Chapter Eight #3
Over in the corner, Howie answered a question from Olivia Starling, the beat reporter who had followed them to Chicago, in his post-game media segment.
Better him than Luca. Howie actually enjoyed media attention and fared much better under it.
Still, Luca crossed his fingers it would end fast; Howie had taken painkillers, and Luca didn’t trust Starling not to take advantage of a loosened tongue.
“You took a pretty hard hit in the second,” she asked without asking.
“Yeah, I definitely felt that one.”
“Looked personal.” There it was. She could never stick to asking about hockey, always had to make it a human-interest story. In this case, Luca could forgive her. He was curious too.
Howie laughed but couldn’t hide his discomfort as he shifted in place. “I mean, I personally wanted to win, and I’m sure Da—uh, Denisov did too. I don’t think there’s anything else to it.”
Starling opened her mouth to ask again, but Chelsea pointed to someone else. Luca exhaled in relief. The painkillers hadn’t loosened Howie’s tongue too much, then.
“Kilian, analysts can’t seem to decide if the Sea Lions are going to tank or win it all after last season’s upheavals. What do you think after your first game of the season?”
An insouciant grin crept across Howie’s face. “I mean. Four to one. Kinda speaks for itself, huh?”
“Tough night to be Henderson—in goal for the Firecrackers, huh?”
“Yeah.” Howie glanced over to Luca. “I think I heard Mazetti say he should change his number to four, eh?”
The reporters laughed. Luca winced. He’d just made an enemy for life.
Mooney, catching his guilty expression, shrugged. “We see him three times a season, max, and he won’t get the start in every game. Anyway, he can’t be more butthurt about the game than Denisov.”
“True.” Luca made a mental note to watch the Firecrackers’ post-game interviews later. Maybe they would reveal what Denisov had against Howie.
Once the reporters cleared out, Jax whistled to draw everyone’s attention. “Fedorov’s first NHL goal! Drinks for everyone.”
Lindy whistled louder. She smiled sweetly. “Curfew’s at eleven. Our flight to St. Louis tomorrow is at seven.”
The guys groaned. It was already past ten; if they made it back to the hotel before curfew it would be a miracle, let alone out to a bar.
Luca was secretly relieved. Road trips meant near-constant socializing, and he’d played twenty-two minutes.
He wanted to curl up in a hotel bed on his side of the room he shared with Mooney and pretend to be annoyed when the others tried to interact with him.
He pictured himself heckling Breezy, Mooney, and Howie while they played video games without having to play himself.
Maybe he’d even make a cup of tea from the shitty selection by the tiny hotel water cooker and let them roast him for it.
He would get to watch Breezy in his element, palling around with friends, goofing off.
Maybe Breezy would wear sweatpants. Maybe Luca could catch an outline of his dick through them.
He would be touching it soon, so surely, he was allowed to look now?
Luca showered off, daydreaming about pleasant company and a good night’s sleep.
It was not to be.
He didn’t know why he thought Jax and Breezy would let someone’s first goal celebration go so easily.
As soon as they got into the bus, Breezy shot a text to the team group chat, inviting everyone to a hotel room party in his room.
Luca tried to be annoyed at the death of his quiet night, but he couldn’t be angry at Breezy for being himself.
Jax responded immediately with three bottle emojis and an order to raid all the minibars.
Predictably, Dmitriyev told the chat he had vodka.
Luca knew for a fact not all Russians were vodka snobs who brought bottles of the stuff wherever they went. For some reason, though, he had yet to meet an NHL player from Russia who didn’t live up to the stereotype.
Maybe it had to do with living abroad. At home, Luca didn’t have strong opinions about pizza or red wine, but when confronted with clueless Americans, especially in the Midwest of the USA, he turned into a parody of himself.
Once, when the team went out together in Minnesota last season and ordered pizza with sweet corn kernels as a topping, he caught himself pinching all his fingers together to make a particularly pointed gesture.
He supposed he could forgive Dmitriyev the vodka he had smuggled on a road trip like a James Bond villain. Had they gone out to a bar, Luca would have had to suffer through some awful American beer or, worse, a Californian wine.
