7. Mads
SEVEN
Mads
How I’d made it home, I didn’t know. Last thing I remembered was getting out of Ten’s building and into my car. And now I was in my kitchen and everything in between was a blur.
The kiss had been hotter than the kinkiest sex I’d ever had. It had been nothing more than the heat of our bodies and the taste of his mouth and, fuck, I’d been close to rutting up against him and coming in my pants like a teenager.
Heat burned my face as I groaned out loud in my empty place and slumped on the kitchen stool, burying my face in my hands.
My intentions had been so good; talk to Ten, find out how he wanted me to approach the team.
Nowhere in any of my haphazard planning had there been any thoughts of pushing Ten up against the nearest door and kissing the life out of him.
I’d probably broken a hundred coach-player rules just by playing to him let alone kissing him. What the hell had I done?
So, Ten was gay—that didn’t mean I should launch myself at him just because I could.
My cell phone vibrated on the counter and I ignored it; didn’t even look at the name.
If it was Ten, then I had no idea what I would say to him.
If it was the team, then I was in no fit state to talk hockey when all I really wanted to do was to drive right back to Ten’s and fuck him over the nearest surface.
I was still hard, for fuck’s sake.
The cell danced again, and this time I looked at the screen, my eyes unfocused until it hit me front and center who was calling.
Brady.
Holy shit, he knows I just went over to Ten’s place and practically forced a kiss on his little brother.
I’m dead.
Picking up the phone had been muscle memory, but actually answering the call was somewhere between the dread that he knew and the hope that he didn’t.
“Rowesy?” I said, forcing myself to remain calm. As the oldest of the Rowe brothers, he carried the nickname of Rowesy, and falling back into using it was, I think, some kind of defense mechanism—a link back to our days of playing in Elmira.
“Long time no speak, Mads,” Brady said. At least he didn’t start by calling me a fucker or a bastard. “Mom texted to say you were over at Ten’s place.”
Shit. He knows. I stood up from the stool; sitting still was for wimps.
“Yeah, y’know,” I offered lamely, because who the hell mumbled that kind of shit to anyone? What was I, eleven?
“Yeah, so…” Brady sounded just as uncertain, and this whole non-conversation thing we were having was freaking me the hell out.
I pushed it along. “Yeah?” Because why should I even think of forming an entire sentence at this point?
“How’s he doing?” Brady finally asked. His voice sounded echoey, like he was standing in a large room; no doubt one of the massive rooms in his mansion of a place, which I’d only seen on the realtor’s site as he was purchasing it.
Sue me, but I kept tabs on Brady—after all, he was a friend.
Or at least he had been a friend before my accident.
“Good,” I said.
What else did he want from me? Maybe a play-by-play of the shots Ten had made in practice, or an analysis of his game chances? Maybe Brady just wanted to make sure he was eating right.
Brady sighed noisily. “Can I be honest with you?” he asked, and there was resignation in his tone, like I was the last person he really wanted to talk to. Shame the friendship we’d enjoyed had vanished because I was an idiot with my head stuck up my ass.
It wasn’t his fault we’d been playing against his team when I was taken out.
Not his fault his enforcer had decided to leave his skates and hit me right in the numbers.
Hell, my team had won the Stanley Cup, wiping the floor with Brady’s in the next deciding game.
Of course, I hadn’t been on the ice—I’d watched the whole fucking thing from a hospital bed—but still, there had been purpose in me sustaining my injury; the Cup was everything to a pro hockey player.
If only I’d been able to keep playing.
“Yeah,” I said, because Brady was waiting for a confirmation.
“Coach Benning.”
“What about him?”
“You keep him off Ten’s back, right?”
What? Keep him off Ten’s back? Coach? I was confused, and I must have let out a questioning noise, because Brady kept talking.
“I kept saying Ten should be talking to one of the other teams. He’s easily one of the best forwards out there; he’ll be a captain one day…” Brady stopped, and I analyzed what he’d said so far. I knew Ten was good. I knew he had a presence about him that made other players stop and watch.
“I know,” I said.
“The Rangers wanted him. Hell, the Wings wanted him as well. Real original six teams.”
I’d read all the reports, and the rumors were that a lot of different teams had opened talks with Ten’s old team with a view to getting Tennant Rowe on their lines.
