CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Tanner had to pee, so he did that, then got up to stretch his legs. He was surprised when he went upstairs and saw his mom and Silje Vang talking in the kitchen.
“Hey!” He said, happy to see them both. He leaned down and gave his mom a big hug.
Silje gave him a warm smile, then stood, touching his mom’s shoulder before she disappeared with her coffee mug. She wasn’t a super huggy person, but she seemed very nice.
“What are you doing here?” Tanner asked. “I’m happy to see you but I thought you’d gone home already.”
“Jeff took the girls home last night,” she said. “But I wanted to stay and see you.”
“I’m glad you did.” He filched a half-eaten muffin from her plate and started picking at it. “I should introduce you to Leif. Like, officially.”
She laughed. “We’ve met. We had some time to talk when you were celebrating actually.”
“Oh, cool. So, uh, you were wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“That I’d get bored, move on, and break his heart. He’s it for me.”
She laughed. “Oh, baby, I can tell. The way you look at him …”
Tanner swallowed hard. “So you think I can—I can do this? The whole grown-up relationship thing?”
“I think you can do anything you put your mind to,” she said firmly. “And don’t you ever doubt it.”
“Okay.” He laid his head on her shoulder. “I love him, you know?”
“I know. And I can see why.”
Tanner had disappeared, so Leif went in search of him. He was pretty sure Tanner was mostly sober, but he wouldn’t swear that he wasn’t still drunk enough to do something stupid.
Instead of Tanner, Leif found his mom in the living room, sipping tea and reading something on her phone.
“Hey,” he said, taking a seat next to her.
“Hei vennen min.” She set her phone down. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Leif admitted. He’d gotten a lot more sleep than Tanner had but he also wasn’t running on pure Cup-fueled adrenaline. “Happy.”
“I like him,” she said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. He makes you smile more.”
Leif did smile at that. “He’s been driving me batshit crazy since we were sixteen.”
“I suspect he’s been trying to get your attention since the moment you met.”
Leif nodded. “Don’t tell anyone, but he’s—I think he’s going to ask for a trade to New York.”
“Oh wow. The relationship is serious then.”
“Yes.” Leif chuckled at the idea that even his mom knew that nothing was more serious than a trade. No sign of commitment could mean more. “Hey, so, have you talked to Dad lately?”
“Some,” she said. “He was fairly drunk for a while there.”
Leif smiled because his dad wasn’t exactly a guy who got wild very often. Though he supposed that there was no better reason to let loose than coaching a Cup-winning team.
Tanner wandered around the O’Shea house, looking for Leif, but instead, he ran into Mickey and Rafe on the second floor.
“Hey, we were just looking for you!” Rafe said.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“We want to talk to you about something. Let’s sit,” Mickey said and Tanner got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach.
There was a little sitting area on the second floor, so Tanner followed them into it. For some reason, he felt like he was about to get in trouble. He couldn’t stop jostling his knee up and down.
“Tanner.” Mickey took a seat and cleared his throat. “You know how much we have enjoyed living with you.”
Tanner smirked, relaxing a little. “Yeah, I know. I’m delightful.”
Rafe grinned back, holding his hand up for a high five. Tanner leaned in and high-fived him back.
Mickey rolled his eyes. “But Rafe and I, we’ve been talking about this for a while. We think maybe it would be best if we—get our own place.”
“Oh thank fuck,” Tanner said with a sigh.
A startled expression crossed Mickey’s face and Rafe frowned at him.
“What?” Mickey asked hoarsely.
“Well, I didn’t know how to break it to you guys but, uh, I’m trying to get traded to New York.”
“You’re going to play for the Rockets?” Rafe asked.
“Uhh, yeah. Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” Rafe looked hurt.
Tanner sighed. “Dude, I’m sorry. I … I really love this team. I don’t want to go anywhere. But I want to be with Leif and …”
Mickey nodded. “I understand. I would want to be on a team with Rafe too, if we were in your shoes.”
“Yeah, but we’re gonna miss you,” Rafe said. “I was all psyched about planning gaming nights and stuff. So we didn’t miss living together.”
“I know, big guy.” Tanner stood. “C’mere. Let’s hug it out.”
He stood and pulled Rafe into a hug.
“There’s always online gaming,” Mickey offered.
“Yeah. True.” Tanner got crushed against Rafe’s body and a moment later, Mickey patted his shoulder as if to say that was enough of that.
