Chapter 5
ETHAN
Before I’d left practice to go to my first lesson with Jake, Marek had texted me about hanging out at his and Carson’s place to watch the Seattle Rainiers game on TV.
Of course I’d agreed to come, because hello, when was I going to say no to watching hockey?
Especially when it meant listening to Marek chirp at his brother through the screen.
Those two were such brothers, it was hilarious, and when Jan would text Marek during intermissions, it was almost as entertaining as the game itself.
So, yeah, no shit I was going to their place.
But maybe he could’ve mentioned that I wasn’t the only one invited to hang out and watch the game.
At first, it was just me. I’d brought over a couple of pizzas, and Carson was turning the kitchen upside down looking for the paper plates.
“Where the fuck are… ” He peered into a cabinet and muttered, “Sakra.”
I snorted. “Swearing in Czech now? You really have been spending too much time around Marek.”
“There’s no such thing as too much time around me,” Marek declared as he walked into the room.
Carson eyed him, though there was fondness in his expression. “Baby, there is definitely such thing as—”
Marek muttered something that I thought was more Czech cursing, but Carson reeled him in for a light kiss.
“God, get a room, you two,” I said.
“We have one,” Carson said with a smug grin. “We just can’t use it right now, because we have”—he flailed a hand at me—“guests.”
“One guest,” I corrected, “and you can use your room all you want. I’ll just drink all your beer.”
Marek huffed a laugh. “You think you can drink all that beer in two minutes?”
That earned him a smack to the chest from his boyfriend. “Dude. That’s cold.”
“What? I’m just saying!” Marek showed his palms and grinned.
I rolled my eyes. “You two are disgusting.”
“Your jealousy is so transparent,” Marek said, grabbing Carson’s ass. “And no, you’re not our only guest.” He checked his phone. “He said he’d be here by puck drop, didn’t he?”
Carson nodded. “Yeah, I think he had another lesson after I left, but he should be—” He paused and craned his neck. “That sounds like his car.”
Then he was heading out of the kitchen.
I turned to Marek. “Who else is coming?”
As he reached into a cabinet and pulled out the paper plates his boyfriend had been looking for, he casually said, “Carson asked Jake to join us.”
I froze. “Jake? As in… As in Jake from the fighting gym?”
Marek turned to me. “Um, yeah?” He studied me, and then he laughed. “Ahh, so Carson was right.” With a wink, he added, “You do have a thing for him, don’t you?”
“What? No! I… ” I sputtered, but right then, Jake’s voice filtered in from the front hallway, and I forgot how to speak. Oh, fuck me. He was here? He was here. We were both here. And Carson apparently thought I had a thing for Jake, and now Marek thought I had a thing for him too, and—
And Jake walked into the kitchen, and yeah, I might’ve had a thing for him.
The double take he did when he saw me caught me by surprise. So did the blush in his cheeks. “Ethan. I… I didn’t realize you were going to be here.” He didn’t sound upset about that—quite the contrary, assuming I wasn’t reading too much between the lines—but he was definitely startled.
“Yeah, I… ” I gestured at Marek. “I always show up when I get to listen to him talk smack about his brother.”
That broke some of the tension, and Jake laughed as he shifted his focus to Marek. “Does he suck or something?”
“Oh God, no.” Marek waved a hand. “He’s an incredible goalie. I just give him shit because he’s my brother.”
“Ah. Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Yep, and it’s almost puck drop,” Carson said. “Everybody get some pizza and beer, and let’s move to the living room.”
We did as we were told, which gave me a blessed distraction from Jake’s presence. At least… until we sat down.
Marek and Carson had a decent place, but it wasn’t huge, and the places to sit were somewhat limited. Carson took one of end of the couch with Marek on the floor between his knees. Jake took the middle. And I took the other end.
Which meant…
Oh, fuck me.
How was I supposed to concentrate on anything with him right next to me?
Especially on a coach that was juuust narrow enough that my hockey-toned thighs and Jake’s juggernaut of a body couldn’t avoid touching.
I tried for a little while, but I was going to end up with a muscle cramp if I did that for three hours, so I gave up.
As my leg rested gently against Jake’s, he fidgeted, but he didn’t try to put space between us.
He glanced at the place we made contact, then focused on eating his pizza and watching the pre-game on TV.
