Chapter 26
Landon
The cross-country plane rides are not my favorite part of the sport, even when we get a private plane like we have with the Riptide.
This isn’t the plane I was on with Angie and Grady when they flew us to Portland.
This one is big enough for the whole team and the coaching staff.
The rows are only two-by-two and every seat is wide, plush leather.
It could be worse, I guess. But I get so angsty just sitting around for hours. It reminds me of chemo.
Luckily, I have Grady sitting beside me.
We spent the first half of the flight exchanging stupid Instagram videos trying to make each other laugh.
Now, though he’s nodded off and so has more than half the team.
I can’t sleep, so I get up and head to the snack table at the back.
I’m staring at it, trying to get a granola bar to morph into a hot dog or something, when Abbott steps out of the bathroom.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
He’s barely making eye contact, and that’s fair. It’s been like that since that dinner at his place. I clear my throat and look down the aisle. No one is coming this way, but before I can apologize, Abbott grabs a Gatorade and heads down the aisle to his seat next to Conner Garrison.
* * *
When we finally land and hop on the bus to the hotel in Las Vegas, I feel a weird sense of melancholy. I love the West Coast. I miss it. Angela and I used to go to Vegas a lot for vacation. Everything is familiar, but I feel like a stranger.
At the hotel, it’s the same drill it always is with the Riptide. A whole team of hotel employees is at the ready with keys in front of them. I give them my name, grab my key, and tell Grady I’ll meet him in the lobby for dinner. We’ve been invited to Nash Westwood’s for dinner tonight.
I manage to slip into the elevator that Abbott gets in, and I get off on his floor, even though my room key says I’m two floors lower than him. “Hey. Abbott!”
He turns. I try to smile, but it feels weird. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He sounds like I just asked if I could scratch his back with a cheese grater.
He dislikes me, and he has every right to. We stand awkwardly in the hall, both holding our small wheelie travel bags, until I finally say, “In private? Like a second in your hotel room?”
He looks like he’s actually considering saying no.
He probably wants to, but he’s the captain, and he kind of has to deal with my stupid ass.
So he nods curtly and we walk the few feet to his room, where he swipes the key card and turns the handle.
He walks in before me and doesn’t really hold the door, so I have to catch it with my foot.
He walks past the bathroom and into the main part of the room, tossing the key card on the small desk by the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He lets go of the handle on his bag and turns to face me.
I’m stuck in the small hallway by the door that just closed, not wanting to invade his space more than I have to. “I know about you and Grady.”
His face remains stoic. “Know? Know what?”
I shove my hands in the front pockets of my dress pants, my shoulders turning in, and fight to keep eye contact.
“After dinner that night, he told me you knew he was gay, and I figured out why he would tell you when he doesn’t tell anyone else.
And well, it made me into a bit of a jealous bitch, which is why I’ve been… a little cold to you.”
“Grady… you think Grady is gay?” Abbott leans against the side of the small desk, all casual and calm, like this isn’t the most awkward conversation ever. Forget the Stanley Cup, give the man an Oscar.
“I sure hope he is,” I quip. “Because giving life-altering blow jobs seems like a weird hobby for a straight guy.”
He scratches the back of his neck by his hairline, where his wavy blond hair curls the most. He’s fighting a smile, I can tell, and he finally decides to be honest with me.
“So that’s why you were pissy at warm-up the other night?
Hitting Grady with the puck, on purpose, and giving me stares so cold I think I got frostbite?
Because we hooked up once, with no strings attached, a lifetime ago? ”
“Yeah. I’ve got feelings for Grady.”
Abbott stops leaning on the desk and pulls himself to his full height. “Wow. I did not see that coming.”
“You and me both,” I admit as I wipe my sweating palms on my pants.
“Grady knows how you feel?”
“I mean… he’s aware there’s a sexual attraction. It seems to be mutual.”
Abbott lifts both eyebrows momentarily, but he also smiles. “Grady is a great guy, but as long as I’ve known him, he’s not a… relationship guy.”
“I don’t know that I am either, at the moment.”
He nods. “Well, lucky for you, there’s no fraternization clause in our contracts when it comes to other players, because in spite of my existence, they still don’t consider gay relationships as a possibility.”
I hadn’t even stopped to consider a code of conduct breach or a violation of our contracts when Grady and I started messing around.
But fuck, Abbott is right. They don’t have a single rule about sexual relationships between teammates because they treat it like an impossibility, which seems homophobic in its own way.
“But I think it can make things messy. Just like if you were dating a trainer or whatever.”
“I don’t think we’re dating,” I say and try not to sound disappointed. “Anyway, just really wanted to clear the air because I’m having enough trouble finding my place on this team. I didn’t want to have a captain who doesn’t like me on top of it.”
Abbott smiles and walks closer to me. “I like you, but more importantly, now I understand you.”
My phone starts ringing. I grab my bag and slip out of the room with a wave to Abbott before I pull it out of my pocket. The number on the screen is Coach LaRue. “Hi, Coach.”
“Casco, can you come down to the lobby? We’ve got a situation.”
“Yeah.”
I try not to panic, but that doesn’t sound good.
