14. Tyler
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
tyler
I know we’re screwed the second Mack misses an open net.
He never misses open nets. We’ve been playing together since we were kids—backyard rinks, frozen ponds, high school, four years of me at UMass while he’d spend all day covered in axle grease at the shop and still somehow make half my home games, and now club hockey on our nights off.
I’ve seen that shot from just about every angle there is.
It doesn’t miss.
The man plays hockey the same way he does everything else
efficiently, without drama, and with a low tolerance for people who waste his time. So when he coasts past the crease and the puck skips clean off his stick into the boards, he doesn’t swear or throw his hands up. He just tightens his jaw and circles back into position like nothing happened.
I know exactly what’s going on.
I laugh into my glove.
Across the ice, he catches my eye from the slot and gives me a look that promises bodily harm after the game.
Weeknights at the Warrior are sacred. Some guys stop being hockey players after high school.
I never really figured out how. The jersey changed, the locker room changed, and my knees definitely changed, but once a week I still lace up beside the same guy who’s been yelling at me to backcheck since I was old enough to skate.
For ninety minutes, the rest of life gets real quiet.
Boston’s first responder league runs like a religion.
Engine houses field teams, precincts ice their own crews, EMS jumps in wherever they fit, and everybody talks enough shit to make the Bruins look polite.
It’s less beer league than citywide bragging rights with worse knees and better stories.
Our roster’s mostly firefighters and medics, plus a handful of cops Ryan keeps sneaking onto the team because following rules has never really been his thing.
Hockey shuts my brain off. The scrape of blades on fresh ice.
The crack of sticks against the boards. Cold air that somehow still smells like rubber, sweat, and every locker room I’ve ever loved.
It’s muscle memory—the one place where thinking too much gets you stapled into the glass by a paramedic from Back Bay with something to prove.
Usually.
Tonight, not so much. Which is making me mean. And judging by the way Mack just stapled some poor lieutenant from Ladder 21 into the glass hard enough to rattle his teeth, I’m not the only one.
From the bench, Coop barks a laugh.
“Jesus, Mack! Guy’s got kids.”
“He should skate faster.”
Half the bench loses it as Ryan hops over the boards on the change and skates backward for a few strides, looking over at Mack.
“That the same guy you hit last period?”
“Yep.”
“You know penalties carry over into adulthood, right?”
“I’ll risk it.”
Marco glides past us shaking his head. “One of these days you’re gonna remember we’re all technically on the same side.”
“Nah,” Ryan says. “That’s what makes beer league fun.”
The whistle cuts the conversation short before anybody can keep arguing, and by second intermission everyone’s breathing harder than they’re talking. It lasts maybe thirty seconds.
Marco rips off one of his glove and looks down the bench at Trick and Coop.
“So, how’s domestic bliss?”
Ryan snorts immediately.
“Oh yeah. I forgot you two are playing house now.”
Trick shrugs.
“Better than being homeless.”
Coop wraps his arm around Trick’s padded shoulders enthusiastically while Trick attempts to shove him off.
“We’ve really made it our own.”
Ryan looks between them.
“You’ve lived together for, what… six days?”
“Seven,” Trick presses his lips together.
“Come on,” Coop protests. “I thought we’re having fun.”
“I found a thong in the couch cushions looking for the remote.”
Coop shrugs.
“Coulda been one of yours.”
“I haven’t even brought anyone home since I moved in.”
“Exactly.”
The bench busts out laughing.
I point at Trick.
“A whole week? That’s gotta be a personal best.”
“Funny you should mention that,” he points right back at me. “You two haven’t brought anybody around in weeks.”
“Been busy,” Mack says.
“Oh.”
He points between the two of us.
“So this has everything to do with the girl upstairs.”
“What?” I scoff. “No.”
Coop straightens.
“Holy shit.”
Marco doesn’t even look up from rewrapping his stick.
“I was wondering how long it was gonna take one of you to say it.”
“We’re not sleeping with our tenant,” I say.
Ryan grins.
“Yeah. That’s exactly the problem.”
I blink.
“What problem?”
“You’ve been so busy not sleeping with her you forgot you’re usually sleeping with somebody.”
The room goes quiet for exactly half a second.
Then everyone starts talking at once.
“Jesus.”
“I didn’t even think about that.”
“How long’s it been?”
“That’s actually impressive.”
“That explains the attempted homicide on the ice,” Ryan says, looking toward Mack.
“Just needed to burn something off,” Mack mutters.
“I bet.”
That earns another round of laughs.
I catch Mack’s eye across the room. He just shakes his head once like he’s already tired of this conversation, which is rich, considering I’ve spent the last five days trying not to think about Darcy.
Five days telling myself—and him—that getting a little space was the smart move.
