Chapter 19 #2
God, that’s frustrating. I know what to do. My body knows what to do. Yet despite all the rehab and work, it’s still a fight to make it happen.
I grit my teeth, ignore it, and fly down the ice with my new stick.
***
“You comfortable there, Roe?” Benji asks me for the third time.
We won by a point, and I’m blissfully showered and in the hotel bed, my knee on a stack of pillows with ice stacked on it like I’m sandbagging for a flood.
“As long as I don’t have to get up, I’m good,” I tell him with a smile, reaching for my water on the side table. “Also, I could really use delivery knocking on the door with the food I ordered right now.”
“Before I leave, you mean.”
I give him my best smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
Benji grunts, and in a few minutes, while he’s still finishing his routine of getting ready to go out, a knock comes on the door.
It’s Jerry, which makes me sit up straighter. I didn’t expect an assistant coach to take the time to come by my room. Sure, we are all in the same hotel, but it’s still out of his way.
He holds up the food bag he must have gotten from the delivery guy, and I reach for it, but instead he pulls it out of my reach with a pointed look at my knee.
Benji flicks his gaze between me and Jerry and says his goodbyes as he excuses himself to go downstairs to the hotel bar and meet up with some of the guys.
We have another game in this series in a day, so there won’t be anything more than a few drinks and blowing off steam with the players who didn’t go out somewhere else tonight or order food to their room like me.
Jerry plops down on Benji’s bed and starts pulling out my order.
He raises an eyebrow at my selection of a Greek salad, loaded with fresh greens, veggies, and double protein.
“Taking care of yourself, I see, Monroe.” His voice is full of approval.
I sit the salad aside and wait for the hummus and pita bread that follows.
Damn Thatcher and his healthy eating habits.
I deserve a greasy burger but can’t bring myself to undo weeks of clean eating with Thatcher and Jamie.
Plus, I know this kind of fuel hits differently. I’m not twenty anymore.
I shrug at Jerry.
“I’m trying to make better choices.”
He looks at my leg on ice, and for some reason his scrutiny doesn’t bother me. Everyone knows I have an injury, and it needs the same care and attention the diet of a pro athlete does. If this is the start to any kind of comeback for me with the Knights, I’m not starting it off by hiding shit.
“You were good out there today, Monroe. Solid play, just like you’ve been doing with the Iceguard. I just wanted to come and tell you that we noticed.”
I give him a grin.
“Thanks, Jerry. Not everyone would have stuck with me like the Knights have and I appreciate it. I don’t want to let you down.”
Jerry nods.
“You’ve done everything I’ve asked since I put you on that plane to rehab. That’s not always the way these things go.”
I try to remember that—the plane ride out to Malibu where I rehabbed my ego and my addictions and my knee.
I draw a blank.
“I didn’t know that,” I tell him honestly. Sure, he was always the guy who came to check on me or video-called or touched base in some way. “That you got me on that plane.”
I think back to the game that pushed me over the edge.
I had shots on goal out of the ass that game but couldn’t land a damn thing.
My knee was burning like hell, but I’d made a solemn vow to myself never to play when I wasn’t sober.
Hockey wasn’t that kind of game. But it was the third game in a series, the night right after the second game and only a day between the first and second.
The truth was, I was playing with a bit of a hangover, which was saying something considering how far I’d had to push my limits to get a hangover in those days. Looking back, I was actually in limbo—hungover from the night before, already obsessing about getting my fix after the game.
And I had. I had a twink in my room and pills I didn’t even look at or question before I took them followed by a shot or two.
All I did know was that the knee quit hurting and the worries left my mind.
I’d been terrified of how bad my knee hurt and what that meant. Terrified enough that I overdid it and missed practice the next day and someone had to come find me. I guess that was Jerry. And if the team sent him then I did a shit job of hiding what was happening with me from the Knights.
I take a breath, blinking back into the present with Jerry.
“Thank you,” I manage. “For putting me on that plane, Jer.” I laugh. “I don’t remember it, just so you know, so I have no idea how much of an asshole I was to you. But I can guess.”
Jerry shrugs like it’s water under the bridge.
“How’s the knee? I couldn’t tell it bothered you on the ice.”
“It didn’t until I took that body check.”
“In the second?”
“Yeah.”
Jerry nods. “Still, I would like you to see the trainer in the morning.”
“I can do that.”
Jerry gives me a smile, and we shoot the shit for a bit as I finish my dinner. I move the ice to get up and throw away my trash and move around a bit before reapplying the ice once more before bed, and Jerry stands too, as if he’s going to leave.
