Chapter Six
TYLER
High-energy holiday music echoes through the kitchen, thanks to the playlist on Sage’s phone. The sweet scent of baked sugar cookies hangs in the air and excess sprinkles cover the kitchen table like confetti.
At the opposite end of the table, Gio shakes his head and stares at the line of snowmen Morgan insisted on making anatomically correct, thanks to a creative use of frosting. “When you said you’d help decorate the cookies, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Wearing a holiday sweater with a pool cue and balls forming the shape of a Christmas tree, which is perfect for our resident pool shark, Morgan rocks his chair onto the back legs. “Remy bet me twenty bucks that you won’t put mine out when the rest of the team gets here.”
Hunched over a bunch of cookie trees with a bottle of rainbow sprinkles in his hand, Remy whips his head up enough to glare at Morgan. “Good job. Now, he’ll put them out just to spite me.”
Gio pushes up his Santa hat to a jaunty tilt with one finger and gives Remy a smile worthy of a scheming Grinch. “Is there any reason in the world that I would have a valid reason to do that?”
With a weary sigh, Remy turns to me. “Today was the first time my innocent Benny interrupted Phil and Gio having sex. The first time. Ever. Why is Gio being so dramatic about it?”
I bite my lip to stop my smile. The chaos of this house is hilarious. “Maybe because it ruined an orgasm? And sent him to the ER?”
Being woken by the sounds of Gio and Phil yelling was not a pleasant way to start the day, especially because none of us knew what was wrong.
Fearing the worst, I rushed out of my room at the same time as Sage and Remy.
Together, we raced to the first floor, meeting Soren in the hallway outside of Phil and Gio’s suite.
Leading the charge, Soren burst open their door, and we found not an intruder, but a naked Phil chasing Benny around the bathroom, while Gio, clad only in the torn remnants of a reindeer thong and with blood gushing from his forehead, rushed after his husband trying to corral the wayward lizard.
Morgan drove them to the hospital, and Soren and I cleaned up the mess in the bathroom while Sage and Remy got Benny back where he belonged.
“Benny ran up my leg.” Gio brandishes one of the inappropriate snowman cookies like a sword. “It’s not like I could see him from the position I was in. All I knew was that something that shouldn’t be on me, was. I nearly jumped out of my skin.”
“And took a header into the medicine cabinet,” Phil adds.
Gio pushes the hat farther up to reveal the neat line of stitches on his forehead. “When I told the doctor it wasn’t sex that sent me to the ER, but a dragon, she thought I was hallucinating and had a concussion from hitting my head!”
Full belly laughs rack Remy and Morgan. Beside me, Sage hides his laughter by ducking his head into his chest. I can’t contain mine, so getting up to refill my glass of water seems like a wise move.
Sending the rest of us a stare that screams don’t mess with me, Phil lays his hand over Gio’s. “The official story we’re telling the team is that a stick blade cut Gio.”
Morgan adds yet another snowman to the rack. “But the truth is way funnier.”
“I don’t care.” Gio flings an undecorated tree-shaped cookie at him.
The music stops as the playlist reaches its end. Sage grabs his phone and taps the screen a few times. Sleigh bells fill the room, and a new song begins. “Won’t the team know that you left yesterday’s game without a cut? You didn’t get clipped by a stick during the game.”
My full glass in hand, I return to my seat. “The story could be that Gio was out playing street hockey with the neighborhood kids this morning, and it happened there. You have enough equipment in your garage for an entire team.”
Gio hands me a delicately decorated snowflake cookie with all the solemnity of being granted the Crown Jewels. “Thank you, Tyler.”
Scattering the rainbow sprinkles across the cookie trees smeared with green frosting, Remy sighs. “Benny just likes to explore.”
“I’m getting him a new terrarium for Christmas.” Gio pulls his hat down to cover the stitches. “It’ll have a padlock. And an alarm system. With a laser grid.”
I take a piece of candy from the bag Sage tilts my way. “Gio, I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“Let me have my dreams.” His bottom lip sticks out in a pout at me.
“You got it.” Unwrapping the candy, I can’t stop my smile or my laughter when Remy looks my way and rolls his eyes, then quickly shifts attention to the cookies when Gio turns his head.
Since the trade, I’ve had eleven days of being with my new teammates and housemates, and each day, I’m growing more comfortable.
My skating speed is improving. And just like in Friday’s game against Grand Rapids, my linemates and I each scored in yesterday’s game in Chicago.
Two goals for me in three days is so much better than going scoreless for weeks.
