4. Jon
CHAPTER 4
JON
Drake was already on the ice by the time I got suited up for practice. Mac gave me a pat on the back but otherwise didn’t say anything about this turn of events. Like normal, I was geared up and dressed before the rest of my teammates, so I stepped out onto the ice before them.
But not before Drake.
Pretty sure he saw me, but he didn’t react at all to my presence. Rather, he continued skating and puck handling, with occasional shots at the net. I went through my warming up routine, stretching out hips and legs and limbering up—all while watching Drake.
His skating was effortless.
I mean, we all were good at skating. You didn’t make it to the pro leagues without having decent wheels, but Drake—his skating was just beautiful. The angles, the way he shifted, how fluid transitions were. The edgework. And the way he stick-handled through it all, as if the puck was magnetically attracted to his blade.
Stunning .
So different from practice yesterday and the game last night.
Without even looking at me, Drake backhanded a pass right to my tape and I stickhandled the puck before sending it back to him. He watched me now, and there was that smile that he’d only hinted at before.
His next pass bounced off my stick, and I had to skate to get it. Not because it was a bad pass or anything—but because I’d been staring at him and hadn’t bothered to catch it.
That got me a laugh from him that stopped my breath. I corralled the puck, then passed it back. We did that a few more times before he switched gears, got this glint in his eyes, and came straight at me.
Oh, we were playing this game then, huh? I was reasonably good at stripping pucks away from charging forwards—even if I was one myself—ever since my dad had taught me how.
Reasonably good was no match for Drake, though. He danced around me like I was one of the practice dummies, despite my trying to shove the puck off his stick. I ended up turned all the fuck around, because I could not even hope to keep up with his movements—so I saw him go bar down into the net that was behind me.
“Yo,” boomed a loud voice from the gate at them bench, then Clancy was banging his goalie stick against the boards. “Now that’s more like it, Dragon! Bring some fire.”
Again, Drake laughed, a high and happy sound, and my knees wanted to buckle from the emotions in my soul. Lust—yes. I was very, very human, after all, and he was gorgeous. But also, relief. Because there was the Drake Williams I’d seen when I watched Pittsburgh Lions games.
The rest of the team filed out into the ice and started warming up, so I headed to the bench for some water and hopped up to sit on the boards. Mac, in track suit and jawing on some gum, skated over. “Kid undressed you.”
Fucking hell, did I wish that had been literal. I found Drake in the crowd, talking to Alfie. “He’s better than me by far.”
Mac grunted and watched the players skating. “I’m starting him on the third line. See how he handles that.”
“He’ll be on the first line before the halfway mark, next game,” I said. “You’ll see. He’ll earn it, too.”
Mac smacked my shin with his stick. “Get your lazy ass on the ice, Jonny.”
I did as told. A couple minutes later, Mac blew the whistle and started practice.
This time Drake was wholly engaged in every part of practice, working as hard as the rest of us. Listening to the coaches and asking questions both of the coaches and the players. I knew they tried to keep the systems between here and the Lions similar, but there were some differences—we were at different levels, after all.
Drake also engaged with everyone on the ice. Asking for names, apologizing for his shitty attitude yesterday, all that. It went a long, long way to smoothing over the bad taste he’d left in the team’s collective mouth.
Bruno Doran—Bruda, one of our alternate captains this season—gently shoulder-checked me. “You know, you’re staring at him.”
I turned and raised an eyebrow. “So? What’s wrong with admiring the flora and fauna of the rink?”
He snorted. “There’s already a betting pool going about you and him.”
Of course there was. I wasn’t the most subtle when it came to my infatuations, and well, I’d already said he’d been at the bar. “Oh good. Maybe Smitty will win this time. With the kid on the way, he could use the extra cash.”
Bruda cackled, then sobered. “Smitty thinks he’s too young for you.”
I turned. “Smitty’s calling me old? He’s in his thirties ! I’m not there yet. Not like you.”
There was a smile hidden in the brown beard of his. “Tell me that in a month, asshole.”
I’d turn thirty in January. A little over a month from now. I pushed Bruda away from me. “Drill time, old man.”