Tanner pulled back and yanked him into the hug too. He really was going to miss these guys.
Leif followed directions from his mom to the third floor but found his dad standing in a doorway when he made it to the landing on the second.
“I thought you were having a cigar with Gavin,” Leif said, confused.
His dad turned to face him. “Well, I was. Until I realized I’m too sober to enjoy them now.”
Leif chuckled.
“There’s a lot of history in here, huh?” Aksel said, nodding toward the room.
Leif stepped into what looked like a study/trophy room. There were framed photos and articles commemorating decades of Boston Harriers history. Leif studied the photos, but his father wasn’t in many of them. Most of them were from their Cup wins.
He’d been gone by then. Traded away?
“Do you think you’ll end up in New York,” Leif asked.
“For the head coaching job?”
Leif nodded.
“I think it’s possible. I’m considering it but I wanted to discuss it with you and see how you feel about it.”
“I’d like it,” Leif said. “It would be cool to have you coach me. And we certainly need good coaches there.”
“I don’t know if they’ll even choose me,” Aksel said with a sigh. “My history with Hawke is a—complicating factor.”
“Yeah. Definitely,” Leif said. “Would you want him to stay on?”
“He’s a damn good goalie coach,” Aksel said. “The best in the league. Roman is talented but he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did without Hawke.”
“I know.”
“So yes, I’d ask him if he’d stay on. But I don’t know that he’d want that.”
“Are you two sleeping together again?”
Aksel released a startled laugh. “Uhh, what makes you ask?”
“You’ve been weird after the games we played in Boston. I thought maybe you two …”
“We had a moment,” Aksel admitted. “That was completely ill-advised then and doubly so now that we could potentially be working together.”
“Do you still love him?”
Aksel blew out a breath. “Probably. I suspect a part of me never stopped completely. But loving someone isn’t always enough, Leif. I found that out twice in my life and right now, I’d rather focus on hockey.”
“Okay,” Leif said. “Do you think love is enough for me and Tanner?”
His dad smiled. “I hope so. It’ll be hard being on two different teams—”
“He’s going to request a trade,” Leif admitted, under his breath. “He hasn’t told Gavin yet, but …”
“Wow. That’s huge.”
Leif nodded.
“Then I’d say you two are off to a good start.” His dad smiled faintly. “And that’s another tick in the column of me saying yes to New York then, huh?”
Leif grinned, already feeling a spark of excitement about what next season could bring.
Tanner eventually found Gavin on the rooftop patio.
The sun was beating down, and Gavin had his short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned, showing off a slice of tanned chest and stomach. It was covered in fuzzy silver hair, and Tanner eyed his GM appreciatively for a moment.
Damn, he could get it for an old guy too. Good for Dakota.
“Uhh,” Tanner said, clearing his throat. “Gav?”
He sat upright, squinting at Tanner for a moment before he shaded his eyes. “Hey, Tanner. Everything alright?”
Tanner stepped in front of Gavin, blocking the sun a little and he lowered his hand.
Tanner took a deep breath. “I want you to trade me to the Rockets.”
Gavin stared at him, water bottle hanging loosely from his fingertips. “I’m sorry. I must still be more drunk than I thought. I thought I heard you say you wanted to be traded to the New York Rockets.”
“No, you heard me right,” Tanner said.
Gavin straightened, setting his water on the side table. “Is this because of Rasmussen?”
“Well yeah. It’s not like I’d want to go play for a shit-ass team like that otherwise,” he said with a snort.
“Tanner, we just won a Cup.”
“I know! Neat, huh?”
Gavin rubbed his forehead. “Most guys don’t want to leave the team they just won with.”
“Well, I don’t want to leave,” Tanner said. “But I want to be with Leif.”
“And you can’t do that from a distance?”
“Nope. I mean, I can, but it’ll suck and I’ll be distracted all the time.”
Gavin sighed but he didn’t say anything.
“So I was thinking I’d tell you and like, we can figure out what’ll work.”
“We really should be discussing this through your agent.” Gavin rubbed his head again.
“He already knows but I told him I wanted to let you know in person because I didn’t want to totally take you by surprise.”
“And yet here I am,” Gavin muttered.
“Crawford’s retiring now, isn’t he?”
Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Nothing’s official yet, no.”
“Okay, but he pretty much said if we got it done this season, he would retire, right?”