When I get to the lobby, Coach is standing there with Grady and Tyson.
They all still have their bags with them.
Tyson has his arms folded tightly across his chest and a scowl on his face.
Grady looks annoyed, which is unlike him.
Beside the Coach are two hotel employees.
One looks frazzled, and the other, who appears to be a manager, looks mildly panicked.
“Hey,” I say, caution in my tone, as I approach. “Everything alright?”
“Not particularly,” Tyson says icily. “The hotel lacks counting skills, and they didn’t book enough rooms for the team. Perhaps they didn’t know hockey teams have goalies because Garrison and I don’t have rooms.”
Coach glares briefly at Tyson before turning to me. “There was a miscalculation, and they’re already at capacity.”
“Coach has graciously offered to share a room with Coach Deveau,” Grady tells me.
“So that I can have a room,” Tyson explains.
Grady presses his lips together like he’s fighting to keep words in. Coach clears his throat, shoots Tyson another unpleasant look, and turns back to me. “Deveau has a room with two beds, and the only other person from the team who was assigned a room with two beds instead of one king was you.”
“Oh.”
“So… I know it’s not ideal and, as Tyson oh so helpfully pointed out immediately, it’s in your contracts as players that you each get your own room, but if you could—”
“Share my room with Grady?” I finish for him. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
Coach sags in relief. The hotel employees rush off mumbling, “Thank you. We apologize. We’ll make another key card. Again, sorry for the error.”
Coach gives me an appreciative slap on the back. “Thanks for being a team player, Casco. I knew I could count on you to help out a teammate.”
I know he’s saying it as a direct dig at Tyson, but he’s already halfway to the elevator bank. The hotel manager returns and hands Grady his key card and another apology. Grady nods. “It’s fine.”
Together we walk to the elevators as the manager turns to apologize to Coach again. The doors are already closing on the elevator Tyson’s in. He doesn’t move to hold it, and we don’t rush to squeeze in. As soon as the doors are closed, Grady whispers, “Ass. Hole.”
The elevator next to the one that Tyson was in opens, and we step in. It feels oddly salacious to be taking him to my room. Probably because I’m really hoping we fuck around. I haven’t stopped thinking about the night at his apartment. It was only two days ago, but it feels like a month.
We step off on my floor, both pulling our bags behind us. “You weren’t in your room yet when Coach called?”
I shake my head. “I had followed Abbott to his.”
“You were with Abbott?” He seems shocked and maybe even mildly… upset?
“Yeah…” I nod and smile and wait for him to pull out his keycard because we’re in front of my—our—door now. But he’s just standing in front of the door, turned to me, staring. So I pull out my keycard and swipe. I have to lean into him to reach the door handle, our jackets brushing each other.
I slide by him and walk into the room, holding the door open for him. The room has two double beds, just like they said downstairs. “Why were you hanging out with Abbott?”
“Asking him for tips on how to make you come harder.”
Grady’s head snaps around so fast I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave himself whiplash. I burst out laughing, and he lets go of his suitcase and gives me a shove. I step back, hit the bed with the backs of my legs, and fall onto it, grinning. “You fucking did not.”
“I didn’t. But I did apologize for being a jealous dickhead,” I reply, propping up on my elbows as I watch Grady move to the door and turn the dead bolt, hitting the little button beside the door that activates the Do Not Disturb on the other side.
My dick starts to come to life in my pants.
“I explained I was jealous because I figured out he had been with you.”
He looks floored again, his mouth hanging open as he peels off his coat. “You’re… you didn’t.”
“I did.” I sit up and reach for him, grabbing him by the belt on his pants and pulling him to me. I look up at him, my chin resting on the rocks that are his abs. “You upset about it?”
“No. Abbott knows the code. He isn’t going to say a word to anyone.” Grady’s hand sifts through my hair, his nails raking over my scalp. It feels so good, my eyelashes flutter. “You wanna fuck around?”
“Yes.”
He smiles and starts undoing his shirt.
Ten minutes later, all our clothes are in a heap on one bed and we’re a tangle of limbs on the other.
Grady’s body is on top of mine, his arousal hard and leaking against my thigh.
My own cock is pressed against his stomach, and when he shifts, rolling his hips, I see those stars I love so much. “You want another blow job?”
“I want to make you come,” I confess, my voice strained because every inch of me is horny. Every fucking inch. “What do you want? What do you like?”
“I like making you come.”
He kisses me, his tongue sweeping over mine.
His hips are flexing, causing all the right spots to rub and grind, skin-to-skin.
I can see we’re going to get nowhere this way, and as much as another blow job would be far from a disappointment, I’m feeling greedy.
I want more. I’m like someone on one of those game shows where you’re on a timed shopping spree, grabbing everything in sight because you know the clock is ticking.
Abbott’s gentle warning rolls through my memory. “Grady’s not a relationship guy.”
Is that what I want? I don’t know. But I do know that if this has an expiration date, I want to tick off all the boxes on my fantasy list before that time comes. Grady pulls out of the kiss, and I bite his bottom lip, which makes him grin.
“That time you said I could fuck you… Were you serious?”