As I waited for my turn for a penalty-killing drill, I thought about what Bruda had said about Smitty’s concern. I knew the age difference between Drake and myself. Seven years. According to his player profile on the NAPH web site, he’d turn twenty-three a few days after Christmas, and my birthday was just after New Year’s. A bit of a gap, sure. But not that huge, I didn’t think.
We finished up practice, with Mac being pleased with our effort, and reminding us of the road game tomorrow, and when we needed to be here to board the bus. This one, thankfully, wasn’t far—couple hours to Harrisburg to play the Pickaxes. It was those trips up to New England or down to South Carolina that sucked .
One thing I didn’t do was let my eyes wander over the flora and fauna of Drake Williams while in the shower area with the guys. I got myself cleaned efficiently, got dressed and got out of there. I wanted the first time I really saw him naked to be something he wanted and asked for.
In the lounge, I grabbed some food and a table. Alfie and Bruda joined me, and before I even had a chance to, Alfie waved Drake over.
“Drake was telling me about this chocolate shop in Pittsburgh that has European candies.” Alfie nearly vibrated in his seat. “I think Ebba and I are going to drive in on the off day after the road trip.”
Ebba was his girlfriend. They were so stinking young and so stinking cute together. She was taking classes at the local university, which I utterly admired. “Sweets to the sweet,” I said.
“Shakespeare,” Drake said.
“Exactly so.” Now I looked appreciated the view fully, and met his gaze. “Do you know which play?”
He snorted. “ Hamlet .” His expression turned contemplative, and he grunted, as if his mind had just shuffled something into place.
“Jonny likes to think he’s literary.” Bruda said. “He really just watches movies.”
At that, I rolled my eyes and smiled while I flipped him off. “I can read and speak three languages—well, two and a half. My French is—” I rocked my hand back and forth to indicate so-so. “I’m out of practice. We need a Quebecois player.”
“Oh, sure.” Bruda waved his fork at me. “I’ll tell management to get right on that. A French-Canadian player so Jonny can improve his language skills.”
There was Drake’s stunning smile again. Yeah, that’s what I was aiming for. I could stare at that for hours .
“You spent time in Montreal, right?” Drake’s blue eyes caught mine for a moment before he looked to his food.
“A couple years.” Papa started playing there when I was nine, but I didn’t discuss my father’s career with my teammates. I mean, they knew, of course, but also he was just “Jonny’s dad” on the parents-and-mentors road-trip, and he loved that. “But like a lot of things, if you don’t use a language, it slips away. ”
“Some people never had it to begin with,” Alfie deadpanned, and looked right at Bruda.
“Hey!” He flicked a pea at Alfie in response.
And that was pretty much how our meal went. Lots of snark, Drake’s lovely smile, and me trying not to melt into a pile of goo when he turned those baby blues on me.
I couldn’t help notice that he was waiting to leave until I did. On the way out the door, he spoke. “Thank you for last night. I think I needed someone to remind me that I can love hockey.”
The air in the parking lot was cold, and the scent of woodsmoke lingered on the breeze. Clouds had made the sky gray, but there was light in Drake, and that warmed my soul. I’d parked next to his SUV, so I leaned against the back of my truck. “If you didn’t love it, if I didn’t know you loved it, I’d tell you it’s okay to stop. But you have a gift and love, and there’s nothing you can’t do with those.”
He gaped at me. “You think?”
I nodded. Pretty sure Drake would lift a Cup in a couple years. The Lions weren’t quite there yet, but soon. And Drake would be part of that.
His laugh was a puff of smoke into the air. “Feels weird to hear when I’m about to drive back to a hotel room, but—okay. I’ll trust you.”
“Which hotel are you at, anyway?” There were only so many… and none were exactly the high-end I knew the NAPH teams used.
“The Marriott.”
I must have made a face because he raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s bad?”
“The hotel? It’s fine. The location?” This time, I purposefully twisted my face. “Has the ambiance of a strip mall parking lot.” Mostly because it was a strip mall parking lot.
He laughed again. “Yeah, but it’s that or commute from Pittsburgh, which…” This time he skewed up his face.