Gavin nodded. “Pretty much.”
“So, he’s probably gone. And Connor’s shoulder is fucked, yeah?”
“Yes.” Gavin ran a hand through his hair. “Surgery is scheduled for next week but he’ll be out for a good chunk of the season.”
“So like, we’re not gonna be repeating or anything.”
“It’s highly unlikely we’ll win back-to-back Cups.” Gavin frowned.
“So maybe this is a good time to, you know … figure out some new stuff for the team’s blue line. And, uh, top forward line, I guess, if Connor’s out.”
Gavin gave him an unamused look. “Since when did you become an armchair GM?”
Tanner shrugged. “Since I fell in love with a Norwegian dude who plays for the Rockets?”
“Right.” Gavin sighed again.
“Look, I know a trade isn’t going to happen right away, and, like, it might not even happen until next season, or whatever,” Tanner said. “I just, I don’t want to be apart from him forever.”
“And you can’t convince him to play for us?”
“I mean, can we afford him?”
Gavin scrubbed a hand across his face. “Not really. I’d have to crunch some numbers but even if Connor was out and we’d get the cap relief of him being on LTIR for a good portion of next season, once he came back, we’d have to move several pieces we can’t afford to lose and—”
“So …” Tanner said with a grimace. “Me going to the Rockets makes more sense, right?”
“They probably wouldn’t even be willing to move Rasmussen,” Gavin muttered like he was still working through it all in his head. “And fuck, we don’t have the assets to afford him even if they did.”
“Right,” Tanner said.
“Okay. I hear you, Clayton.” Gavin sighed heavily. “I don’t like it, but I hear you.”
“Would you want to be apart from Dakota?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well …”
“I get it.” Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face. “I hate it but I get it. I’ll talk to Finn about the situation and we’ll come up with something.”
“Cool. So, anyway, just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Well, I know I could’ve just had New York send an offer sheet but I care about the Harriers and I wanted you to get more than just some draft picks in exchange for me. I mean, it’s up to you, of course but I thought it might be better if you got more in return for the trade.”
Gavin gave him a long searching look before he nodded. “No, I appreciate it. That was good thinking.”
“If it helps, I think the Rockets need me,” Tanner said earnestly.
“I know they do. Their blue line is currently held together by a string named Ian Salter.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, you’re right but I don’t mean that.”
“What do you mean?”
“The locker room’s a mess. They’ve got trouble with homophobes, and the head office hasn’t been that supportive in the past and—”
“You’re telling me you’re begging me to trade you to a place that won’t be queer friendly?” Gavin asked flatly.
“Yeah.” Tanner laughed. “Kinda crazy but …”
“Kinda,” Gavin said, rubbing his face again.
“I don’t think I can fix the head office or anything,” Tanner said with a shrug. “But there’s the new owner, and new GM, and they’re searching for a new head coach.”
Oh God, he wasn’t going to tell Gavin he might be about to lose his assistant coach too. Of course, didn’t the Harriers have to give the Rockets permission to talk to Aksel first? He probably already knew.
He realized Gavin was still staring at him, so he added, “But the locker room? I can fucking help in there. You know I can.”
Gavin closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re telling me there are queer players on that roster who aren’t out but need support?”
“Yup. And I think Leif and me could do a lot to support it.”
“Leif and I,” Gavin said.
“You’re coming to the Rockets too?” Tanner asked, suddenly psyched. “Badass.”
“No! I was correcting your grammar. It should be Leif and I, not Leif and me.”
“Oh.” Tanner waved a hand, disappointed. “I always get that part confused.”
“Apparently.”
“Anyway,” Tanner said. “Sorry to harsh your mellow here or whatever. I just wanted to let you know so you weren’t, like … totally surprised when Jim Calderon calls about the trade.”
Gavin’s tone was dry. “Appreciate it.”
Tanner was pretty sure he was being sarcastic, but he wasn’t sure what else he could say, so he turned away. But he’d only walked a few feet before he turned back.
“You know, I wouldn’t want to go there if the Harriers weren’t such a great team,” he said. “If we didn’t have such a good locker room.”
Gavin squinted again. “How do you figure?”
“Well. I mean, if I didn’t know how good it could be, I wouldn’t want to go help them get better.”
“You’re a regular saint,” Gavin said drily, but he was smiling.
Tanner grinned back. “I try!”