Chapter Fifteen July
“Good to see you there, champ,” Young Greg said when Nick walked into the locker room.
“ ‘Champ’?” Nick had already felt weird carrying around his hockey bag, the weight strangely unfamiliar after a few weeks off. The nickname didn’t help.
“Yeah, I was trying something out. I’m not happy about it either,” Young Greg said. “Where you been, bro?”
That felt better, and Nick smiled in relief. He wasn’t that far removed from the ice, especially after that open skate with Brady the other day.
He let his bag fall from his shoulder and shrugged, both to answer and to stretch out his muscles. They were tensing up, and he felt the same jitters he remembered from last August.
Shit, he’d almost been doing this hockey thing a whole year, and he could still get nervous. Would that ever change?
“Work,” he finally said in answer to Young Greg’s question. “Lots of work. Been dead on my feet trying to get stuff done.”
“Lame,” Young Greg said.
“You even understand the concept of work?” GG scoffed. “Kid like you even out of high school yet?”
“Yes, Dad. I’m an undergrad.” Young Greg gestured down to his faded Retrievers shirt, a derpy dog Nick remembered from his own tenure at the local college.
GG ignored him. “Good to have you back, Nicki. Might actually score with you on our line.”
“Excuse you!?” Young Greg sputtered. “Who got the GWG last game?”
“Jensie.”
“Yeah, but it was off my assist.”
They continued bickering the whole time Nick got ready—mixing up the order of his shin guards vs hockey pants like a damn amateur—and didn’t stop when Brady arrived and pointedly put himself between Nick and their chirping.
“Hey,” Brady said, voice soft and fond despite the completely normal circumstances of being in a crowded locker room together.
“Hey,” he said back, and his stupid voice betrayed his sentimentality. Time to autocorrect. “I hear you’re scoring goals without me around.”
“What, I can only score with you?” Brady asked. He was entirely straight-faced, but Nick could see his eyes shining. He was teasing, maybe thinking about the busy night they’d had after they got back from practicing at the rink.
“Well, I’m pretty good at it,” he countered.
They shared a secret smile, then their eyes darted apart.
Whatever it was they were doing, would it be public knowledge?
Brady hadn’t said anything, but his actions showed he’d rather keep it behind closed doors.
Made sense; Brady was private about way more mundane facts than hooking up with a teammate.
Not that Nick was even sure that was all this…
whatever… between them was. Hooking up meant sex, which was definitely a thing now, but it wasn’t the only thing.
Every dinner together felt like a stay-at-home date, and Brady taking care of him when he was too damn tired to do it himself felt like a relationship.
Those didn’t feel like things people who were only hooking up did.
But until they actually hashed it out, it should stay a secret.
If he were smart, he’d bring it up.
Nick wasn’t smart, not about this, so he kept his mouth shut.
By silent agreement, they turned away from each other and settled into the routine of getting ready. Nick shook off his relationship jitters and reverted to pre-game ones; at least those would disappear once he hit the ice and had a good shift under his belt.
“I bet I score tonight,” Brady declared once they were geared up.
The locker room had cleared out a bit (and yes, Nick had slowed down his own prep to wait for him), so Nick didn’t feel too shy about leaning in and whispering, “I bet you do.”
“That a promise?” Brady shot back.
“I got a few extra beers at my place, and we never did finish that movie the other night.”
“You’re right,” Brady said solemnly. “It’d be irresponsible to leave an unfinished movie in your queue.”
“ ’Course you could also maybe try to get a goal, too. May as well score twice, right?”
“Uh huh. You should try getting a goal or two yourself. You’re at a big zero points on the season so far.”
“I had work!”
“Tell it to the score sheet.”
He threw his tape at Brady and scowled. When Brady dodged out of the way, Nick noticed Gail across the locker room. She stood there in her sports bra and hockey pants, clearly filming them with her cell phone. When Nick glared at her, she didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.
She did put her phone away and get back to her gear bag, so that was something.
“You okay?”
It took effort to stop staring at Gail and turn his attention back to Brady.
Okay, not that much effort. Seeing Brady practically every day hadn’t lessened how drop-dead gorgeous Nick found him, and he’d stared at Brady with far less reasonable excuse.
But it did take some effort to school his appearance into a smile.
“Just worried about the game, I guess,” he lied. He didn’t want to spook Brady, even if he was relatively confident Gail knowing wouldn’t bother him.
Much.
