Chapter Fourteen June #2
“Dinner?” His stomach gurgled obscenely.
It was emptier than it should be, neglected since his working lunch before noon.
He was so exhausted he’d forgotten he should eat and would have happily given in to sleep without food if Brady hadn’t said anything.
Now he felt like he’d never be able to fall asleep again if he didn’t get food in his stomach first. “Yes, dinner.” He wanted to add that they’d have to order out.
He should explain that his kitchen was bare except for frozen dinners and snacks he could eat on his way to work.
There were no ingredients or even the semblance of ingredients, and while it was sweet that Brady was here, it really wasn’t a good time—
“Hope you like pepperoni,” he said, producing a pizza that, to Nick’s scattered mind, had not existed seconds ago. Brady held up his other hand to show off a six-pack. “I brought beer, too. You might not need it, though.”
“You are my favorite person ever,” Nick said with a sigh, then rushed up the stairs. He avoided tripping, but only barely.
“Ever?” Brady teased. “Better than Ovechkin?”
“I mean, he brought us a Cup, but you bring me food, so it’s at least a tie.”
“Don’t forget the beer. Food and beer.”
“Shit, you’re right. You’re back to being my number-one fav.”
It took a minute to get the key to work in the lock properly, in no small part because he kept staring at Brady and their soon-to-be dinner.
This was surreal beyond anything he’d experienced while sleep deprived, and he was still torn between wondering if he was in fact asleep on the Metro dreaming this whole thing… or if Brady was actually here.
When they got inside and he smelled the telltale stink of week-old laundry and abandoned hockey gear, he decided that yeah, this was definitely real.
“Dude, you weren’t kidding, were you? You’re like a zombie right now.”
“I know,” Nick whined, though he was pleased Brady was on the same wavelength as him about the zombie thing. His work bag slid from his shoulder and hit the ground. Brady had disappeared into the kitchen, and despite the promise of food, beer, and a cute boy, Nick’s feet dragged along the floor.
“I thought for a second,” Brady said as he pulled down plates and cleared off space on the island, “that you were ghosting me. Which…” He made a face before his expression smoothed out.
“Then I think you sleep-texted me last night something about my ass and skinny dipping in the rain, and I figured, y’know, you might not be all there right now. ”
Nick’s mouth watered. Brady put two large pepperoni pieces on a plate and slid it over to Nick, who didn’t quite process what was said until his mouth was full of pizza. “I said what?”
“I asked if you were going to make it to tonight’s game, and I got a reply back at like 4 a.m. saying, in very poor English, that we’d missed our chance to skinny dip in the rain and my ass would look great in running shorts. So, thanks for that?” He was biting his lip to keep from laughing.
“…that wasn’t in a group chat, was it?”
“No, luckily—”
“Wait, there’s a game tonight?”
“I know you said you were out for the rest of the month, but yeah, there’s a game.
There was a Facebook thing about it. Everyone was checking in to see if you’d survived the downpour because no one’d heard from you.
Except me, I guess. Even Gail hadn’t heard anything through Terry, so I had to confirm you hadn’t drowned in Canada.
I wasn’t actually 100% sure you were okay until the ass comment, though. ”
Nick was very confused. This was the most non-number-related information that he’d gotten since he’d come back from the tournament. Functioning at a level where he was capable of words or conversations was a stretch, but as the pizza settled in his stomach he was starting to piece things together.
“But if there’s a game,” he said slowly, “why are you here? Shouldn’t you be playing?”
Brady raised an eyebrow and gave him A Look like he was particularly stupid. Nick sat there, patiently waiting for an answer.
“I’m here to see you?” he said like it was obvious.
“Oh,” Nick said quietly and continued to nibble on his pizza while suppressing a pleased smile. He probably didn’t do a good job. “That’s nice. I like that.”
“Beer and a movie, or what?” Brady asked.
“Yeah. I could do some beer. I’ll probably fall asleep during the movie. Nothing personal, I just…”
“…aren’t an actual human being right now, just an accountant in need of a recharge? Yeah, got that. You got a TV in your room or we sticking to the living room?”
Nick gulped. “I got one in my room,” he said with what was hopefully his regular voice and not a squeaky, nervous version. “This you checking up on me or did you actually come over to Netflix and Chill?”
Brady popped open a beer, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Can’t it be both?”