They reached the hotel at ten forty-five, meaning room checks would be in fifteen minutes.
After changing out of his suit, Luca made the mistake of sitting on his bed for a minute and then falling backward to lie down with his legs dangling over the edge as he scrolled through Instagram.
Most of the people he followed were in Italy, so they hadn’t posted anything new due to the difference in time zones.
He watched the replay of Howie’s goal on the NHL’s official Instagram and then let his eyes drift shut.
Maybe he could beg off tonight. The hotel bed was comfy, and he’d already put on sweats and a T-shirt. He could fall asleep right here. But then his phone buzzed on his chest twice in quick succession.
Howie: sorry guys imma ice my hip and pass out keep it real
Fedorov: ((((((((
“Sucks,” Mooney said, waving his phone as he came out of the bathroom. He’d changed to an outfit similar to Luca’s.
Luca yawned. “He has the right idea.”
Mooney’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare, buzzkill. You’d break Breezy’s heart.”
Guilt forced Luca to push himself upright. “Howie is probably very high on painkillers. We should be glad he is not drinking.”
“Point.” Mooney wandered past, still scrolling through his phone. “Do you know why Russian emoticons don’t have eyes?”
With a sigh, Luca heaved himself to his feet. “You should ask Fedorov.” Breezy would like that. He worried about Fedorov making friends since he spoke about ten words of English and relied on Dmitriyev to translate. Maybe they could find some voice-record-to-translation app.
Closing his eyes for so long had made him groggy, so Luca went to the bathroom to splash water in his face. While he was there, a knock sounded on the door.
“Room service!” Lindy called.
In a fit of inspiration, Luca grabbed his toothbrush before opening the door.
“Oh good,” she trilled, peering around him to wave at Mooney. “Sleep tight!”
“Thank you.”
“And hey, sweet of you to take care of Howie after he got hit today. Glad to see you’re working on what we talked about.”
Luca hadn’t been thinking about Lindy’s encouragement to become more of a team player when he helped Howie. He’d been worried about his friend.
He supposed it came down to the same thing, in her book.
“Thank you,” he said, and let the door fall shut as she went on to the next room.
He ignored Mooney’s raised eyebrow.
“What did she talk to you about, bro?”
“Nothing,” Luca snapped. “Come on. Let us see how much alcohol we can pilfer.”
He opened the minibar and stuffed all the little bottles into the pockets of his sweatpants.
There weren’t enough to pass any off to Mooney, who took the beer can and mini bottle of champagne instead.
Luca felt ridiculous about the whole procedure.
It was the kind of thing his teammates in the OHL did, except they couldn’t take anything from the minibar without charging the team’s official credit card so they made do with whatever swill they could get at the nearest gas station.
Luca had spent a lot of nights listening to them laughing from the other side of the wall.
At the time it sounded cruel.
He looked forward to discovering whether it had been.
They waited for Breezy to text the all-clear before slipping out of their room and closing the door quietly behind themselves.
Luca and Mooney arrived first, so they spent some time with Breezy setting up a little refreshments table on the nightstand with all the miniature bottles separated by type of alcohol.
“No way this gets Dmitriyev drunk,” Mooney said. “Better hope he brings a big bottle of vodka.”
“We should have mixers. And snacks.” Breezy looked around the room as if any would emerge if he searched hard enough.
“There’s a vending machine a few floors down,” Mooney said. “You want me to go grab some?”
“Would you?”
He vanished, leaving Luca and Breezy alone.
In this big room, with the double bed. The perks of no longer being on an ELC.
Luca couldn’t wait, though, as roommates went, Mooney wasn’t bad.
Luca wondered if the bigger bed was as soft as his had been a moment ago when he’d lain down.
Breezy could lie down with him. They were going to do things in bed at some point soon.
Well, they hadn’t specified a bed, but Luca assumed. He licked his lips.
Breezy followed the movement with his eyes. “Um.”
“Do you—” Luca started.
Three loud Russians pounded at the door and entered with an alarmingly large bottle of vodka, interrupting what would have been a very stupid and very horny question.