That we’d gotten caught up in the storm, the alcohol, the cards, and twenty-four straight hours with a girl we both were attracted to but couldn’t have.
Distance was supposed to fix that. Now half the team has noticed.
The whistle blows to start the third and Ryan doesn’t move.
I shove his shoulder.
“Go.”
“No chance.” He plants his stick against the boards. “I’ve been waiting a month for one of you idiots to crack.”
“A month?” I bark out a laugh. “You’re dramatic.”
Ryan shrugs.
“Maybe.”
His eyes drift from me to Mack.
“Or maybe it’s the first time in ten years I’ve watched the MacAllister brothers spend more time figuring out how not to hook up with a chick than how to make it happen.”
That’s the first thing anybody’s said all night that doesn’t have an easy comeback.
It’s not as complicated as he’s making it out to be.
Mack and I have always been good at this.
Make a move, everybody knows the deal, and keep it moving.
Darcy wants us—we’ve both seen it. Hell, I practically kissed her the night I brought dinner upstairs before Mack got home and interrupted whatever the hell that was.
The attraction isn’t exactly some great unsolved mystery.
If anything, we’ve probably spent the last week getting in our own heads. Acting like crossing one line is somehow going to change everything, when in reality it’s probably the exact opposite. Maybe once we stop pretending we don’t want her, we can all stop acting so damn weird around each other.
Sleep with her. Have some fun. Then we can go back to acting normal.
Yeah.
That makes a hell of a lot more sense than whatever the fuck we’ve been doing instead.
“Mack!” Ryan yells from the slot. “Either shoot or stop overthinking it.”
Mack lifts his head slowly, like he’s genuinely weighing whether killing Ryan would be worth the suspension.
I’m already laughing before he answers.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Ryan grins through his cage.
“There he is.”
Mack takes my pass at the blue line and absolutely hammers the puck. The shot damn near blows through the goalie’s glove before burying itself in the back of the net, and the bench erupts. Coop slams into my shoulder hard enough to nearly knock me off balance.
“Yeah,” he barks. “He’s cooked.”
I laugh so hard I almost catch an edge.
Mack skates past the bench without celebrating, like he didn’t just try to put the goalie through the net with the puck.
Back to the locker room, the adrenaline’s worn off but whatever the hell’s been following me around all week hasn’t.
The room is humid and loud, half the team already peeling out of gear while steam rolls off shoulders and somebody hijacks the speaker loud enough to make the cinderblock walls hum.
Tape litters the floor. Someone’s arguing over a missed call from the second period. It smells like sweat, adrenaline, and beer already being cracked open before half the pads are off.
I drop onto the bench and yank my helmet free, dragging a hand through sweat-damp hair.
Across from me, Mack strips off his shoulder pads with the same irritation he’s been bringing to basically everything lately.
Ryan tosses me a beer.
“Alright.”
I catch it one-handed.
“What?”
He pops the tab on his own can.
“What’s the plan?”
“What plan?
He shoots me a look.
“The tenant plan.”
“Her name’s Darcy,” Mack says, not bothering to look up while he unwraps tape from his wrist. “And there’s no plan.”
I spread my hands gesturing to the floor.
“Bullshit,” Trick calls from the other side of the room.
Coop leans back against the lockers.
“I’d also like to hear this nonexistent plan.”
“There isn’t a Darcy plan.”
Ryan points his beer at me.
“So your strategy is…what, then?”
I shrug.
“Keep acting normal.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
Trick snorts into his beer.
Twenty-four hours snowed in with Darcy should’ve solved this.
In any other version of my life, being stuck in a house with a woman that beautiful would’ve ended with all three of our clothes on the floor before the first storm warning finished flashing across the TV.
Instead, we played cards, cooked breakfast, and somehow spent more time talking than flirting.
We learned about each other’s families and exes and talked about the kind of shit people usually keep to themselves.
The kind Mack and I normally don’t think to ask.
“You’re way too invested in this.”
He stands and points toward the door.
“Make a move or stop acting like seeing her in the hallway is gonna kill you.”
He starts walking toward the showers.
“Oh.”
He looks back.
“And if she tells you both to fuck off…”
He shrugs.
“…then at least you’ll finally shut up about it.”
The room breaks into laughter.
I glance over at Mack, expecting the same look I’ve been getting every time this conversation comes up.
This time he just looks back and gives me the smallest nod, neither of us saying a word beyond that. Just one look and somehow I know we’re done talking ourselves out of this.
I grin into my beer.
St. Paddy’s Day is next week. Half the department will be marching, the whole city’s always out afterward, and we’ll end up at the Brass Bell with everybody like we do every year.
My phone’s sitting in my locker and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m already thinking about what to text her.
I like this plan a hell of a lot better.