CHAPTER SIX
“I can’t believe you had time for this today,” Thad said later that week, shooting the puck to his brother.
Around them, HCI was quiet. No one had started their day yet and the lights in this particular rink were the only ones on.
Gavin sighed and captured the puck, batting it around like a cat toying with a mouse. “I don’t really have time, but I didn’t want to cancel either.”
Thad frowned. “Why?”
Gavin skated closer, checking him lightly. “Because I wanted to hang out with my brother, you dumbass.”
Thad laughed. “I think you’ve spent too much time with the O’Shea brothers lately. You’re starting to sound like them.”
“Mmm, probably,” Gavin said with a rueful smile.
“No such thing!” Finn joked as he skated up to them. “We’re a delightful family.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Gavin teased, then he and Finn were tussling.
Pat appeared beside Thad, gliding so silently Thad jumped when he registered his presence.
“Fucking children,” he said in a disgusted tone.
“Such immaturity,” Thad agreed in a disgusted tone. “I can’t believe it. And to think, they have people convinced they’re pillars of the community and leaders in this organization.”
Pat nodded, shaking his head at the sight of Finn, who’d gotten Gavin’s jersey up and over his head. “Disgraceful.”
Finn was a lot leaner than Gavin, but scrappy, apparently.
Thad was tempted to pull his phone out and record this to post on social media—it would absolutely go viral—but this time with his brother felt private. Too important to share with anyone but the O’Sheas.
Who had a much, much less complicated relationship than the Racine twins, but who still knew what it was like to fight and forgive a brother.
Thad liked both Pat and Finn, even if he always felt like he was way out of his league skating with them.
Gavin flailed, unable to see his opponent.
“This is why you always buckle your fight strap, numbnuts,” Thad called out, the sound echoing around the otherwise quiet practice rink.
Gavin managed to get his arms around Finn and knock one skate out from under him, using his bulk to drag Finn down to the ice.
“I wasn’t expecting a fight this morning,” Gavin said, sounding a little breathless as he stood, tugging the jersey down and fixing the strap. Finn lay on the ice, laughing.
“You fuckin’ should,” Finn countered as he got to his feet. “Have you met us?”
“Look. Are we gonna fuckin’ play today or what?” Pat asked, leaning on his stick and looking bored.
“Yes! Finally,” Thad said.
And they were off, laughing and shoving as they chased the puck up and down the ice.
Thad got flattened by Pat against the boards at one point but he also managed to get a puck in off a beautiful setup from Gavin.
They celebrated together, and the moment was so pure and sweet and joyful Thad had to turn away and grab a towel, pretending to mop at sweat on his forehead and not the tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.
He’d missed this so fucking much. Gavin had been right. This was a good way for them to reconnect.
Half an hour later, Thad was sweat drenched and laughing as he got off the ice, following the guys to the locker room.
Gavin turned back to look at Thad as he took off his helmet, grinning because, for once, they’d fucking managed to beat the O’Shea brothers. Thad felt a sudden ache in his chest because Gavin wasn’t the boy he’d been the last time they’d celebrated like this in an actual game.
Silver threaded through his hair and beard, and he’d had a heart scare last winter and they were men now. Men with jobs and real lives and …
Well, Gavin has that anyway, Thad thought wryly.
Thad was only now starting to get his shit together.
That was the problem with being in prison, Thad admitted to himself as he stripped off his gear in the locker room, vaguely aware of the O’Shea brothers joking around with Gavin while they all did the same.
What everyone else had done in their twenties had passed by him.
Thad had been sentenced to five years, with a possibility of parole after three, because of the plea deal he’d taken.
But then some dude had taken a liking to Teddy, harassing him, and Thad had thoroughly put him in his place.
He hadn’t killed him, thank God, but the fight had removed any possibility of early parole and tacked on another five years to his sentence with the addition of what the courts considered assault.
Now, Thad slipped on shower shoes and ducked into the shower room, turning his back to the wall because you could take a guy out of prison, but some things never left him.
He’d been twenty-eight when he finally walked out of prison, with only gate money and a bus ticket to his name. He’d had no family waiting for him on the other side.
At the time, he’d been estranged from his parents and pissed at Gavin.
So, he’d spent years bouncing around from job to job, barely scraping by. He’d worked menial jobs all over the place, first in Pennsylvania, then New York.
