Chapter 13
GARRETT
Was this a bad idea?
Because I was pretty sure this was a bad idea.
Son’s teammate. A decade younger than me. Light years out of my league. This checked all the boxes of a bad idea.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t hesitate to pull onto that steep, winding, moss-covered driveway.
When I parked in front of the first bay of his four-car garage, I did pause for a moment to ask myself if I was really doing this.
The answer was an immediate “fuck yes, I’m doing this,” though, and I got out and headed for the porch. When I was halfway up the steps, the door opened and—
Fuck yes, I’m doing this.
My God, this man never failed to be gorgeous. He was barefoot in a pair of jeans and a Pittsburgh Phantoms hoodie, his dark blond hair slightly damp and finger-combed. One look at him and I forgot my own name.
Fortunately, though, it only took me a second to get my brain (mostly) back online, and I didn’t completely forget what to do when he smiled and said, “Come on in.”
“Thanks.” I stepped into the house. “Uh, shoes on? Off?” Heat rushed into my face as I added, “I can’t remember from Thanksgiving.”
“Don’t worry about it. Shoes off, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” I toed off my sneakers as he shut the door.
“Any preference for a drink?” he asked. “I’ve got pretty much everything. Not a lot of soda, but…”
“Probably nothing alcoholic.” I nudged my shoes up against the wall beside his. “I, uh… I have to drive.”
Liam nodded. “Of course. Iced tea?”
“Sounds perfect.”
He flashed me a smile and led me into his kitchen, the creak of the floors echoing off the high ceilings.
The whole place somehow seemed even quieter and emptier than it had after everyone had left on Thanksgiving.
As if that night, the house had still echoed with guests’ voices and movement even after they’d gone, but now, apart from us, everything was just silent and still.
Or I might’ve just been nervous and wondering how I’d manage to screw this up—whatever “this” was—or… I didn’t know. I was in Liam St. Clair’s house, and he was pouring us a couple of drinks, and my mind might never recover.
“I hope this wasn’t too out of the blue.” Did he sound nervous? Or was I imagining things? “Figured if we’re going to be texting anyway, might as well have a drink and watch a game, too.”
I laughed. “I mean, why not? It’s a lot easier to concentrate on conversation and a game than texting and a game.”
“I know, right?” He handed me a glass of iced tea. “I can multitask, but don’t ask me to do it while I’m reading or writing something.”
“Yes, exactly. My old boss’ favorite thing in the world was to come in and talk to me while I was in the middle of typing something.” I rolled my eyes. “Like, dude—give me a second to finish my sentence?”
“That would drive me nuts.” He gestured for me to follow him into the living room. “And that reminds me—I never did ask: what do you do?”
“Nothing super exciting.”
He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.
I tried to ignore the heat in my cheeks or the way my pulse jumped.
I really should’ve been used to shit like that happening around him.
As we settled onto the couch, a wide cushion’s worth of space between us, I said, “The short version is that I manage production and quality assurance for a—holy shit, are you okay?”
Liam glanced up from arranging some icepacks in various places, and he chuckled. “Just some aches and pains. Hockey, you know?”
“Oh. Oh, right.”
“Anyway. Production and quality assurance for…?” He raised his eyebrows as he pushed an icepack under his knee.
“Um.” I shook myself. “A fastener manufacturer.” That was oversimplifying it a bit, but I found most people’s eyes would glaze over if I started getting into the, well, nuts and bolts of my job.
“Ah, interesting.” He tucked the last icepack up against his neck, resting it in top of his shoulder. “Production and quality assurance? That sounds like a job with a lot of spinning plates.”
I barked a laugh. “God, it really is. I mean, I like it. And I’m finally putting that MBA to use after everyone told me it was such a good investment.” I rolled my eyes.
Liam studied me. “You don’t think it was?”
“Ehh…” I rocked my head from side to side. “It set me back a fuckload of money, and it didn’t open as many doors as I’d hoped. But when I was finally up for this promotion, they said the MBA was one of the deciding factors. So, it was a good investment… eventually?”
“Better late than never, right? Do you like the job?”
“Oh, yeah. And the company I work for now is a lot less nuts than the previous one.”
Liam sipped his drink. “Nuts? In what way?”
“They…” I thought about it. “Basically, they staffed as lean as humanly possible, piled shitloads of work on everyone, and then complained that we all had to work tons of overtime just to keep up.” I tsked and shook my head.
