CHAPTER THREE
FEbrUARY
Tanner fidgeted with his phone as he waited for the elevator to arrive on the second floor where the hotel bar was located. All of the other guys were there already—his phone had been blowing up with messages from the guys on the Out in the NHL app for the past ten minutes—and he was running late.
As usual.
But he’d gotten distracted texting a woman he’d hooked up with a couple of times before.
She was back in Boston, and he was in Toronto for the North Atlantic Ice Hockey Tournament so unfortunately, the super hot pics she’d sent him were kinda wasted.
Well, not totally wasted—he’d definitely be jerking off to them in the future—but they weren’t going to lead to a repeat of their last hookup tonight.
He’d promised to make it up to her once he was back in Boston, but then his phone had blown up with messages, and he’d realized they were waiting for him at the bar.
Usually, the mid-season break meant going to the All-Star tournament. But this year they’d decided to do something new. Since NHL players still weren’t allowed to play in the Olympics—dumb, if you asked Tanner—they’d invented a new tourney.
He was psyched to be invited, even if he thought it was stupid they were holding it in Toronto and Chicago in February.
“Going up?” someone said and Tanner glanced up from his phone to see a smoking-hot woman in a flight attendant uniform standing in the open doors of the elevator. She had curves for days and he was so focused on that it took him a moment for the words, “I’m heading down to the lobby,” to process.
He shook his head, glanced around, realized they were actually on the second floor, then stepped forward with a smile.
“I’d love to go down on—I mean, with you,” he said with a wink. “But my friends are in the bar.”
He nodded at the entrance across the hall as they switched spots.
She rolled her eyes, grinned, and held up her left hand. “Happily married and you’re about a decade too young for me, honey, but I’m flattered.”
“I hope your spouse knows how lucky they are to have you!” Tanner called out as the doors closed.
With a spring in his step because flirting was his favorite pastime, he spun on his heel, walked over to the bar, and scanned the room. Ahh, there they were.
There were several big groups of players in the bar tonight, but he was here for the queer gathering. The Out in the NHL guys were seated at a long row of padded benches along one wall, with chairs on the other side of the tables.
“I have arrived!” Tanner said grandly as he approached them, throwing his arms wide.
“Late as always!” Mickey Krause called out.
Tanner laughed and shrugged. He was used to the shit he got from his roommate by now.
A couple of guys stood and hugged Tanner—he got nearly squeezed to death by Matty Carlson, who he’d been partnered with at the skills camp in Evanston a lot last summer—and he hugged dudes and kissed cheeks and then he was shoved toward an empty spot on the benches.
A hot waiter came over to take Tanner’s order, and he flirted with him as he got his drink and caught up with guys around the table. It wasn’t until the dust settled that he realized who was sitting to his left. He glanced over and grinned at the familiar unhappy face.
“Oh, hey there, Princess!”
Leif sighed, his expression turning sour. “Clayton.”
Leif always had a combo of resting bitch face and resting ice princess face. He always looked snooty, like he thought he was better than the rest of them.
And well, he was better than a lot of NHL players, Tanner had to admit. But in this group? He was just one of the boys. The best of the best were taking part in this tournament and Tanner was psyched to see what they could do together in the next few days.
There was a mix of countries at the table, of course. Leif was from Norway and would be playing for the Nordic team along with a bunch of super talented guys from Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.
“So, are you psyched for the tourney, dude?” Tanner asked, elbowing Leif. “We are gonna smoke you guys.”
Graham Pennington, Dustin Fowler, Matt Carlson, Shane Hurst, Trevor Underhill, and Kelly O’Shea would all be on Team USA with Tanner. The Nordic team was good, but they couldn’t beat that lineup.
Leif snorted. “Sure. So you say.”
“Oh, come on,” Tanner argued. “We’ve got elite level talent, especially on the blue line.”
Nico Arents—who sat across the table a few chairs down, hooted. “That’s cute that you American guys think you can beat Team Canada. I mean, c’mon, look around.”
Tanner did, eyeing the Canadians: Rafael Moon—his other roommate and Mickey’s boyfriend—Gabriel Theriault, Felix Hale, and Jonah Brewer.
“Oh, I’m looking,” Tanner said with a wink.
Nico laughed and Tanner felt himself go warm under the collar.
“Yeah, I know we look good,” Nico teased, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes, his blue eyes sparkling.
Nico was stupid hot. Like … kind of ridiculous with that gorgeous face of his and an earring glinting in his ear. He was also happily married to former NHL referee, August Manning. Tanner had thought about being the filling in that sandwich a time or two.
