Chapter 22 Landon
Landon
Grady Garrison is claiming me? Is that what happened moments before the game? What does that even mean? Is he my boyfriend? He doesn’t do relationships. It’s all I do, but secretively? Do I do that?
The coach barks out a line change as he paces behind us on the bench and my brain wakes up.
He wants me out there with the fourth line.
I started on third. Fuck. I ignore my bruised ego and hurl myself over the boards when my teammate Clemson, comes in.
I hit the ice and skate hard toward the puck, which is sailing toward our end, no one with it, because the Saints are dumping it so they can change lines too.
I manage to get out there and intercept it.
Both their defensemen come straight at me, one from the new line because he hopped over the boards, and one from the former line, who realized their mistake with shooting the puck into my path.
It really was a sloppy move, and I intend to capitalize on it.
I pump my legs hard, gaining all the speed possible and managing to slip the puck right through the legs of the Saints' defensemen, and pick it up on my stick again. I can hear my skates cutting through the ice, my blood pumping through my body, the defensemen swearing, the slap of skates and sticks closing in. I’m barely over the blue line, but my eyes narrow on the space between the Saints’ goalie’s left shoulder and the crossbar on the net.
He’s kind of out of position, there’s way more space there than on the other side.
He’s tall, not as tall as Grady, but tall, and so if he kicks his leg out, he’ll stop the puck easily.
I have to go high. I lift my stick, focus, and… SLAP.
Someone hits me— hard—and I’m face down on the ice before I realize what’s happening. My lungs deflate on impact, my helmet makes a loud, cracking sound, and my head rings for a second. The roar of the crowd is louder, though. I scored.
“Fuck yeah!” I say to myself because above me there’s a clusterfuck of bodies pushing and shoving each other and hurling obscenities.
I roll over and sit up. A linesman leans down and offers me a hand. “You okay?”
“I’ve been worse.” I get to my feet as the ref breaks up Barlow and Moore from the Saints and skates toward the penalty box, dragging Moore with him.
As the lines switch and I skate a wobbly path to the bench, Abbott skates on and grabs my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He grins and I stare at his mouth, knowing it’s been where I have…
and probably places I haven’t gotten to go, yet.
My jealousy flickers and sparks like a dying ember in the wind, but I ignore it.
Barlowe is a good player and a great captain.
He hasn’t done anything wrong. I have to stop being a lunatic.
Abbott pulls me into a hug. “Well done, Casco!”
The rest of the line claps me on the back, and I skate by our bench as the linesman grabs the puck and the ref moves to center ice to announce whatever penalties he’s giving Moore.
I do the traditional fist bump skate-by, tapping each player’s glove.
Even Grady got off his stool to tap me, and he gives me his trademark wink as I fly by.
And the smile blooms on my face without my permission.
Moore gets two for roughing for his blind hit on me, and as the ref moves to center ice to drop the puck, I climb back over the boards again.
Coach pats my shoulder. “That’s the way to do it, Casco,” he says in his French Canadian accent that gets thicker when he’s stressed or excited.
“That should wake the rest of you the fuck up.”
We’re losing 3 nothing, that’s why the coach is so pissed.
Well, 3-1 now. Amazingly, as the minutes count down in the second period, my goal does seem to wake them up.
Clemson scores, and then it looks like we’ll score again.
We’re pressuring hard, and the puck hardly leaves the Saints' end. We’re up twelve shots on goal to six as the last minute of the period ticks down, and Coach moves me up to the second line.
I’m just skating on again when a Saints player does a long, lazy snapshot down the ice from the blue line.
It’s a desperate attempt to dump it on net because there are only twenty-nine seconds left, and we all watch in confused horror as that lazy pass somehow slides right by Tyson Michaels, like he didn’t even see the most obvious shot in history. Were his eyes fucking closed?
It seems to lose momentum, and I hold my breath because it’s in his crease, but it looks like it’s not going to actually make it over the line that runs from goal post to goal post. If it doesn’t, it’s not a goal.