I did the same, not that I followed much of what the commentators were saying. I was way too zeroed in on the man sitting beside me.
Though he was in jeans and a T-shirt now, it was impossible to chase away all those mental images of him at the gym.
The way that tank top had clung to his body.
Those powerful muscles. The way he moved.
Fuuuck, I’d known he existed for all of like two days and I was already a complete dumbass for him.
Probably means it’s time to get back on Tinder.
Yeah. That had to be it. I’d had a delightfully slutty off-season, but ever since training camp, I’d been focused on hockey while cobwebs accumulated in my bed. A hookup or two would bring me back down to earth so I could act like a normal human being around Jake.
Something, something, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona…
“Oh, come on!” Marek’s exasperated outburst pulled me back into the present. “Fucking really?”
“What?” Jake looked about as confused as I felt.
“Relax, baby.” Carson combed his fingers through Marek’s hair. “They announced he was going to be a commentator like a month ago, didn’t they?”
“Ugh. Yes. But I didn’t think it would be on this network.” He snatched his phone off the coffee table, nearly knocking his beer over in the process. “Is this game being broadcast anywhere else?”
“It’s just on this one,” Carson said gently. “Do you want me to mute him?”
Marek muttered something profane, and Carson muted the TV.
When he apparently noticed Jake and me eyeing him, Carson gestured at the TV. “His dad is one of the commentators.”
That prompted a string of curses from Marek. Then he pushed himself to his feet. “While he’s flapping his lips, I’m going to get more pizza.”
Without waiting for a response, he stalked off to the kitchen.
I wanted some more pizza myself, but I also saw the opportunity to escape from Jake for a minute and catch my breath, so I said, “I’m going to get some more myself.”
Jake still seemed alarmed. Carson was eating his own pizza and didn’t seem too worried.
In the kitchen, Marek rested his hands on the counter and exhaled hard.
I set my plate beside one of the pizza boxes. “Hey, man. You good?”
“I will be.” He shook his head, then turned to me, exhaustion replacing the playfulness from earlier. “Being estranged from my dad—it still sucks. And the fact that I can’t escape him… ” He shook his head.
“That definitely sucks. For what it’s worth, everyone on social media hates him as a commentator.”
Marek eyed me dubiously, one eyebrow arched.
I took out my phone, opened a group I belonged to on a social media app, and found a particular thread. As I handed him the phone, I said, “This was after the Buffalo-Long Island game last week.”
He peered at the phone, brow furrowed. Slowly, especially as he started scrolling, his forehead relaxed. Then his eyebrows began to climb. A laugh burst out of him and he clapped his hand over his mouth. “That is fucking savage!”
“I know, right?” I chuckled. “I don’t think he’ll be doing it for very long.”
“Good. The less I have to see him on TV, the better.” He handed back my phone, then reached for one of the pizza boxes.
“The game should be starting soon anyway. I’ll just find something else to do during intermissions.
” He paused, and a wicked grin curved his lips.
“Don’t know if we should leave you and Jake unsupervised, though. ”
I rolled my eyes as my face turned into an inferno. “Fuck you.”
“Uh-huh. I know what I saw.” He tilted his head toward the living room. “And so does Carson.”
“Yeah, yeah, you saw—wait, what did Carson see?” I glanced at the living room before facing Marek again. “Tell me!”
He shrugged with mock innocence. “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask—”
“Tell me, or I swear to God, I’ll have the equipment managers put glitter in your jock.”
His eyes widened.
“I think we have an understanding.”
He hmphed. As he dragged a piece of pizza onto his plate, he said, “Carson said it looked like you two… got along.”
“Mmhmm. Like we got along? Or we got along?” I lowered my voice. “Is Jake, um… Is he even into men?”
Marek froze, his humor vanishing as something like panic crossed his face.
“You don’t have to out him or anything,” I said quickly. “But like… I don’t want to bark up a homophobic straight guy tree, you know?”
“A homophobic straight guy.” Marek snorted. “Who’s hanging out with two very obviously gay dudes at their house?”
“Oh. You make a valid point.”
“Uh-huh. Trust me, he’s not homophobic.” He paused, eyes flicking toward the living room.
“Honestly, I thought he was at first. When he realized Carson was queer, he got… I don’t know.