That had me blurting out, “I have a guest room at my house. En-suite bath and everything. New players, people coming up or down—I usually offer it, but there wasn’t really a good time.”
He stared at me.
Words tumbled out of my mouth as the temperature of my face rose. “You can say no. You can always say no to me. You can say yes to the room and no to the…” I waved my hand. “Flirting. I can stop that, if you don’t want it. I don’t want you uncomfortable, Drake. Just…living in a hotel room… that really kind of sucks.”
He cocked his head. “What if I say yes to the room, but want you to keep flirting?”
“Uh.” I was kind of surprised steam wasn’t curling off me, with how hot I’d suddenly become. I scratched the back of my head. “I can keep flirting. If you want.”
God, I hadn’t seen that cocky smile, and coupled with the quirk of his eyebrow before—fucking hell. “Do you want to?” he asked. “Keep flirting?”
This man was too much. Or maybe enough. Maybe exactly enough, and that was a scary thought.
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes to the room. Yes to flirting. And yes to a date.”
It was an actual wonder—a small miracle—that I didn’t just—self-combust right there. “Uh, are you allergic to cats? Because I have two.”
He laughed, and honestly those laughs were the best sound I’d heard all day. “Cats are fine.”
I smiled back and gestured to our trucks. “Let’s go get your stuff, then.”
My house was a little ways outside of Greensburg proper, more or less equal driving distance between the arena and the bar. It was an older home and had a kind of pseudo-rustic look to it, like someone was trying to go for a cabin look, but out of brick, and wood and some pine-green paint, I guess. But the inside was spacious and the house was set back from the two-lane road and the neighboring properties to either side were far enough away that I could putter about in the woods, work on my motorcycle, and shoot pucks off my back patio in private.
When Drake got out, he looked quizzically at the house for a moment, then nodded as if to himself. “Is there a stream back there somewhere?”
There was. “How’d you know?”
He gave a shrug. “The trees, I guess. And—” He turned to face me. “I don’t know. I can picture you in the woods, sitting on a big rock, watching water.”
“Huh.” I stared out into the woods. “There’s a creek about a ten-minute walk in, and some rock outcroppings to sit on.” I turned to him. “Which I do, when I need to think. Sometimes the brain fills up, you know?”
He opened the back of his SUV and pulled out two suitcases. I gestured for him to give me one.
“You’re always so upbeat,” he said, as he followed me up onto the wrap-around porch. “Like a sunny day. I figure you have to have somewhere to go to recharge.”
I chuckled and glanced back over my shoulder. “I have lots of somewheres, actually. The woods. The bar. Taking my bike out on nice days. The rink.” I unlocked the front door and ushered him inside. “And here.”
“You ride a motorcycle?” He stepped in. “Oh?—!”
Thor, my orange short-haired cat, trilled and swished his tail. Usually he came and rubbed my legs, but with Drake there, he sat and inspected him.
“Well,” Drake said, taking in all of Thor’s ginger glory. “He’s a handsome—girl? Boy?”
“That’s Thor. He’s a he.” I pointed over to the huge cat tree on the far wall. “Loki’s over there.”
Loki, my black smoke Maine Coon cat, perched on the tree like the lord of mischief he was.
Drake gawked. “Fuck, that’s a big cat.”
He was. Twenty-three pounds and three feet of fluff with the look of an absolute gremlin. “Thankfully, he’s a sweetheart. For the most part. He can be a little shit when he’s in a mood and get into everything, but that’s cats for you.” Knowing Loki, he’d check Drake out in his own time. “His fur is very soft. But also everywhere.”
“Yeah, we had a long-haired cat growing up.” Drake looked around beyond the cat. “But that doesn’t seem to be that much of a problem right now. This is…” He drank the room in.
One of the things I loved about this house, despite its cabin exterior, was the bright and open interior. You couldn’t tell from the front, but there were windows and windows and cathedral ceilings, and airy space in the living room, which led to the kitchen and its panoramic view of the woods that sloped back away from the house.
As for the furnishings, well, Papa once described my decorating choices as biker leather meets Scandinavian sensibility, and I guess that was a pretty decent description. I kept to lighter colors, mostly, but accented with black leather, chrome, and hints of red.