But Tyson flails, making a last-ditch effort to sweep it away, and somehow backhands it with his own stick into the net.
We go into the locker room between the second and third period down four goals to one.
All that energy and momentum my goal built has crumbled like a sand castle at high tide.
The locker room is silent, the air thick with tension as we dry our gear.
Coach walks in, looks around. “Casco, you’re skating on the first line.
Dobrev, down to third. Grady, you’re starting the third. ”
He walks out without another word. No one speaks, but Tyson slams his helmet onto the floor.
Before face-off, I skate by Grady’s net and tap my stick against the top of his pants, on his lower back. Our eyes lock, and he winks. I smile.
We find our energy again, and Clemson finally gets the goal he’s been chasing all night.
Not even three minutes later, Abbott gets one, and I score fourteen seconds after that.
I have no idea why I’m on fire right now, but I’ll take it.
It’s a fucking relief. So is the fact that Grady is also at the top of his game tonight.
He makes a save so fucking mind-bending with twenty-nine seconds left that the bench blows up with cheers and the crowd starts chanting his name.
How the hell someone so big, wearing so much heavy gear, moves with the sleekness of a jaguar and the speed of a Cheetah is beyond me.
That save, which he makes after falling on his back, legs twisting and butterflying, sticks up straighter than a tent pole—will make highlight reels on sports shows for years to come.
We end in a tie, which means a shoot-out after some four-on-four.
Coach picks me, Abbott, and Conner to shoot, in that order, but we never get to Conner because I score, and Abbott scores, and Grady blocks both the first two shooters for the Saints.
We win. In the back of all our heads, I’m sure we’re aware we have to start winning more in regulation because we need two points, not one, but right now we just celebrate we got out of this alive.
I skate straight to Grady and grab him in a hug. “Sorry. About earlier.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
* * *
After the game, I walk by the VIP room and see Grady with his family.
His mom is beaming, pride all over her face.
His dad probably wouldn’t look happier if he won the mega millions jackpot.
His sister Shelby, a gorgeous strawberry blonde, and someone who I think is a female cousin of his with dark hair and darker eyes, are there too, grinning and laughing.
I have no one. Winnie and Holden skipped the game because I told them to.
My mom and dad keep telling me they want to come, and I keep telling them not to.
I’m humiliated. Angie walked out on me the way she did, so I don’t want to see the sad looks on their faces or get one of my mom’s pep talks.
I’m about to turn and head for the parking garage when Grady calls my name. I glance over at him. “We’re going for beers and wings. Join us.”
“Come on, Landon!” Shelby says. “Conner’s coming and so are my girlfriends!”
Grady’s looking at me like… like he really wants me to say yes. So I do. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
That’s how I find myself in the back of yet another Uber with Grady.
His dad drank iced tea all night, so his family crowded into his mom’s SUV and drove back to Silver Bay with him.
Grady and I stayed for one more beer, which meant we were a little too tipsy to drive.
Considering I rarely drink three beers, two is past my limit.
“I gotta Uber home. You know I’m not a drinker, and I’m not risking it after three beers.” I told him as we walked outside the bar. “Wanna share?’
So here we are side by side, barreling down the Maine Turnpike. “You’re sister is going to be a doctor. That’s cool.”
“Yeah. Did you see how proud my parents looked?” Grady grins. “Shelby will make a kick ass doctor too. She’s smart and empathetic, and she doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
“Total catch,” I say and try not to grin. “Didn’t you say she was interested?”
He makes a sound in his throat at that. I think he’s fighting a laugh. He scratches at his beard, his eyes sliding to mine.
“Don’t take my raw, honest moment and make fun of it,” he warns and flashes me a wounded puppy face before his devious smile touches his lips again. “Besides, she’s gonna be a doctor. She’s totally out of your league.”
I laugh and shove his shoulder. “Fuck off.”
He catches my hand and drops it to his lap. And there, in the darkness, he intertwines our fingers. The driver pulls off the turnpike, and the blur of pine trees turns into a succession of small mom-and-pop shops and humble houses as we take the road into Ocean Pines. “Can I see your place?”