“When they decided to make managers salary only with no overtime… I bailed.”
“Like they wouldn’t let you work overtime?” he asked. “Or they wouldn’t pay you?”
I laughed bitterly. “Oh, they couldn’t stop us from working it. We had to work it, or the place would’ve imploded. They just couldn’t understand why morale took a dive and people started jumping ship when they stopped paying for it.”
“Dicks,” he muttered.
“Right?” I took a drink. “Eh, corporate bullshit. What can you do?”
“Change companies, apparently?”
“Well, yes. And this place isn’t perfect. It’s got some issues, but compared to the last place? I’ll stay.” I paused. “Especially since the other place went under during the pandemic.”
Liam whistled. “Wow. Bullet dodged!”
“Seriously. And hey, the place I’m at now has an office in Pittsburgh, so…” I raised my glass in a mock toast.
To my surprise, Liam leaned across the cushion and clinked his glass against mine. “I’ll drink to that.” Something sparkled in his eyes, and I didn’t dare let myself read anything into it. He was probably just being polite.
You’re an idiot, Garrett.
He took another drink and put his glass on the coaster, then adjusted the icepack against his hip. “So. You want to watch a game?”
“Sure. Yeah. I’m always down to watch hockey.”
“Perfect. Okay, so tonight’s options…” He picked up his remote and brought up a menu of streaming games. “Ottawa at Edmonton, Boston at Denver, San Jose at Philly.” He pursed his lips. “San Jose and Philly will probably be the most entertaining.”
“Yeah? They don’t like each other?”
“Eh, there isn’t much of a rivalry, but both teams have a ton of offense and virtually no defense. I predict a lot of goals on both sides.”
I grinned. “Sounds like an exciting game.”
“Unless they both decide to unfuck their defense tonight and make a liar out of me.” He selected the game on the screen. “Guess we’ll find out.”
They did not prove him wrong. Both teams did in fact have incredible offense, but their defense was about as effective as a wet paper towel.
It made for a lot of action, though. A “high-event game,” as Chris often said.
By halfway through the second period, the score was 6-5 in favor of San Jose.
Philly had pulled their goalie after he allowed four in the first period, but the backup immediately let in two.
He was holding his own now, though, which had given his team time to score enough to make it a one-goal game.
It was definitely not a boring game.
But even more entertaining than the hockey was the commentary. Like, seriously… did these guys hear themselves?
“Fox feeds Downey, Downey rims it around to Larsson, who takes it right to the backdoor of Sarkkinen—”
Liam and I both burst out laughing. I damn near tumbled off the couch, and he was wheezing.
“They have to hear themselves,” I said, wiping my eyes. “There’s no way they don’t.”
“I don’t know, man.” Liam was still far from composed. “I’ve done interviews with one of the commentators, and he’s…” He shook his head. “Nice guy, don’t get me wrong, but he has no idea what some of that shit sounds like.”
“Oh my God.”
“They need a gay man in the booth.” He tipped his glass toward the screen. “At least then he can be like ‘yo, guys, that sounds all kinds of wrong.’”
I snickered. “I feel like anyone who took that job would just feed them even dirtier things to say.”
Liam pursed his lips and seemed to give it serious consideration, and his expression was far too attractive for my circulatory system to handle. “You’re not wrong. I’d be terrible for that job.”
“Would you, though? Because I think the ratings would go through the roof.”
He rocked his head from side to side. “You might have a point.”
Onscreen, Philly’s head coach was gesturing furiously and screaming at the ref, whose back was to the camera. I wasn’t the world’s best lip reader, but the “what the fuck kind of fucking joke was that call?” was hard to miss.
Liam gestured with his glass at the screen again. “Oh hey, remember that ref I told you about whose wife cheated with a player?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah?” I glanced at the screen. “That’s him?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I whistled. “Damn. Hockey is a small world.”
“It really is. They say everyone in the world is separated by no more than six degrees. I think in the hockey world, especially in the pro leagues, it’s closer to two or three degrees max.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Hell, when I went to the draft, I ended up sitting next to a kid whose front tooth I knocked out in U10.”
I coughed a laugh. “No shit? Like with a stick or your fist?”
He actually looked sheepish, which was super cute. “I pushed him into the boards.”
“Like… cross-checked him?”