Chapter 20
LIAM
I would’ve loved to say that after that, I got to spend a few blissful nights in a row with Garrett.
We were in the thick of the regular season, though, and whoever had scheduled the Pittsburgh Phantoms this December was some kind of sadist. The team was in and out of town so much it was disorienting.
Through it all, Garrett and I texted constantly. Sexted, too, if I was honest; God, he turned me into a salivating wreck who couldn’t help counting down the days until I got home.
Garrett
I’ve gone a long time without sex and not been bothered, but two days without you and I’m losing it.
Well if I hadn’t already been planning to jerk off tonight, I am now.
FaceTime me. I want to watch.
Holy shit. And you say I have a dirty mouth.
You do.
Are you into that? Doing stuff on camera?
I’m into anything that has you staring at me with your dick in your hand.
See? You do have a dirty mouth.
Uh-huh. And I can’t wait to use it on you again.
Fuck. When will you be in your hotel??
Not soon enough.
Tell the pilot to fly faster.
Not sure it works that way.
FML
I responded with a laughing emoji, then set my phone on the tray table and wiped a hand over my face. I’d have to calm the hell down before we landed. The last thing I needed was a teammate—or a camera—catching me with a conspicuous hard-on.
I shifted in my seat, hoping no one noticed. Elsewhere on the plane, a few of the guys were loud and rowdy, chirping and cheering each other on with some video game or another.
“You fucking camper!” Temo groused. “Come out and fight like a real—you son of a bitch!”
The triumphant bark of laughter that followed belonged to Chris, and I immediately sobered.
I’m sexting with Garrett while his son is sitting three rows away. Crap.
Well, that was enough to calm me down and keep me from embarrassing myself, so there was that.
At least until my phone pinged again.
Garrett
Would you think it was weird if I told you I fantasized about blowing you in the McLaren?
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered before I could stop myself. Thank God my other teammates were loud enough no one noticed.
Have you?
(Halo emoji)
Might be more room in the SUV.
But it’s not nearly as sexy as the McLaren.
It has a backseat, though. A big backseat.
You make a compelling argument.
Figured you’d see it my way.
Ever 69’d in the backseat?
I closed my eyes and pushed out a breath. This man really was going to be the death of me. What a way to go, though. Fuck.
Right then, Chris laughed again. “Ha! Told you I’d kick your ass!”
I didn’t hear the shit-talking that followed over my suddenly thundering heart. Or the ping of my phone.
Garrett
Goddammit. I am way too horny tonight.
“Oh come on,” Chris said as I was reading the text. “I didn’t cheat. You just don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Shut up, Kanes,” Temo grumbled. “You cheated.”
I rubbed my eyes and swore. Yeah, this was weird as fuck. But I reminded myself we weren’t doing anything wrong. Just two consenting adults seeing where things went before we tipped our hand to anyone.
To his son.
To my teammate.
To my linemate.
I’d been in some weird situations in my life, but this one definitely took the cake. And guilty conscience aside, I didn’t want to end this situation. I itched to tell Chris the truth, but we’d get there in due time.
For the moment…
I’m horny too. Any chance you want to get hired on as an equipment manager or something so you can come on road trips with me?
LOL Do you really want to deal with the noise complaints?
Pretty sure I could keep you quiet.
Oh God
I chuckled to myself as I imagined him getting flustered and breathless.
And my God, I couldn’t wait to have some time alone with the horny man I’d left in Pittsburgh.
Every time I saw Chris in the locker room, on the ice, on the bus, on the plane, I had the same thought:
I want you to know I’m seeing your dad.
It rang in my ears like an opposing team’s goal horn.
I understood why we weren’t telling him yet. That we’d tell him when the time was right. Once Garrett and I had a better grip on what we were doing and where this was going, we’d sit Chris down privately and tell him. How public we’d be after that—well, we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.
Assuming we got that far, of course. We were still firmly in the honeymoon phase, so there was no telling yet if we were in it for any kind of long haul.
It didn’t help that for hockey players, the honeymoon phase could either be super short or seriously protracted.
There didn’t seem to be much middle ground, at least from what I’d observed.
For the better part of every year, hockey dominated our lives.
There was no way around it. Hockey could even feel like a third member of a relationship, which was often what separated the flings from the forever partners.