He opens his mouth like he’s going to answer, and suddenly, I’m in this weird panic like my heart is free-falling from my chest. But then the Uber driver pulls over in front of my cottage, because that’s the address we gave him.
Grady lets go of my hand. I thank the driver gruffly and get the hell out of the car. “My apartment’s this way.”
I watch him motion for me to join him as he walks down the street.
I follow. It’s blistering cold out, and although we both have long wool dress coats over our suits, the winter wind is whipping our faces.
There’s ice on the snowbanks and sidewalks.
We get to the big yellow building, and Grady looks over his shoulder at me, the light browns and golds in his hazel eyes glinting in the moonlight.
“The stairs can get icy. The landlord salts them first thing in the morning, but this late, it’s touch and go. ”
I grip the railing as I climb behind him.
I don’t have gloves, and the cold metal stings my hands.
He has the top-floor apartment. I’ve looked at this building for decades.
Watched it transition as a kid from a single-family mansion to an apartment building.
Always liked how they kept the Victorian charm and character of the exterior through the renovation.
Grady opens the front door and flips on the small chandelier in the long hallway, and I know right away they kept the character and charm on the inside, too.
The floors are a rich wood, and so is all the trim on the baseboards and door frames.
There’s leaded glass in the French door that leads to the kitchen, and the living room has molding and sconces. Fucking sconces. “This place is sick.”
“Yeah. I really dig it. I’m hoping I can stay longer than nine months,” Grady tells me as he shrugs out of his coat and hangs it in the closet, handing me a hanger as well. “I took it as a sublet from some guy who had been transferred, so we’ll see.”
I hang my coat next to his, and once we both take off our shoes, he leads me down the hall.
The place clearly isn’t exactly Grady’s style because he’s stuck with the wall paint and wallpaper of whoever was here before, and maybe even some of the furniture, but still.
It feels like a good fit for him. My shoulders drop, and my brain feels like it’s sighing.
Relaxing. Taking a break from the constant battles filled with unanswerable questions and self-doubt.
In the living room, he turns on a small table lamp, and my eyes land on the chair in the corner by the massive window overlooking the sea.
“Is that your chair from L.A.?” I ask, but I already know it is. Grady had this incredible massage chair. Leather-like butter, reclines, heated, full-body massage chair.
He grins. “Go ahead.”
It takes me one second to plant my ass in the chair and turn it on. Full body Swedish with heat. I groan as it starts up. “So glad you didn’t sell this.”
“I moved basically everything, but most stuff is in storage until I get a permanent place,” he explains and walks over to sit in the other chair by the window.
I close my eyes and enjoy the massage. “I really need to get one of these.”
A minute later, Grady clears his throat, and I open my eyes. He’s standing to the side of my chair, looking down at me. “Can we talk about what happened tonight? At the rink?”
“When I let all that insane jealousy that’s been festering get the better of me and I dinged you with a slapshot?”
“Yeah. That.” He swallows. I watch his Adam’s apple bob under his beard. It’s shorter than normal, like he cleaned it up for Christmas. “And when you told me the thought of me being with Abbott makes you jealous.”
We stare at each other, and I turn off the chair. “Yeah, it bugs me. The idea that you… touched him. That he touched you.”
“It was almost a decade ago. Once. He’s with the love of his life.”
“And it doesn’t bother you? Knowing he’s got someone?”
“No. I knew going into it what we were doing was transactional.” Grady shrugs. “We were both horny, and in the closest, and it was convenient. But I’m happy for him now, because spoiler alert, he talked about Declan even back then.”
“Really?”
Grady nods. “And before you ask if there are other players I’ve been with, the answer is yes and no, I won’t tell you who because I don’t out people.”
“Fair,” I say, getting out of the magical chair. “But now I gotta try not to stare at our teammates and every guy we play and wonder if they’ve gotten to explore you… more than I did. And yeah, that’s not going to be fun.”
“If you want to explore me,” Grady steps closer to me, “you can. Anytime. Any place.”
Holy shit.