“Both is good. Very good. Eat first. I don’t want to find greasy, old pizza I’ve accidentally lost in my sheets a few weeks from now when my brain knows how to brain again.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I wouldn’t let that happen.”
Nick’s last remaining braincell fizzled out. Did Brady just…? Forget hallucinating, he had definitely died and gone to heaven.
And he could not be happier about it.
*
Nick was fully prepared to spend another weekend at the office to finish things up, but his boss wouldn’t let him.
He’d never batted an eye when Nick submitted the paperwork for overtime pay, but when Nick came in on Friday with bags under his eyes and could barely grunt his way through small talk, his boss nixed the idea.
“Get some sleep, kid,” he said after giving Nick a concerned once-over. “Go to a movie. Go to a bar. Go to brunch. I don’t care where you go, but go there and don’t do any work until Monday.”
For good measure, he took Nick’s work laptop away and gave it to one of the secretaries for safe keeping.
Which was fine, Nick told himself. He didn’t need to work on the weekend to catch up. He could enjoy time with his teammate-turned-friend-turned-fuck-buddy-turned-sort-of-boyfriend. Why work when he could worry about their relationship?
“You’re twitching a lot,” Brady said at dinner. He pointed his chopsticks at Nick accusingly. “Your boss said don’t work this weekend, so don’t work. I’ll wrestle your phone from your hands if you try it.”
“You think saying you’ll wrestle me is a threat and not a temptation?”
Brady rolled his eyes and grabbed more chicken. “You want sex, just say you want sex.”
“I want sex,” Nick said quickly, shamelessly.
“Then stop trying to sneak into your work email like I haven’t noticed and eat your damn dinner.”
Nick sighed dramatically and put his phone, screen down, on the counter. He slid it over to Brady and went back to his Pad Thai. He only eyed his phone a few more times.
“Dude,” Brady scolded as he grabbed the phone and put it in his pocket. “You have a problem.”
“But I have so much work to do,” he whined. They both knew Nick was not above reaching into Brady’s pants to get his phone if he wanted it. Of course, they both also knew that Nick would get distracted once he made it into Brady’s pants, so he supposed Brady had made a good choice.
“How about we do stick-and-puck tomorrow morning?” Brady said. It wasn’t a subtle change of subject; Nick knew there was no point arguing about his work, though, so he didn’t.
“How early is it?” Nick asked dubiously.
He was on board in theory, but he needed a reset that only a good eight hours of sleep could provide.
Admittedly, he’d been sleeping better the past week and hadn’t been flying on autopilot as much.
The switch seemed to happen about when Brady started showing up at his door with food, beer, and the promise of sex if Nick could stay awake for another half hour.
He usually couldn’t, but the company was appreciated all the same. Even if it meant the minor concession of sharing his bed.
“Ten,” Brady said. “I’d need to stop by my place to get gear.”
Nick smiled at the implication that Brady’d be spending the night with him.
“Ten’s doable.” He pushed his food around a bit to build up his courage. “You got any plans for the weekend?”
“Other than making sure you don’t do any math? Nope. Why, there something you wanna watch?”
Knowing they were going to hang out was amazing, perfect, and buoyed Nick’s flagging spirits. “You don’t wanna go to Krazy Dan’s or something? I’m going a little stir crazy between work, the Metro, and the house. Feels like I do nothing but move from one box to another.”
Brady’s expression wavered; he hid it by moving around the last scraps of food on his plate. “Krazy Dan’s is a box, too.”
“True, but like—”
“You don’t wanna maybe… hang out here?” And then quickly, like he had to make the idea sound better, he added, “You fell asleep during that hockey documentary the other night. Missed all the Jagr stuff.”
So Brady wanted to hang out… but alone. In private. With no other witnesses to whatever it was they were doing right now.
That stung.
“You finished it without me?” he said, hopefully without sounding too disappointed. He tried for more teasing than hurt; if he sounded hurt, let Brady think it was about the stupid movie.
“I’ve seen it five times. I stopped it before the good stuff, don’t worry.
They haven’t even gotten to Jagr’s dramatic entrance to the NHL when he was drafted back in 1990.
” Whatever other motivations Brady might have, there was his usual Jagr-induced enthusiasm shining in his eyes; he wanted to share this with Nick, and that counted for something.
“Grab some beer and let’s head upstairs. Wouldn’t want to keep Jagr waiting.”