Temo and Ximena had met during the off season after his rookie year.
They’d only been together maybe a month when training camp started, so she’d been thrown into the regular season fray almost from the start.
We’d become friends years later, after he’d been traded to Pittsburgh, and he’d told me one night that he’d known by Thanksgiving that she was the one.
She’d easily rolled with the punches of his career even when things had gotten tough, like when he changed teams twice in six months or when an injury flattened him for a couple of weeks.
“That woman’s tougher than I am,” he’d told me, his voice full of love and fondness. “She put up with my bullshit and the League’s.” Raising his glass, he’d added, “Wasn’t letting her go—no way.”
Unsurprisingly, out of all the Pittsburgh wives, Ximena had the biggest rock on her hand.
At the other end of the spectrum was Mikko Haavisto, one of our top six forwards, who’d had several girlfriends before meeting his wife.
Gossip pages mused that he got bored and went through women like he went through stick tape.
The reality, though, was that he’d just had a string of women who thought they could handle the hockey life, but learned very quickly they weren’t wired for it.
The breakups weren’t even that bad, mostly; they’d just realized this wasn’t the life for them, and they’d moved on.
It wasn’t all that surprising that he’d ultimately ended up with the ex-wife of another player—her divorce hadn’t had anything to do with hockey, and she knew what she’d be getting into before their first date.
Maybe all that was why so many of the guys married their high school or college girlfriends (or boyfriends, in a few cases)—they didn’t want to try to establish a new relationship during the chaos of playing pro hockey.
I got it. I hadn’t had the bandwidth to date much during my career; I couldn’t get my head around how the men around me managed to build and maintain long-term relationships.
Maybe they were just better at it than I was. I didn’t know.
What I did know was that this honeymoon phase I was in with Garrett probably wouldn’t last long. He’d either get tired of feeling like he was playing second fiddle to hockey, or he’d adapt to the reality of my career.
I hoped it was the latter. I liked him a lot, and… I mean, what could I say? I liked not feeling so goddamned lonely for a change. I liked how, even this early on, the possibility of life with him made the prospect of life after hockey less daunting. I didn’t want to lose him or that.
I worried incessantly that I would, though, and tonight that worry was amplified.
I was on the road, for one thing, having flown out right after last night’s game for a three-game road trip. Those road trips could make or break a relationship, especially a fledgling one.
And on top of that, after a demoralizing loss to New York last night followed by a flight to Washington, I was at the bar tonight with Chris and some of our teammates.
Despite the loss, the guys were keeping the vibe upbeat with chirps about the video game several of them liked to play on the plane. It helped shift the focus away from last night’s shitshow on ice.
Mostly. Because I wasn’t the only player whose head was elsewhere.
“Hey.” I nudged Chris, who was staring into his beer beside me. “You all right?”
He turned a miserable expression on me. “Just keep thinking about last night.” He broke eye contact and watch himself pick at a napkin he’d already partially shredded.
Though I wasn’t a mind reader, I could read my teammate as if his emotions had been broadcast onto a Jumbotron for all to see.
Partly because he wore them on his sleeve.
Partly—mostly, if I was honest—because I could see myself in the furrows between his eyebrows, the tightness of his lips, and the creases in his forehead.
“Kanes. Listen.” I twisted toward him. “That loss? That wasn’t your fault.”
He winced. “Two of those goals against were completely my fault.”
“No. They weren’t.”
He turned to me again, his expression a mix of begging me to make him believe that, and a barely restrained impulse to tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I sighed and took a swig from my beer. Setting my glass down beside his, I said, “I watched the replays half a dozen times. On the first, your pass would’ve been fine if I’d read you right and been in the right place.
You thought I was going one way, I thought you were passing the other way… ” I shook my head. “It happens.”
Pursing his lips, he lowered his gaze again. “I should’ve known you were going—”
“You’re not psychic, Chris,” I said quietly. “None of us are. And like, even as good as our line is together—as good as any of us are together—we’re not always going to sync up. Honestly, the whole team’s timing was off. It wasn’t just you.”
He kept his eyes down.
“It was a rough night for everyone,” I insisted. “You didn’t fuck up the game—we all lost this one. It was a joint effort.”
He didn’t budge.