“He’s fitting in well with the Railers,” I began, and stopped when Brady huffed. It was at that moment that I went from feeling defensive, as if Brady were going to call me on kissing his brother, and to protective of Ten’s decisions.
“You really think the Railers have any chance at the Cup?” Brady scoffed. Yeah, really scoffed, like there was no way a team only in its second year had any chance.
I didn’t point out the stats that were on the tip of my tongue; none of them from the year before meant anything now we had Ten centering one of our lines.
If we could get him working at the core of the team, we’d have more than a good chance of getting to the playoffs.
That was the idea of trading what we had for an eighty-plus point maker.
“With Ten we have every chance,” I said, firm and to the point. I didn’t allow any doubt to trickle into my voice, or to give Brady any room to add yet more shit to this conversation.
Like, he was aware I was the D-coach for the team, right?
Brady wasn’t finished. “I get that he works hard, I know that, but he needs a team with depth, a good D-strategy… hell he needs a team with history. It will be years before the Railers get to a point where they have any chance of winning. You really want Ten on a team like that? Don’t you want to see him raise the Cup? ”
I pulled the cell away from my ear and stared at the screen for a moment, and then, friend or no friend, I knew what I was going to say.
Maybe it wasn’t the best way to act with the protective older brother of the man I’d just kissed against a door, but I lifted the cell back to my ear and said three words.
“Fuck you, Rowesy.”
Then I ended the call.
Brady was a good guy—had been a good guy—but who the hell did he think he was, calling me and dismissing my work, my team, my fucking career, just to commiserate about his brother being part of the Railers?
Asshole.
Anger kept me going right up until the next morning. I’d run through the whole spectrum of emotion—anger had become regret, which had morphed into disappointment, and I’d ended up right back at the shame of what I’d done.
In some skewed way, what Brady had said yesterday had become less of a statement about the Railers, and instead I’d begun to take it personally. Almost as if he’d actually called me because he knew the thoughts I’d been having about Ten.
When I arrived at the practice rink, I hid in my office. No point in being out where Ten could see me until practice began. Of course, I hadn’t entirely thought that through, and when someone knocked on the door, I had a horrible sinking feeling that it would be him.
When I opened the door, deciding I wanted to face this head-on and standing up, not sitting behind my worn desk, it wasn’t Ten on the other side of the door.
“Jared.” My kind-of-ex-father-in-law stepped in, and I immediately moved back. We didn’t see eye to eye, particularly when we talked, and it was only ever about Ryker.
“Ev,” I said.
I refused to give him the honorific of Sir, or call him Mr. anything—not after the way he’d attempted to shut me out of my son’s life. My contract with the Sabres had paid me millions, which meant I’d been able to hire the best lawyers, but Ryker had been nearly six before I’d got proper access.
“Spoke to Ryker,” he said, straight to the point as usual.
I didn’t even give him the courtesy of a reply, because I knew this was going to go to shit really quickly.
“You’re making him stay at school.”
I leaned back on my desk, feeling my coffee mug shift a little where my ass was perched, then crossed my arms over my chest. If Ev wanted to be intimidating, all superior and up in my face, then I was damn well going to show him that none of his shit scared me.
I wasn’t that fifteen-year-old kid standing in front of him and promising to look after his daughter anymore.
I was twice that age and a couple of years, and only half as stupid as I’d been then.
Casey and I were never going to be forever—one split condom and we’d made a life, but that didn’t mean we’d ever make it for real as a family.
She was married now, to a stockbroker, with three little kids, stepsisters to Ryker, and she was happy.
His lips thinned when I said nothing, and he had that stern, I’m-really-pissed-with-you expression on his face. I did the one thing I knew would annoy him even more; I merely quirked an eyebrow in question.
“He doesn’t need an education to be the best hockey player,” Ev said. “Why make him do something he doesn’t want to?”
I shook my head. “Don’t you know, Ev? Pushing our kids to do things they don’t want to do is actually in our job description as parents. Like, you know, when you pushed your daughter to block me from seeing my son.”
Ev did that whole lip-pursing thing again, and I took a moment to focus on the gray at his temples and the scar on his cheekbone.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, and deliberately looked at my watch in a dismissive gesture. When I looked back up at him, his expression was tight and I could have sworn he was about to explode.
“Mads?” Coach called from behind Ev. “Vid room in five.”