Chapter 8
Mo hadn’t put Adam Murphy screwing me like I am Ikea flatpack and he’s following the directions on his bingo card for the year, but he definitely wasn’t complaining.
Once the tension had broken, Adam happily fucked Mo on any reasonable surface in either of their homes.
Mo could not believe he was having the best sex of his life with the guy he’d been bickering with for almost ten years.
The guy he’d accused of having a stick up his ass the first time they met.
But the sex was phenomenal. Adam was strong and fit, with a perfect cock and the attention to detail to give it exactly how Mo liked it.
A week after the dinner with his parents, Mo was under the hood of the Corvette when “The Imperial March” broke the silence. Fuck.
Audrey never brought good news.
“The Canyons’ annual casino night is this weekend. The players are acting as the staff again, and we want you tending bar with Murphy.”
“First time you’ve wanted me at a bar instead of out of it,” Mo chirped, instead of giving in to the urge to swear. He doubted Audrey would appreciate his first thought of Fuckity fuck! There goes the no-teammates rule!
Audrey sniffed. “Just make sure you can be there. We’ll email you the details.”
When the organizational charts came through, Mo wasn’t surprised to see his was the only SaP name listed. He texted Maddison to be sure, but he guessed he was reaping “son of the owners” perks. If they could be called perks.
A whole evening surrounded by people like his parents and Adam’s teammates, and not even Mads for backup. Clearly, the universe had it out for him.
When he broke the news to Adam—about five minutes after mutual orgasms, and while still in bed together, sweat-slick and sticky—Adam turned his head to give Mo an assessing look.
“It makes sense, I guess. I mean—it’s a good way for us to make a semipublic debut and for your parents to show their blessing.”
“Like anyone wants it,” Mo snarked, was grateful when Adam didn’t contradict him.
“So. Know anything about bartending?” Adam asked instead.
Mo smirked.
On Saturday, Adam donned the black trousers, gray shirt, striped tie, and burgundy vest the team’s PR branch provided and tried not to wince and how little the color suited him.
Shame this burgundy nightmare didn’t come with a helmet to hide his hair, but he didn’t have to look good.
He just had to schmooze with rich folks to get them to part with money they could afford to lose.
The event itself wouldn’t start for a few hours, but the team couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off all their good work—and how handsome some of the players looked while doing it.
If last year’s events repeated, posts staring Adam, Hallsy, Jorts, and a few others would make the rounds on social media for masc-attracted fans (and sometimes strangers to the game) to drool over.
Adam didn’t spend much time online to know about it, but Picks and Smitty always seemed keen to share such updates in the name of ribbing.
Of course, this year, Adam wouldn’t be alone. Knowing Mo, he’d throw in a monkey wrench and destroy all of Adam’s expectations.
But the team hadn’t asked Mo to come in early. That meant Adam was surrounded by his team when he made his appearance—a horrible time to have an audience of annoying pseudo brothers. Mo looked—Adam couldn’t describe how he looked.
He was wearing black and gray slacks and shirt like the rest of them, but his unlike the boring poly-blend the team wore, his waistcoat hugged him like a glove and looked to be cut from actual silk.
And it wasn’t burgundy. It was an intricate pattern of red swirls and swoops over black, with extra pops of black throughout to keep the bright vibrant color from looking garish.
He’d paired the vest with a red-accented belt and shoes, red-tinted nails and lips, and ruby studs in his ears.
He wasn’t wearing a tie, and the top button of his shirt was undone, showing off a tantalizing bit of throat that Adam wanted to bite.
Mo had no right looking so unexpectedly hot at a Canyons’ charity event.
“What do you think?” he asked coyly, smirking.
Before Adam could finish rebooting his brain, Hallsy called out, “Don’t think the rest of us wanna hear his thoughts!”
“I t’ink ’e broke ’im,” said Bouchy in his thick Quebecois accent.
Followed by Rother: “Guess we know that was definitely a hickey, then.”
And Smitty: “Did we doubt it?”
“Nah, but you know Murph. Couldn’t discount a hockey injury.”
“Or vacuum.” Adam didn’t want to know who said that.
“Shut up, jeez.” Adam flushed. He was surrounded by idiots. “I think you look beautiful,” he finally answered. Remembering his role as Boyfriend, he took a step closer and squeezed Mo’s arm.