I’m finding my footing. But it’s moments like this, sitting around the table with all of my housemates together or hanging out with them one-on-one, that mean the most. The guys bicker like brothers, but it’s apparent in everything they do that they would do anything for each other.
Soren is the only one missing. He left an hour ago to pick up last-minute items for the party. And though he’s not here for cookie duty, he got the front rooms ready while Gio and Phil were at the ER.
Slipping his arm around Gio, Phil plants a kiss on his temple. “We could abandon our plan of flipping houses after we retire and switch to building terrariums that can hold the Houdinis of the lizard world.”
Gio leans against his husband’s chest with a sigh. “For now, I’ll settle for getting the rest of the cookies decorated. Everything else is done. The guys will be here soon.”
“I’m gonna check on Benny.” Remy places a snowflake decorated in blue and green on the tray. “Give him a talk about staying in his space. Maybe put on a nature show for him.”
“We’ll handle the cookies.” Sage points to himself, Morgan, and me. “Really, G. You and Phil take a breather or take a last look at everything. We’ve got this.”
Remy leaves, and Phil and Gio head to the house’s front rooms, where the bulk of the party will be, to check on things there. They’re also opening up the living room of their suite, and everyone will have access to the kitchen.
Ugly sweaters are the party theme. I brush my hand over the front of my sweater, adorned with a red and green T-Rex holding a gift.
Soren, Bax, and I found it at a thrift store last week, the night we met up for dinner after our road trip.
Soren bought a sweater with a trio of velociraptors, and Bax found one with a brontosaurus.
He told us the museum had sold the sweaters a few years ago, and whoever had donated the sweaters to the thrift store must’ve collected them all.
Most of the guys are bringing their significant others. And though the three of us haven’t had a conversation about what we are to each other, I’m happy he’s coming to the party.
“Let’s make this more interesting.” Sage sets the stopwatch on this phone. “There are twenty cookies left. Whoever frosts the most doesn’t have to help with cleanup. Ready, and, go!”
I grab the closest tube and squeeze a squiggly line of blue over a snowflake. “Done.”
“I like your minimalist method.” Morgan places a single dot of red on the center of a snowman’s chest. “Done.”
“Dude, he looks like he’s been shot.” Laughing, Sage reaches over me to drag more red onto the snowman’s chest. “Though, if he’s made of snow, I guess he’d bleed water? Put some white or blue over the red.”
“No time.” Morgan tosses the cookie onto the tray, then grabs another. “But I’ll do blue blood on this one.”
“Gio will never let us decorate again.” I give a Christmas tree one line of green from tip to trunk then place it on the tray.
We race through the rest of the cookies, and the final ones have the barest hints of color. “And the winner is…” Sage tallies the results. “Morgan! With ten beautifully decorated masterpieces.”
Laughing, we all clap, and Morgan nods and waves his arm like he has just been crowned king of a new sovereign nation.
“I’ll still help clean up.” Morgan pushes back his chair, swiping a cookie as he stands. “Tyler, you move the cookies to the counter. Sage, you wash up. And I’ll clean the table.”
The Metros have a game tonight, so Remy, Morgan, and Sage won’t be at the party for long.
Soren comes into the kitchen. His cheeks are rosy from the cold, and the velociraptors on his chest make me smile. He sets a case of beer on the counter. “Phil and Gio want us in the sitting room for a minute. Come on.”
The way Morgan, Sage, and Soren smile at me, they clearly know something I don’t. “What’s up?”
“You’ll see.” Soren slips his arm around me and guides me into the hallway. The same music flows from the front rooms, so Sage must have synched speakers or shared his playlist with Gio and Phil.
We reach the sitting room. Remy, Gio, and Phil wait by the fireplace. Gio beckons me closer. “We have one final thing to do. Hang the stockings. We usually put them up before now, but we had a good reason to wait.”
Phil hands them out. Dark green for Soren, Remy, and Sage. Dark red for Gio, Morgan, and Phil. Each one has the person’s name stitched in white thread.
Soren hands me a small paper shopping bag. “This is the real reason I went out today. Yours was finally ready.”
“You got me a stocking?” I open the bag. My stocking is the same shade of dark green, and the fabric is so soft. I trace my finger over the letters spelling my name, and I bite down on the inside of my bottom lip as a well of emotion builds behind my ribcage.
Gio steps away from the front of the fireplace, revealing seven stocking holders among the garland strewn across the mantel. “Of course we did. You’re one of us.”