teammates a taste of what an NHL game was like. The physicality, the grittiness—the reason why Kingston was scouted as an enforcer to protect his guys from aggressive plays.
They were doing it for real this time. The veterans were going to push them, and it was up to the rookies to adapt or have their pride crushed against the boards.
Carr and Banner would be fine, but Kingston worried for Evans. The guy did enough damage to himself without having to dodge checks and engage in board battles.
“Stay off the boards,” Kingston ordered, stopping beside Evans, who was tightening his helmet. “Let me fight there and get the puck for you. I’m stronger, and you’re the better shot.”
Kingston thought the hint of praise would persuade Evans to listen to him, but of course, Evans rolled his eyes like the child he was.
“Our roles aren’t defined just because I’m prettier and you have more muscle,” Evans snipped. “Stop…circling me like a helicopter parent. I’m fine.”
Kiss or punch.
Kiss or punch.
Fuck, Kingston needed a drink.
One of their veteran teammates, a chill guy named Vance Solis, skated over to clap Kingston on the shoulder. “Stop panicking, Sloan. We’ll go easy on your boy.”
Kingston sometimes had a hard time understanding Vance because his accent was caught between Spanish and Scottish, but he sure as fuck understood that one.
“He’s not my boy,” Kingston snapped, pushing his overbearing teammate away, frowning when laughter echoed behind him as he went to the puck drop.
Kingston caught a glimpse of Evans’s pinched expression over Banner’s hunched form, and then the puck hit the ice.
The tone was strikingly different from that morning. The moment the puck smacked the ice and Banner flicked the puck in Kingston’s direction, the pressure swelled into an oncoming wave that threatened to sweep him into the storm.
The veterans weren’t playing around. They chased Kingston like rabid wolves, cutting him off before he could enter their zone and forcing him to chip the puck or risk losing it on a pass.
The puck slid along the curve of the boards behind the goalie and was quickly snatched up by Banner, who was waiting on the other side. Solis slammed Kingston into the boards, using the momentum from the push to propel himself across the ice to chase Banner.
The veteran’s defence was already rallying in front of their net, blocking Banner’s opportunity to shoot the puck, but Evans was already waiting in a good position.
One perfect flick from Banner sent the puck to Evans, who caught it with minimal stumbling and slapped it at the net before the veterans could descend on him.