Drake’s pronouncement of all that was, “This seems—very you.”
“Come on, I’ll show you your room. It’s a little less me and more IKEA.”
That got me the smile I really liked.
We headed to the other part of the house, and climbed up to the second floor. Thor followed. Loki didn’t.
Of course, when I opened the guest room door, Thor ran right in, trilling his little head off. “Sorry, he loves these rooms, but I’ve been keeping the cats out of here, just in case?—”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Drake wheeled his large suitcase near to the side, then crouched. “Come here, buddy. I’ll let you hang with me.” He held out his hand, and Thor, the loaf that he was, rubbed against Drake’s fingers and started purring like a bike engine. “You got the names from the Marvel movies?”
“No, from Norse Eddas.” I said, and when confusion swirled in Drake’s expression, I added. “Tales. Prose. Poetry. Norse mythology.” When Thor rubbed against me, I bent and gave him scritches on the head. “They’re like gods, you know? Cats. Or at least they think they are.”
Drake chuckled, low and soft. “Yeah. I know hockey players like that.”
“Don’t we all.” I thought of Adam, then shook my head. Thankfully, Drake wasn’t that way—quite the opposite, in fact. “Let’s get the rest of your things, and I’ll show you around. House isn’t too huge, but there’s space.”
“Well, it’s larger than my place in Pittsburgh and you have land.” He followed me down and back out to his SUV. “ It’ll be good to save some cash. Still have to pay rent there, and now my salary…”
He hefted another large suitcase out of the SUV, and I grabbed a carry-on-sized roller bag.
I winced. “You’re still on your ECC… shit.” That was a two-way contract. Meaning he got paid a whole lot less here than when he was in the NAPH. “I know a good finance guy if you…”
He shook his head, but there was a small smile on his lips. “First thing Mom had me do when I signed with the Lions was to talk to a sports financial advisor. I’ll be fine. It’s just…” That smile slipped away. “It kind of sucks. To… well… suck. Then go on waivers and realize no one else wants you because you?—”
I cut him off. “You don’t suck. You’re having a rough patch.”
He grunted, and didn’t answer until we deposited the last of his things into the guest room—his room, at least for now. “Lions didn’t want me, Jon.”
God. He looked much as he did before. Beaten down and heaping all of the blame onto himself again.
So I pulled him into a hug. He sucked in a breath, but also relaxed and wrapped his arms around me. “You’re wrong. They want you.”
“They want the player I was last season.”
“You are that player.” I felt him inhale to reply, so I hugged him tighter. “Think, Dragon, think. If they didn’t want you, they wouldn’t have waived you.”
He went still, and I pulled back so I could see his face. Those blue eyes were full of emotions. Hurt, disappointment. Confusion. But all of that shifted to something calmer, and then he met my gaze. “They didn’t trade me. They could’ve traded me. ”
I nodded. “They took a risk, waiving you to send you here, but they did it to keep you. Yes, they want that player you were last year and they know you’re that player. You just need to find your game.”
He slid his hands from my body, so I let him go.
“Will you help me?” Those damn blue eyes of his. Still full of worry and hurt, but also a hint of hope.
“Of course.” It came out as a whisper.
And that’s when Loki sauntered into the room and squawked for attention.
Drake started. “How is a cat that big that quiet, and what was that meow?”
“He’s only that quiet when he wants to be. Usually the floorboards rattle when he walks.” I stooped to give Loki his due. “And he’s a butter muffin. Don’t let his size scare you.”
Drake squatted down and offered his hand to Loki, who promptly mashed his face into it, and started purring deep and loud.
“Oh shit,” Drake said. “He is soft. Does he like snuggling?”
I chuckled. “If you leave your door cracked tonight, I can almost guarantee he’ll abandon me for you.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to curl up with this man?
He gave me a curious look, and I answered, “Loki has a habit of claiming anything and anyone I bring into the house.”
“I guess someone wants me after all,” he murmured to Loki. “But don’t abandon your dad, beautiful. I’m sure we can share.”
The cats? Yes. I’d share Loki and Thor. But an unusual zing of possessiveness rattled through me when it came to Drake. I had no desire to share him with anyone—at least not in the way I wanted him. “Let’s get the rest of your things, then I can give you a quick tour of the remainder of the house, and let you settle in.”