The grind of it had worn on him but, eventually, the work he’d done for a restaurant, then a small print company had given him some marketing and social media experience, and he’d used that to land a job at a promising startup in New York.
They’d been one of those companies that claimed to be super liberal and all about helping ex-cons.
Thad had never liked the owner, had always gotten the feeling the guy didn’t give two shits about people who’d been incarcerated and mostly wanted the social cachet of claiming to be “one of the good guys”.
He’d also been shit at his job and had run the company into the ground within a couple of years.
But before that, when Thad had started with the company and felt like his life was maybe finally getting back on track, he’d reached out to Gavin. He’d had dinner with him and his fiancé at the time, Rory.
Thad hadn’t liked Rory either.
Rory had felt as shallow and social climbing as Thad’s boss as he sneered at Thad through most of the meal. And Thad didn’t trust that he actually loved his brother. Or at least not more than he loved what was in his bank account.
When Gavin got up to use the restroom, Thad had flirted with Rory, to see if he was actually the loyal type. Of course, Gavin had come back at the worst possible moment, and they’d finished the dinner in chilly silence.
Out on the street, Gavin and Thad had exchanged words, while Rory looked on, acting like the smug prick he was.
Thad hadn’t been invited to the wedding.
Thankfully, those days were over, Rory was in the past, and Thad and his brother had begun to mend their relationship.
Clean now, Thad wrapped a towel around himself, using another to dry his skin as he walked back into the dressing room. The O’Sheas were already dry and dressed now, and Thad gave them a vague wave as they left, arguing and jostling together like they were still on the ice.
They made him envious sometimes. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because he’d had a similar relationship with Gavin when they were kids.
Thad swiped on deodorant as he thought about the fallout from that disastrous dinner with Rory. He’d stayed in New York after that, focusing on work for the next couple of years.
But that had been yanked out from under him too, because one day Thad had felt like he was finally getting his life together and bam, the next he was out of work.
He’d spent a while fruitlessly watching his meager savings disappear as he desperately hunted for a new job.
Nothing came.
At his wits’ end, Thad had finally looked Gavin up, seen he’d gotten the position with the Harriers and divorced Rory, and wondered.
So Thad had slunk back to Boston with his tail between his legs and essentially threatened his brother with exposing the truth about his past to get a job with the Harriers.
Despite all that, it had somehow all worked out in the end, and, thanks to Gavin’s new partner, Dakota, they’d mended some fences.
But Thad still felt like it all might disappear in a puff of smoke if he did something wrong.
“Hey, are you okay?” Gavin asked with a frown.
Thad turned to look at him, blinking. “Yeah, dude, I’m fine.” He tugged his shirt on.
“You’ve seemed a little … down or something this week?”
Thad rolled his eyes. They’d hardly talked all week. Gavin had been up to his eyeballs in training camp stuff, and Thad had been insanely busy too.
But he had a point. It hadn’t been the easiest week for him.
After that conversation in Graham’s car, it had been hell to see him everywhere around the practice arena.
They’d had a stilted and phenomenally awkward dinner at their favorite sports bar, which had been mercifully cut short when Erik Wyatt—one of the rookies—had gotten lost in Boston and had called Graham in a panic.
The look of relief on Graham’s face when he announced he had to head out and rescue the kid had told Thad it had been painful for both of them.
“Just focused on work,” he told his brother. Because while he’d like to be close enough to Gavin to whine about his feelings for a guy he couldn’t have, he didn’t feel comfortable talking about this particular situation or outing Graham.
Gavin shot him a skeptical look as he buttoned his crisp white shirt. “This doesn’t feel like a work thing.”
How would you know? Thad thought meanly, then regretted it.
Gavin was trying. He was trying to bridge the gap that still existed between them, and Thad didn’t want to completely shut him down.
He decided to keep it vague. “There’s … someone I’m kinda interested in but it’s never gonna happen.”
“I knew it!” Gavin looked annoyingly smug about being right.
Thad was tempted to facewash him. Instead, he shrugged. “It’s fine. I’ll get over it.”
“No, don’t act like that. You can talk to me! What’s going on?”
Thad shrugged again, carrying his damp towels over to the bin. “Nothing. Seriously.”
“Oh, c’mon. You’ve gotta give me something! Is this person male or female? Non-binary? Genderqueer?”
Thad cracked a grin. “Male.”