“Welcome back, Monroe. Even if it’s only for a few games. It’s good to see you back in the Knights’ colors,” he says, and I shake his hand as he heads for the door.
Opening it, he pauses.
“You weren’t an asshole. Just so you know.”
I look at him in surprise.
“You were scared, I think.”
I nod. “Still, I—“
Jerry holds up a hand. “We recruit you guys young, Roe. Then expect you all to handle the stress, the fame, the pace—all of it. Everyone struggles with that pressure.”
I take a breath and wonder if he isn’t also thinking about the hotshot, Dom, who had an off game tonight.
“You know, my knee . . .” I force the words out. “It’s better. But it’s never going to be the same as when I started.”
“Just keep it up, Roe. What you’re doing is all we’re asking for, not miracles. Maybe it becomes an issue, maybe it doesn’t.”
“Right now, it isn’t,” I assure him.
He smiles. “That’s all I need to know.” Jerry looks like he’s going to say something else, but a call starts ringing through my iPad that I had set up hoping to call Thatch later.
Jerry nods toward the tablet. “See you tomorrow, Roe.”
I watch him leave and make my way over to catch the call before it rings out, smiling when Gabe’s face fills my screen.
“Hey,” I say, easing back onto the bed, elevating the knee without the ice.
“Great game,” Thatcher says with a smile. “Jamie yelled so much I think he lost his voice.”
“Pan down,” I instruct him, and sure enough, there’s the jersey I flung at him all those weeks ago. His broad shoulders make it look good. “Keep panning.”
The screen shows Thatcher’s lean thighs against his sheets. I groan.
Fucking sexy hockey dad.
“What are you wearing under the jersey, baby?” I ask, my voice low and rough. Damn, how is this man so fucking sexy? He’s in my Iceguard jersey and I’m hard as hell just looking at him.
“Just some briefs,” he says. “I slipped off my pants for bed.”
“You going to sleep in my jersey?”
Thatcher yawns. “Thinking about it.”
“Do it,” I tell him, and his eyes darken.
“Yeah?”
I reach down and squeeze my cock, willing it to behave. “Yeah.”
Thatcher looks like he’s just this side of biting his lip and gives a shy smile to the camera. Coy, even.
“Do you have a roommate?” he asks
“Benji.”
Thatcher nods and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.
“Let’s talk about the game, then,” he says, with his voice low and raspy.
I chuckle.
“He might not be back for a while,” I tease. “But you are probably right.”
Thatcher breathes through his nose. “Stop talking for a minute, Monroe.”
I notice his hand hasn’t moved from where it had dropped down to his crotch. Even though I can’t see my own face, I know my smirk is miles wide.
“Everything okay there, Gabe? Is there a . . . problem?” I practically purr the words into the phone, letting my voice get low.
“Fuck,” Thatcher growls, and I can tell by the movements of his arm he’s squeezing his dick.
“I miss you, baby,” I tell him, and he shoots me a death glare through the screen.
“I’m trying here, Roe,” he groans, and I love having him and his libido at my mercy.
My phone chimes, and I see a message pop up from Benji on the screen, so I switch to my phone to read it.
“Good news,” I tell Thatcher. “Benji just checked in to see if I need anything, and he says he’s about an hour out.”
“An hour?” Thatcher asks.
“Yep.”
Thatcher’s shoulders relax, like he’s settling back on his bed, and sure enough, I can see the pillows around him. He breathes out carefully and finally meets my eyes again.
“You were sexy as hell out there, sweetheart.”
Well fuck me, because it’s Thatcher’s bedroom voice that starts working its magic on my own desire. I’m painfully hard from watching the effect I had on him, but now I feel the urgency to do something about it.
Thatcher continues, his eyes hungry as I readjust the screen so he can see more of me. His look is just about enough to do me in—I could easily come like this with him watching me.
“I’m getting lube,” I tell him. “And you are too.”
***
The second game is better. We’re ahead by two, and in the third I have control of the puck when the goalie’s out of position, leaving an easy goal on an unattended net, but I’d hardly call it a shot.
It’s more of a stroke of luck, being the guy with the puck when Boston’s not where they should be.
But still, it’s my first goal in the NAPH since being back and leads to a Knights’ win, so that’s not nothing.
“Hey.” Jerry catches me in the locker room after the game. I’m still pulling a shirt over my damp head when he sits on the locker room bench.
It’s a nice enough locker room, but it doesn’t have Thatcher’s custom-made hockey-stick bench.
“What’s up?”
“Another great game, Roe. I’m not the only one noticing.”