Weird about it. But he and Carson have worked things out, so…
” He shrugged. “Whatever it was, it’s obviously not an issue now. ”
“That’s good. And he… might be into me?”
“Guess we’ll find out.” He nudged my arm. “Get your pizza. Game’s about to start.”
“That’s not a no!”
“It’s not a yes, either!” he singsonged over his shoulder.
“You dick,” I mumbled, and busied myself getting a couple slices of pizza.
As I walked back into the living room, I glanced at Jake in the same moment he glanced at me.
Did… Did his breath stutter? For real?
Because mine sure did. Jesus.
Hoping I appeared more graceful than I felt, I took my seat beside him again, my thigh pressing against his just like before.
“I’m not crowding you, am I?” he asked, pulling his leg away.
“No, no, you’re good!” Put it back. Please? I cleared my throat. “These idiots just bought a couch made for hobbits.”
Jake laughed, letting his leg relax against mine again.
“It’s plenty big enough for us,” Marek said. “Though, we’re not usually next to each other, so… ”
“Oh my God.” Jake wrinkled his nose. “It’s bad enough walking into your office knowing what you two have done in there. Am I… ” He acted like he was going to get up. “Am I sitting in cum? Oh God, I am, aren’t I?”
“Pfft.” Carson elbowed him. “It doesn’t get on the upholstery. Jesus—we’re not animals.”
“Sure sounded like it last time he was in your office,” Jake muttered before taking a pull of his beer.
Marek and Carson both blushed at that.
I barked a laugh and picked up one of my pizza slices. Well, Marek was right about one thing—Jake wasn’t homophobic. Whatever issues he might’ve had before, he was done with them now.
And he was… maybe… into me?
Fuck.
The game started a few minutes later, which gave us all something to concentrate on.
I was used to watching hockey with other hockey players, but it was a different experience with two people who weren’t as well-versed in the sport.
Jake was mystified by most of it. Carson had obviously learned a lot since he’d been with Marek, but he still got confused about things.
I’d been internalizing the sport since before I could read, so it all made perfect sense to me. When I tried to look at it through the lens of someone who didn’t get it—okay, I could see how it all read like utter chaos. But the chaos made sense to me and Marek and, to an increasing degree, Carson.
Jake was, unsurprisingly, lost. “What the fuck is icing?”
Marek turned to me, eyebrows up as if to ask, You got this?
“It’s when someone flings the puck down to the other end of the ice,” I said. “If they’re not over the red line and they send it down to the other end, it’s icing.”
“O… kay? And it’s, like, a penalty?”
I shook my head. “Nah. The ref blows the whistle, the team who iced the puck can’t do a line change, and they do a faceoff in their own end.”
“And that’s… bad?”
“It is when you’ve been out for two minutes and need a goddamned shift change,” Marek grumbled into his beer. “I swear to God, if Kells iced the puck one more time in our last game, I was going to ice him.”
I laughed. “He just wasn’t ready to leave the ice! You guys were having so much fun!”
That earned me a middle finger.
Jake tilted his head. “Is two minutes a long time?” As soon as the words came out, he closed his eyes and grimaced. “Goddammit.”
Carson laughed and patted Marek’s head. “I mean, it can be for some people.”
Marek elbowed him in the shin, and Carson yelped. “Jdi do prdele,” Marek said. “You deserved that.”
Carson kicked Marek playfully, then rubbed his shin. “Asshole.”
Marek tilted his head back and batted his eyelashes. “What?”
Carson just rolled his eyes, leaned down, and kissed his boyfriend lightly.
“You two are so gross,” Jake said, but he was chuckling.
“They really are,” I agreed, and we shared a fist bump.
Carson and Marek both flipped us off.
“And to answer your question,” I said to Jake, “yes, two minutes is a seriously long time. Most of our shifts are like forty-five to sixty seconds. Two minutes is… ” I made a face.
“It’s fucking bullshit, that’s what it is,” Marek said.
I nodded. “What he said.”
The game continued, and I answered Jake’s questions as they came up. We were halfway through the second period before I realized Marek was deferring all of Jake’s questions to me, even if he did add his two cents here and there.
Was he…
Was he playing wingman for me?
Hell, maybe.
Was it working?
Guess I’d find out.