“Oh my God,” a new voice cut in, loud and dramatic, “do my eyes deceive me or is our fearless leader engaging in PDA?”
Adam and Mo turned to see Jorts fanning himself with one of the evening’s cheat-sheet pamphlets.
“Keep this up, Murph, and you’ll make Victorian maidens blush!”
So many idiots. Adam blinked concerned eyes and said as earnestly as he could, “First worrying about your eyesight and now offended by hand-holding? When did you get so old, Jorts? Do you need some prune juice? An early bedtime?”
Fortunately, Adam’s rookies took the opportunity to start heckling the vet, distracting everyone from Adam and Mo.
Adam leaned in and murmured, “That wasn’t too painful, was it?” He honestly couldn’t understand why Mo was so reluctant to meet the boys.
Ever the actor, Mo swayed toward him, one hand on Adam’s chest, and replied sotto voce, “Darling, just because I can handle the pain doesn’t mean I should.”
Adam’s hind brain, newly trained to respond to Mo, perked up. Wait—was that an insult?
At that moment, Elsie swanned in, somehow projecting both harried and poised, and told them it was time to get to their places.
Jorts and Hallsy headed for the cameras. Adam caught Mo watching and took his hand to guide him to the bar. “The film crews will find us at some point, get some footage of us serving drinks and being civic-minded, but I told them to give us space first.”
Chinner joined them on the way to the bar. The guy was a few years younger than Adam, with the kind of chill that Adam associated with leaf-based hobbies. He shook hands with Mo and explained they were stuck with him because he “tended bar in the AHL off-season once or twice.”
Already behind the bar stood two professional bartenders.
“We’ll work behind the scenes to make sure things run smoothly.”
Thank God. Adam didn’t want to be held responsible for parched people not getting what they wanted when they wanted it.
Mo smirked. “Darling, are you doubting my ability to pour a drink?”
The bartender, easily old enough to be his mother, gave him a once-over. “Nope, just your ability to keep things running smoothly. You’ve got ‘shit disturber’ and ‘shameless flirt’ written all over you.”
Adam snorted.
Mo gently slapped his pec with the back of his hand and groaned, “Babe, where’s the love?”
“Not oblivious,” Adam said dryly.
The bartenders quickly assessed their skills and divided up the work. They put Chinner on the cocktail station, Adam in front of the beer taps, and Mo between them, with instructions to help where he could.
Because he was Mo, he took this to mean make a menace of yourself.
At least most of the ultra-wealthy patrons here had better manners than Mo’s parents, Adam thought as he pulled the hundredth beer of the night. Additionally, most of them easily fell prey to Mo’s over-the-top charm.
Despite their checkered past, Adam couldn’t say that surprised him. Mo grew up around the wealthy and with parents who largely ignored him. He must’ve learned early how to get the attention he wanted.
Unfortunately, Mo also knew the rich people at this party weren’t here for him. Adam had figured Mo as the type to take that personally, but instead, he was having the time of his life doing what Adam could only describe as flirting on Adam’s behalf.
“Yes, ma’am, he will absolutely pull you an IPA, and he’ll look incredible doing it. Darling!” The little menace leaned over Adam’s station and batted his eyes. “This poor woman is dying of thirst.”
Behind him, a well-dressed thirtysomething barely held back her laughter. “I’m so thirsty,” she agreed.
“Can she have an IPA, pretty please? Oh—but with a side of—no, here, just let me help you—”
Before Adam could protest, Mo was unbuttoning Adam’s shirtsleeves and rolling them up his forearms.
“We wouldn’t want anything spilled on the shirt, after all!” he said brightly.
The woman slipped a bill into the tip jar—which would go to charity, after the actual bartenders’ take. She met Adam’s eye with a quick, shy smile, then said to Mo, “Give you an extra fifty to undo a couple buttons.”
Mo cackled. “I like you so much! Adam, darling, think of the children—”
With a resigned, put-upon sigh, Adam tilted his head back so Mo could loosen his tie and work on his collar.
“I do have to warn you that most of him cannot be bought!” Mo tugged the ends of the bow tie until they hung loose and flicked open his collar. The touch of his fingertips at Adam’s throat sent an involuntary shiver through him, and he almost spilled the beer.
