Page 55 of Broken Ice, Mended Hearts

He tapped my arm. “Like the night we got into it, after Cleevs’s breakaway.”

Pip on top of me, the scrape of our cups through our hockey pants, his hot breath on my cheeks… him dipping his head…

“Speaking of that night, were you about to kiss me when the officials pulled you up?”

He may have blushed, though it was hard to tell for sure since the cold air had already colored his cheeks. “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it, but I was going in for a big smooch.”

“Hm. I thought so. You know I wanted it, right?”

“I thought so too.”

We came to a stop in front of the home bench, and I glared at him. “Fuck you, though. The first night we messed around, when you said you didn’t kiss guys, I knew you were full of shit.”

“I was confused after we… you know. But I made up for it, right?”

“Two fucking days later.” I tried to sound grouchy, but couldn’t hold back a smile.

He licked his lips. “I’m still making up for it anytime you’ll let me.” Leaning in, he brushed his lips against mine.

It wasn’t enough, so I placed a hand against the side of his neck and kissed him for real. Remembering where we were, I jumped back and looked around. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Are we alone?”

“I think so. But if we aren’t, screw it. People will find out, and that kiss was worth the risk.”

“It sure was,” I said. Pip had been bolder since we started fucking, which hopefully meant he was feeling more certain about things. We should discuss it again soon, but I didn’t want to pressure him.

He went behind the bench and found a bucket of pucks. Holding it up, he said, “Come on. Let’s play some one-on-one. Seven-point game.” He dumped the pucks on the ice and pushed off, leaving me to catch a puck on my stick and take off after him. The game was intense. We both grew up playing pickupwhenever we could, and most coaches still did one-on-one drills even at the professional level. We were both good at offense, so we kept each other on our toes.

He stole the puck from me and was doing his best to get in position to take a shot. Wanting to stop that at any cost, I jinked around to stay in front of him, anticipating his moves and shifting constantly to keep him from getting around me. Since we were both defensemen, we were skilled at skating backward and forward. When he tried to rush the goal, I skated backward, blocking his path. He eventually gave up and skated backward away from me, trying to get a broader view of the ice so he could shoot from farther back. When he did that, I pressured him from the front, staying barely a foot away, so the only thing he had a good view of was my head.

It worked until it didn’t. Once when he was moving backward and I was in front of him, he deked left then shot forward to the right. Shifting rapidly, I lost my footing and fell on my ass.

After slamming the puck into the net, he had an obnoxious celly, circling around on one skate with his stick in the air, hooting at the top of his lungs. “1–0, Holmer, and I’m just getting started.”

“Skit!In your dreams.” I grabbed the puck and jetted away. He could play catch-up this time.

Soon he was in front of me, trying to steal the puck, and when that didn’t work, waving his arms, talking shit, and staying between me and the net. I’d found my game, so I soon had him going in circles. It was only a matter of time until—yes! He shifted too far to one side, and I wristed the puck between the posts.

“Fucker!” he yelled, laughing as I skated around, pumping my stick in the air.

“That’s 1–1, Gagné!” I yelled, following it with a big hoot. “Ready to be handed your ass?”

We kept it up until we were both soaked with sweat, laughing and cursing at each other as we alternated skating like pro players and little kids, falling more than once, and repeatedly knocking the puck into the goal. The score was 6–6 when he skated around me, and I lost sight of him for a second. By the time I’d swiveled enough to have him back on my radar, he was drawing back for a slapshot, which resulted in a perfect bar down goal.

After a shout of victory, he sped over to me, wearing a wide grin. “You made me work hard for that.”

“If you hadn’t cheated, I’d have won.”

“Cheated? Bullshit. You’re the one who kept making illegal moves.”

“Oh, and it’s allowed to dance around and wave your arms like an idiot?”

He skated forward until our chests were touching. “End justifies the means, big guy.”

His scent was strong, and my dick stirred in my pants. Not much turned me on like a sweaty Pip. I had to skate a couple of feet backwards to keep from kissing him. “You played well,” I said. “You worked me a lot harder than I expected you to.”

“Make it up to you?”

“What do you have in mind?” He’d stolen my breath away, so my voice was barely more than a whisper.

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