Chapter 25
GARRETT
After this road trip, I want to fuck. So damn bad.
Goddammit. I’m never going to concentrate now.
Sorry?
No you’re not.
(halo emoji)
(laughing emoji)
We really were going to end up bursting into flames if we kept texting like this.
We were driving each other insane with these thirsty texts, but neither of us was stopping.
What could I say? The electronic foreplay was as fun as it was frustrating, even when it was going to be a few days before we could follow through.
Though I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to get through this hockey game without embarrassing myself.
The day after Christmas, Pittsburgh played at home against Portland.
Katie, Charli, Nick, Jasmine, and I all watched from the partners’ box as a rowdy crowd roared their enthusiasm.
Maybe everyone was itching for hockey after the team had been away for the past handful of games.
Maybe they were just ready to get back to the excitement of hockey after the holidays.
Whatever the case, they were shaking the arena before the anthem had even been sung.
“Jesus,” Katie said. “I always forget how loud these games get!”
“They get loud,” Jasmine said, “but this is, like, playoff noise.”
Nick whistled. “They better play up to the hype, then, or the fans will probably tear the place down.”
I just chuckled. Pittsburgh fans were definitely enthusiastic, that was for sure. Hopefully that would feed the team tonight, and they’d beat Portland into next week.
During a TV timeout, I glanced around the box.
It was more crowded than usual, which made sense—a lot of players had family in town for the holidays.
Among the new faces, a man who looked to be in his late sixties, maybe early seventies, was wearing a Phantoms jersey.
I’d never seen him before, but his face was incredibly familiar.
Holy shit. Was that Liam’s dad? The eyes, the jaw, the shape of the nose—he had to be.
And even if the resemblance hadn’t been uncanny, the sixteen on his sleeve was a dead giveaway.
Liam’s mom, brother, sister-in-law, and nieces and nephews were here too, all wearing his number and cheering for him and the team.
I faced the ice again, my heart pounding. I had zero expectation of being introduced to the St. Clair family, least of all as Liam’s boyfriend. I had even less expectation of them looking at me and realizing I was his boyfriend. I was just irrationally anxious, sitting this close to them.
Rationally, the situation made sense. It was way too soon to be meeting the parents even under normal circumstances. In our less than normal situation—yeah, this was to be expected.
But it still felt weird, I couldn’t lie.
Lucky for me, the TV timeout ended and the game resumed with a defensive zone faceoff for the Phantoms. The puck dropped, and the action was on.
“I can’t get over how fast the game moves at this level.” Nick gestured at the action. “How does Chris even keep up?”
“No idea,” I said. “Though he can probably see the puck better than we can.”
“True. Except how much peripheral vision does he actually have?”
“Eh, more than you think,” Jasmine said. “And definitely more than the goalie!”
“I bet!” Nick laughed. “Gotta love it—the man who needs to see the puck more than anyone can’t see for shit.”
“Barns says he can’t feel it, either,” Jasmine said. “With all the gear he has to wear, if he’s on top of the puck or it’s in his pads somewhere…” She shook her head.
Charli scoffed. “God, as if that job wasn’t hard already. Poor guy.”
“Eh, he’s fine.” Jasmine grinned. “Goalies are all insane, so it suits him.”
Nick, Charli, and I laughed.
“Is that really true?” Nick asked. “That goalies are nuts?”
Jasmine nodded emphatically. “All of them. It’s like a job requirement.” She ticked off points on her fingers. “They have to be super tall, ridiculously flexible, and absolutely bugfuck insane.”
Someone cleared their throat emphatically, and we both turned around. Jasmine covered her mouth and squeaked.
“What?” Nick asked. “What did I miss?”
I had the same question.
The gray-haired woman behind us rolled her eyes. The blonde beside her, though, smothered a giggle and elbowed the other. “Relax. She’s totally right.” To us, the blonde said, “Chase is my husband.”
“And my son,” the other woman said through tight lips.
“Sorry,” Jasmine said, though she didn’t sound terribly contrite.
“Don’t be.” Chase’s wife laughed. “If he wasn’t absolutely nuts, he’d never be able to put up with me.”
The older man beside Chase’s mother chuckled. “You said it, not us.”
He and his daughter-in-law laughed. His wife did not.