We unloaded the few items he had left, then I pointed out the other the rooms on the second floor. “My bedroom.” He peeked in curiously, but didn’t comment on the decor—which was a little less biker and leather, but not entirely devoid of that, either.
He was much more talkative when I showed him the next room, which was more or less a library. Complete with a daybed that was basically a reading nook. “Oh, shit,” he said. “This is nice!”
I wouldn’t have necessarily pegged him for a reader—a lot of pro hockey players aren’t, but come to think of it, being a bookworm somehow fit Drake, too. “It was supposed to be my office, but then the books took over, so…” I gestured around. “Sometimes I need somewhere not the rink and not a computer or game system. I’ll come in here and read or nap or both.”
His brows furrowed, as if puzzling out something. “A sanctuary.”
“I suppose.” After thinking for a moment, I nodded. “Yes. That’s a good description.” Then I added, “Feel free to borrow anything. Most of it’s in English.”
He studied a couple of titles. “Yeah, later I’m gonna haunt this place.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I wasn’t lonely, per se, but the idea of Drake pursuing my shelves and curling up in that room filled me with warmth. Especially if I could curl up there, too.
We did a quick walkthrough of the ground floor, with its open living room and kitchen, before I showed him the basement, which housed my home gym and the net where I practiced my shots. “I have one for the patio, too, for when the weather isn’t shit.”
“I do want to see that, too,” he said. “And it’s just cold, not shitty.”
True. There was some sun and blue sky in between the clouds. No snow, so everything in the woods was various shades of brown with some greens poking through. We headed out to the patio, and Drake inhaled deeply.
“It smells good out here.”
All cold, but damp and earthy with hints of smoke and pine. “I love it. It’s so peaceful. Sometimes there are deer by the woods edge. I’d say it’s quiet, but there’s noise—just nature noise, you know? That kind of quiet. I love people and the bar and the rink, but sometimes, I just need?—”
“To be out of your head for a bit?”
I laughed. “I’m never out of my head. I just need quiet sometimes.” I paused, then added, “I talk a lot, I know.”
“You smile a lot. I like that. You’re—you’re always happy.” He seemed a little consternated by that. “How are you always happy?”
I considered his question, then answered softly, “Well, I’ve been damn privileged, honestly. I’ve never wanted for anything. I could live off my dad’s money. I don’t , but it’s there and I grew up rich and connected to hockey.” I shrugged. “I’m not happy all of the time. I have my ups and downs like everyone. Get mad and frustrated, all that. But—I told you the story about my dad wanting me to be happy. That’s a good part of it. I’m playing pro hockey. I own a queer biker bar, of all things. I have this.” I opened my arms to take in the patio, yard, and woods beyond. “Why shouldn’t I be in love with my life?”
He studied me. “In love with your life?”
“Well, yeah.” I gestured around me again .
The emotions that swept across his face were innumerable, and the furrows in his brow deepened. “I’ve never heard—I mean, people say you should love what you do, but…being in love. That’s different, isn’t it?” He seemed more like he was puzzling his question out rather than asking me. I let the silence sit between us as the breeze rattled a few of the leaves remaining on the trees.
Finally, he shifted. “One’s an action, isn’t it?”
“Loving is an action. I think ‘being in love’ is a state and an action. Neither are stagnant—both require passion and doing . But being is—you exist in that. I guess, I exist in love, and that more often than not, makes me happy.”
Drake stared at me.
Fuck. I scratched the back of my head. “I’m shit at explaining this, eh? Why don’t you go unpack, and I’ll figure out something for dinner.”
“Jon.” He said my name like one might murmur a prayer, and I felt the sound deep in my bones.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For all of this. For sharing your home and your peace.” His eyes were blue gray in this light, and full of emotion.
Couldn’t help the smile. “I’m grateful I can.” Then I nodded at the door to the house. “Come on. I’ll grill some steak and you can get settled.”
There was the smile I’d wanted to see, peeking out from the storm that was Drake. “All right.”
Just two words, but that smile and that utterance settled my soul.