52. Dan
DAN
“Victory Royale!” I held my controller up in triumph, grinning at Lincoln. “Your turn.”
“Watch and learn,” my boyfriend said. Slinging my legs over his thighs and leaning back against the arm of the sofa, I laughed, shaking my head at him. He was so deluded.
As he got the game set up to his satisfaction, I opened the camera app on my phone and took a photo of his concentration face.
Another one to go in my folder of Lincoln expressions.
Lowering the phone, I took a moment to admire how gorgeous he was, just sitting in my lounge in a plain T-shirt and sweatpants.
“What?” he said. “I can feel you staring at me.”
“That’s because you’re my favourite thing to look at. Fucking sexy.” I stretched over to kiss him. “Hey, we need to come up with a hard launch strategy.”
“A what strategy?”
“A hard launch of our relationship. You know, let people know we’re a thing. I’m pretty sure some of them know already, but—”
“We all know,” came a voice from behind the sofa, and then Kane strolled into view. “No need to hard-launch anything.”
“What? King and Jay know, but how do you know?”
Dropping down onto the other sofa, he stretched his legs out in front of him. “Aside from the fact that you’re all over each other right now… What could’ve possibly given it away? I can’t think of anything. Can you, Neo?”
Neo wandered into view, smirking at Kane. “Nope. It definitely wasn’t that album of thirst trap photos of Bellingham we saw on your phone.”
I gasped. “You went through my phone!”
“And it definitely wasn’t the way you always stare at him like he’s a glass of water and you’re dying of thirst.”
Fucking brilliant. More of my teammates were here. I glared at Toby, who was grinning far too smugly, and he shrugged unapologetically.
“We didn’t go through your phone. You were looking at the photos during a team meeting, mate. Everyone could see,” Neo informed me.
“Great.” I huffed out a breath, slumping back in my seat. My gaze slid to Lincoln to find he’d abandoned the game, and now he was staring at me with his brows raised and his eyes sparkling with amusement. Traitor.
“You’ve had a massive boner for him for years. Personally, I thought it was one-sided until me and Neo noticed the way he was watching you back,” Kane said, and my boyfriend’s cheeks flushed.
A grin spread across my face. “Interesting. What else did you notice about him specifically?”
Lincoln squeezed my foot in warning, and I wrenched it free. The asshole knew my feet were ticklish.
“Anyway, maybe it was the way you kept showing up with hickeys. Constantly. And then Bellingham came here looking for you, and sorry to tell you, mate, but it wasn’t exactly hard to put two and two together.” Kane shrugged. “If you wanted to be discreet, you should’ve tried harder.”
“What are we talking about?” Jay appeared in the doorway, with Ryker right behind him.
“Hoyts and Bells, and the fact that they thought no one knew they were together.” Neo jerked his thumb towards us. “Except for you two, apparently. We’ve been enlightening them on the fact that the entire team knows.”
“Whatever. So everyone knows.” I swung myself into an upright position.
“Can we be serious for a minute? I want to know if any of you have a problem with it. If you do, I want you to tell me to my face. Don’t say shit behind my back, okay?
And don’t try to change my mind, because me and him?
We’re not splitting up, no matter what you think about it. ”
Ryker stepped into the centre of the room, Jay coming up next to him. “No one has a problem with it.” His voice was threaded with steel, his gaze hard, and as Jay nodded in agreement, I couldn’t stop my smile. My besties had my back.
“If you’re worried I’m gonna give away our team secrets or go easy on him on the ice or whatever, don’t. He might be my boyfriend, but on the ice, he’s my opponent. We’re still rivals when it comes to hockey.”
“I wouldn’t want you to go easy on me. It wouldn’t be a fair win for the Flames,” Lincoln drawled, and suddenly, the lounge was full of indignant hockey players loudly protesting his statement.
I smirked, taking in the chaos. “Oh, Link. Look what you started.” Climbing to my feet, I tugged my boyfriend up with me. “Quick. Let’s sneak away.”
We made it as far as the kitchen when we were stopped by Jay and Ryker. “Bellingham,” Ryker said.
Lincoln studied him warily. “Thorpe.”
“Lincoln. Ryker…or King,” I said. “Please.”
Ryker nodded. “Alright. Lincoln. Dan’s our brother. We don’t have a problem with you being with him, but do not fuck it up. Do not break his heart. If you hurt him, we’ll have to make you pay.”
Jay huffed out a laugh. “That was more or less word for word the speech you gave me when I got together with Nova.”
“And it still stands,” Ryker said.
“I know.” Jay met my boyfriend’s gaze. “My girlfriend’s also very protective of Dan, and she knows how to use a knife. Just saying.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. You could all torture me painfully for hours, then—”
“No one will ever hurt you again,” I growled.
“Ever. That goes for both of you.” Stepping in front of my friends, I jabbed my fingers into their chests.
“You do not lay a hand on him, under any circumstances. Excluding ice time, obviously. He—” I faltered.
“No one can hurt him, okay? No matter what happens between us. I can’t— You can’t hurt him. ”
“Baby,” Lincoln murmured, his hand sliding onto my lower back. His palm rested there, a warm, grounding weight, and my shoulders slumped. I rubbed my hand over my face, huffing out a breath.
“Sorry. Just…please don’t do anything bad to my boyfriend, okay? I love him, like, a whole fucking lot. And you two are my best friends. I want you to be his best friends too. He—he needs some good people in his corner.”
“Bloody hell,” Ryker muttered. “Alright. Look. Let’s start this again. We don’t have any problem with the two of you being together. If, in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong—”
“It won’t,” I bit out.
“If. Then we won’t cause Lincoln any physical pain.”
“And yeah, of course we wanna be friends.” Jay held out his hand, and Lincoln shook it. “Looking forward to getting to know you.” His gaze flicked to mine before returning to Lincoln. “It’ll be nice to hang out with you without worrying I’m gonna be punched for it.”
“That was one time!” I protested. “But seriously, Jay, thanks. This, uh, yeah. It means a lot to me.”
Ryker cleared his throat. “Lincoln.”
“Ryker.” My boyfriend held out his hand, and Ryker shook it.
I grinned at them both. Ryker caught my eye, his lips kicking up, and I suddenly realised something.
I’d never been this happy in my life.