Not that anyone noticed that, what with Mo holding court.
Adam shut off the tap as Mo released him. “There we go, ladies and gentlebeings! He’s here all night to take requests—”
Finally, an hour or so in, some bigwig gave a speech about the charity, and Adam got a lull while people listened and clapped politely. “How come you’re not pulling this act on Chinner?”
Mo huffed through his nose. “Chinner’s doing fine all on his own. No one had to tell him to show off for the ladies.”
Oh. Well, that made sense. Chinner could do tricks with cocktail shakers. Adam had seen at least three women slip him their number.
“I don’t mind serving beer.” Adam shifted his weight. “I’m not great at flirting.” At least not with an audience, and definitely not when he didn’t mean it.
Mo patted his shoulder. “You have other talents.”
Adam shot him a sideways look.
Mo grinned. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you lose the tip contest. Even if I do have notes for whoever named it that.”
Adam stifled a laugh. “How do you know about it?”
“Please, as if you overgrown frat boys could do anything without making it into a competition.” He paused while the assembled crowd applauded some canned words of inspiration. “Anyway, I’ll make sure you get the biggest tip, and then later—”
Adam blushed pre-emptively. No one was listening and he still felt the urge to cover his face.
“—you can give me your big tip.”
Fuck it. “Just the tip?” Adam asked without looking at him.
Mo pressed a red-tipped hand to his chest. “Adam Murphy. Are you threatening to withhold marital favors?”
That didn’t sound right. “You’re the one who asked for it.”
“Mm-hm. And you’re so good at giving me what I asked for.”
If Adam blushed any harder, he’d break a blood vessel.
True to his word, Mo picked back up after the speech, acting as Adam’s barker. With him doing all the talking, Adam only needed to smile and pour beer and occasionally let Mo fix his hair or swat at him with a bar towel, and the tip jar filled to overflowing.
The woman from earlier returned with a friend—both of them leaning tipsily on each other—and brazenly offered another fifty bucks for Mo to kiss him.
Adam didn’t even have time to freak out.
Mo tsked at them. “Adam’s not that kind of girl.
” And then he plucked the money from the woman’s fingers, tucked it in the tip jar, and planted a kiss on each of their cheeks.
“But I am! Chinner, come over here and take a picture of us with these ladies. I don’t want them to forget us tomorrow. ”
It was the easiest time Adam had ever had at a function like this, and all he had to do was let Mo be himself at people.
When the night ended, Jorts—with an offensively disbelieving air—pronounced Adam the biggest fundraiser and bestowed upon him the ceremonial park ranger hat normally reserved for player of the game.
At the back of the room, Smitty cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Speech!”
Adam tipped the hat back and rolled his eyes at his teammates. “I think we’ve all had enough talking for one night. Good game. Let’s go home.”
“Aw, Cap, you’re not gonna postgame with us?” Picks was red-cheeked like he’d played twenty-five minutes tonight or, more probably, like someone had spent the night convincing him to do shots.
Jorts clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Our fearless leader has other plans tonight, I think.”
Chinner snorted. “Surprised they’re still here. Mo was all over this guy at the bar.”
“He wasn’t,” Adam protested automatically. Mo had been his normal in-public level of touchy, or maybe dialed up slightly, but only so he could insert himself between Adam and strangers.
Chinner shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t get hives about it.” He saluted the room with the phone held in his other hand. “I’m skipping too. I’ve got digits to dial.”
“Boo,” Picks whined.
Adam looked at Jorts.
Jorts sighed, put-upon. “Yes, I will get the rookie home and make sure he hydrates, while you and your main squeeze go handle your sexual tension.”
The part of Adam that knew the truth wanted to deny that. Another part of him… well, that part was delighted by how little his boys cared about him having a boyfriend. That part wanted to preen and then go home and handle the sexual tension.
Adam split the difference, shot the bird to everyone in the room, and swanned out with as much dignity as he could muster in the hat.
Whatever. Adam was going to get laid and most of these chumps were either going home to an empty bed, or one with an exhausted co-parent who would not be waking up past midnight for a booty-call.
Adam had definitely won the night. Maybe his luck would even stretch far enough to convince Mo to break the rules just this once.
After all, they’d been working all night.
No one wanted to do a predawn walk of shame.