We just turned around and faced the action again. I hoped the woman wasn’t truly offended; she had, after all, raised a goalie, so she couldn’t be too surprised by it all.
Below us, the players whipped up and down the ice.
Portland had a disastrous turnover in the neutral zone, which led to a breakaway that had us all on our feet screaming our encouragement.
There was a scoring chance, but the opposing netminder stopped it, and a whistle blew.
Everyone in the arena seemed to exhale at the same time—this sport was nothing if not intense.
As the two teams did line changes, the Jumbotron switched to the bench, and my heart fluttered.
Liam was looking at an iPad, Temo peering over his shoulder and gesturing at something.
Sweat dripped from the ends of Liam’s hair and down the sides of his face, and his jaw worked as he nodded along with whatever his teammate was saying.
Christ. He had no business being that hot.
Why am I out of breath?
Good thing the super intense game gave me a believable cover; half the arena was probably out of breath at a given moment because holy shit, this game.
By the second period, the score was tied 1-1.
There’d been a revolving door on both penalty boxes since halfway through the second, and with each killed penalty, both teams got even chippier.
Five minutes into this period, there was a fight.
Before those two players had finished serving their penalties, there was another scrum, but they only got called for roughing.
Nick whistled. “Wow. They’re spicy tonight.”
“I thought there was always fighting in hockey,” Charli said.
“Not as often as you’d think,” Jasmine said. “Especially at this level, they really don’t fight very often.”
“What a crock,” Nick muttered. “I want to see fights, damn it.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “You’ve seen two! What more do you want?”
“Three!”
I just chuckled.
Below us, Portland was making a drive for Pittsburgh’s goal. They’d caught the defense flatfooted and made a solid zone entry, and now they were setting up, cycling as if they were on a power play.
I held my breath. This late in a tied game, a single goal could decide who won.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered as I watched Portland closing in on the net. They shot—Barns deflected it. Shot again—Temo blocked it, which had him limping. A skater set up for a third shot and—
Out of nowhere, Liam swiped the puck right off the stick, and then he was barreling up the ice. There wasn’t a single Portland player between him and the netminder.
With only a few feet left between Liam and the crease, though, one of Portland’s defensemen caught up and reached out to poke-check the puck away from him.
Just before the defenseman would’ve relieved him of possession, though, Liam spun around and whipped the puck back toward the blue line.
Right onto Chris’s tape.
Chris’s one-timer flew past the defenseman, Liam… and the goaltender.
My kids and I were instantly on our feet along with everyone else in the arena, roaring as the goal horn blared.
Far below us, Chris pumped his fist in the air just before his teammates were on him, hugging him and smacking his helmet.
Then they were skating toward the bench for fist bumps—Chris, with Liam right on his heels.
Oh, hell, the emotions swirling through me in that moment. Pride. Guilt. Elation. Shame. My son had scored an incredible goal… assisted by the man he didn’t know I was this stupid for.
Chris’s goal gave Pittsburgh the lead and a surge of energy.
Egged on by the crowd, they widened their lead by another goal before much longer.
As time wound down, Portland tried to rally, managing another goal and closing Pittsburgh’s lead to one.
With two minutes remaining, they pulled their goalie to bring out the extra attacker.
We all spent ninety solid seconds on our feet, shouting our encouragement and trying not to die of heart failure as six Portland skaters tried to break through Pittsburgh’s defenses to get into the back of Barnum’s net.
Just as the clock ticked down to thirty remaining seconds, Temo did an open ice check on a player twice his size, knocking the man off the puck. The crowd was screaming as he broke away, puck on his stick, and then fired it down the ice toward Portland’s empty net.
I doubted anyone in the building heard the goal horn. Everyone in the partners’ box screamed and high-fived and hugged as if we’d been the ones marching toward victory down on the ice. The adrenaline and exhilaration were intoxicating…
…and so was looking at the Jumbotron just in time to see Liam’s sweaty, focused face as he skated up for a center ice faceoff.
This was hockey, so even a two-goal lead in the final thirty seconds wasn’t a sure thing.
They had to stay focused all the way to the end, and my God, did Liam set that example.
Brow furrowed, stick twitching in his hands as he anticipated the ref dropping the puck.