“Dude, it’s been a few weeks. You’re fine. I broke my ankle in high school and couldn’t play for nearly a year. I wasn’t in playing form for like three years after that. You’ll be fine.”
Nick’s brain did a record scratch. “Wait, what?” The ankle thing sounded the tiniest bit familiar, but he couldn’t place when or where he’d heard it before.
Brady ignored the question, hopping to his feet and knocking his hands together to get his gloves in place. “If you’re actually worried, you should get your ass on the ice to warm up.”
Option A: Press for more info on this broken ankle thing because what!? Possible consequences: Get brushed off, have Brady shut down like he did in PA, make a bigger deal of it than necessary.
Option B: Follow advice and warm up, focus on the current problem, and maybe ease into the ankle thing later. Possible consequences: Actually not feel weird as shit about playing hockey again, maybe score a goal, put Brady at ease because he shared and can continue to share at his own pace.
Fuck, guess he’d go with Option B.
“Look at you, giving me a perfectly reasonable suggestion. It’s like you’re Alternate Captain or something.”
“Har har. Grab your stick. Let’s go.”
He’d practiced skating, stick-handling, and shooting—most of his usual warm-up routine—before he caught sight of Gail, alone at the far end of the bench by the penalty box. She was fiddling with her tape, and Nick figured it was as good an opportunity as any.
“Hey Gail,” he started, fully committed to the small talk it would take to ask what he really wanted to.
“Jenna and Terry have suspicions,” she drawled before Nick could get further. “They have a pool.”
Nick leaned against the boards to help maintain his balance. He appreciated her bluntness, but his poor brain couldn’t handle it when he’d already planned out five hockey-related questions to ask first. “A pool?” he asked with a nervous laugh. “About what? If me and Brady are sleeping together?”
She snorted. “Oh, no, you’re definitely sleeping together. You wouldn’t go AWOL if you weren’t. It’s about when you guys first hooked up.”
Nick groaned. He’d been avoiding talking to his cousins. His job was a great excuse—they knew his work cycle well enough to believe he was swamped and incapable of regular human communication—but they knew the busiest time had passed, and still he’d avoided making any plans to meet up with them.
If they saw him, they’d ask about the trip, and if they asked about the trip, he’d tell them about the drive home, and if he told them about the drive home, they’d grill him on whether the one-on-one time had been awkward. If he even mentioned the motel…
So, yeah, he’d been avoiding his family. Jenna would get the truth out of him within an hour—half that if beer was involved—and then there would be shrieks of delight (mostly from Terry) and demand for details he wasn’t sure he wanted to share yet.
He liked having Brady to himself.
He also hated it a little. Their… thing… was complicated enough without adding his cousins into the mix.
“Can’t avoid ’em forever,” Gail said with a shrug. “You should get it over with sooner than later. Get out their shenanigans when it’s just the three of you. Don’t want it happening when your boy toy’s around. He’ll clam up.”
His shoulders slumped. She was right, both about his cousins and about Brady, and it made him nauseous to think about Jenna and Terry (well… mostly Jenna) inadvertently scaring Brady off.
“I’m going out for drinks with them next weekend,” Gail offered. “They already want to invite you.”
“And they haven’t because…?”
“Because they wanted me to spy on you and Brady in the locker room first.”
“You’re a double agent, aren’t you?”
She smiled widely at him. “Something like that. Score a goal and I might ‘forget’ to forward that video I took.”
“Really?”
“Nah,” Gail said as she pushed off the boards. The refs were gathering everyone at center ice, and she was claiming first shift. “I already sent it.”
*
“Good game, everyone,” Benns said in the locker room.
He had an unfortunate case of helmet hair, made worse by the red line his helmet had left across his forehead.
He and Young Greg had double shifted in the third when Donno pulled a muscle; Benns had insisted they split the time evenly despite Young Greg being younger and fitter.
“Hard loss, but I think we’re in a good position to move forward with Nicki back in the lineup. ”
There were some half-hearted, exhausted claps, accompanied by Brady’s obnoxious whistle.
“I’m beat. Anyone have anything to add?” Benns asked as he collapsed onto the bench and started digging through his hockey bag for a Gatorade.
“Actually…” Mags stood up, looking bashful. “I know it’s super short notice, but I’d like to invite you all to my sister’s Fourth of July celebration. She bought a place on the Bay and wants to celebrate with a big house-warming type deal. She’ll provide the food if you provide the booze.”