It was kind of a shame that Tanner hadn’t really gotten to know Nico before he and August locked shit down. Because Tanner had a feeling they’d have burned up the sheets.
In his single days, Nico had been an absolute menace, fucking his way through, well, everyone.
Especially in Canada, where he played for the Toronto Fisher Cats, and Dutch-land, or whatever they called the place with the tulips and windmills.
Nedderlands? Something like that. It had too many names for Tanner to keep track of, honestly, and he’d never been any good at geography.
Or, like, school at all. Why did he care about musty old books when he could be playing hockey?
“Hey, why are you playing for Canada anyway?” Tanner asked Nico with a frown. “Aren’t you Dutch or some shit?”
Nico shrugged. “I was eligible to play for the Central European team too, but I was born in Canada and lived there most of my life, so …”
Tanner nodded. That made sense.
Mickey sighed and muttered something in German into his beer. Probably whining about the fact that his team would have been greatly helped by having Nico on their roster.
“Besides,” Nico said with another laugh, “I wanted to win.”
Mickey scowled and tossed a balled-up napkin at Nico, which led to hooting noises and trash-talking as conversations turned to discussing their chances at the upcoming tournament.
Tomorrow they’d have team meetings and practices, and Tanner was psyched about it. Tonight, though, he was really fucking happy to just be sitting in a nice bar with a drink and talking hockey with a bunch of queer dudes.
Life didn’t really get better than that.
Well, maybe if someone was sucking his dick or he was bouncing on theirs while he did all that. That would be even better. But most of these guys were taken, unfortunately. All happily settled down.
Except Leif. He was single.
Not that Tanner wouldn’t suck his dick or give him a handie again—he was totally up for that, given the chance—but why did it have to be Leif? Ugh, of all the people!
Tanner glanced over to see him deep in conversation with Shane Hurst. Second line center for the Evanston River Otters, Tanner’s brain helpfully supplied. He was fucking useless at remembering to take out the trash or fold laundry but he knew the leagues rosters inside and out.
Unfortunately, despite being bi, Shane Hurst was definitely not single. He was living with some dude who worked for the Otters’ stats department and Tanner hadn’t heard anything about them being open to outsiders.
Damn it.
So Leif was it, huh? Ugh, boring. Tanner liked variety.
At least Leif was definitely gay.
He’d never made a big fuss about it, but he’d started playing in the league after Noah Boucher came out as the first queer NHL player. And in the past couple of years, Tanner had seen plenty of pictures online—on social media or JockGossip—of Leif going to events with a hot male model on his arm.
Silje Vang—Leif’s mom—was a legit former supermodel and still a total smokeshow. Not only had Leif inherited her looks, he’d inherited her talent for showing off designer clothes.
Leif had some killer sponsorship deals that ran from top gear brands to high-end fashion. He’d even walked the runway at New York Fashion Week a few times and looked stupidly hot doing it. Apparently, he picked up guys that way too.
Or maybe they were using him for the connections?
Tanner considered the idea. Nah, Leif was too smart to get used by anyone. Annoyingly, he was the total package. Gorgeous, smart, and blessed by the hockey gods.
With his parents, it was no big surprise.
Meanwhile, Tanner was just a dude from Belmont, Massachusetts, who was pretty good on the blue line. Some people had allll the damn luck.
“Yo, you want another drink?” Matty Carlson asked, digging his elbow into Tanner’s ribs. Or, more like his armpit, because he was a couple of inches taller than Tanner.
“Obviously,” Tanner said with a laugh and took a shot glass from Matty’s giant paw. He had a badonkadonk to match and everyone talked about how he had the best one in the league. Tanner had seen that ass in the skills camp locker rooms and he had to agree.
He’d seen a lot of asses in his life and Matty’s was a masterpiece.
Matty was also a good dude too. Everyone knew that. Big and kinda mean on the ice when he played for Toronto but a marshmallow off it. He was married to a hot teacher dude and they had forty million kids or something. They seemed pretty happy, but Tanner could never.
Well, maybe not never. But definitely not now. No way. Marriage sounded … boring. And if there was one thing Tanner hated, it was boredom.
“You want one?” he asked, turning to Leif and holding out a shot.
“I don’t drink during the season,” Leif said flatly.
“Never?” Tanner asked, horrified.
“Rarely.”
“Well tonight’s your lucky night.” Tanner shoved the shot of—something—toward him.