Page 20 of On Thin Ice

Bryan glanced over at him. “A hookup? Good. You need—”

Jacob interrupted him because that was the last thing he wanted to hear. Especially not right now when he was trying to focus onnotsaying fuck it and just taking it. “No. Not a hookup. Uh . . .Finn Reynolds. That’s who showed up.”

Bryan did a double take. “Not . . .well,that’sawkward.”

“Yep. Morgan’s son. He’s a goalie for the local college’s hockey team. Really pretty decent goalie, I think.”

“You think?” Bryan’s question seemed innocent enough, but Jacob knew better.

“I might’ve watched him a bit,” Jacob conceded, breath coming out in faster pants. “Mostly out of curiosity. And then we ran into each other when I went to their fundraiser a few weeks back.”

“Mostly?”

It was annoying how Bryan always knew what he wasn’t saying.

“He’s not a child, you know. I’m not—I wouldn’t—Idon’t.”

“Hey, I didn’t sayanything.” Bryan threw his arms up in mock innocence as they took another turn, moving deeper into the forest.

Jacob had set a bit of a punishing pace—the reason he wasn’t going to touch with a ten-foot pole—but Bryan seemed to be keeping up just fine. He might’ve not had a career as a professional athlete, but he’d kept himself fit.

“He’s twenty-one, and besides, it’s not like that.”

“Yeah, ’cause Morgan would murder you. Might murder you, anyway, frankly, but this would only add more fuel to the fire.”

“I can’t imagine Finn telling him,” Jacob said. “Even about the coaching.”

“So that’s what he wanted, huh? Not to get into your pants, but to get into your mind?” Bryan snorted.

“Something like that.”

“And you’re going to do it.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Well . . .” He’d said he would. Even though he’d said no initially, hedidwant to help Finn with all the demons plaguing him, despite all the very good reasons not to. And then there was the fact that Finn could also helphim.

A fact he might not have even considered except that he’d only been in his hot tub, drinking wine because the meeting with Sophie and Mark had frustrated him so much. Maybe Finn wasn’t an expert on image, but he could give Jacob a different perspective.

“You’re going to do it,” Bryan repeated, this time with a smile tilting the side of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Well, God help you,” Bryan teased.

“I know,” Jacob grumbled. He pushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “Except I don’t know how to be a fucking coach. I don’t know how to teach him how to not give a shit about his dad.”

“Let me guess—he came to you because his impression of the situation is that Morgan was always bothered by you, but you didn’t give a crap about Morgan.”

Jacob nodded.

“Well, that’ll be an interesting conversation.”

“It’s not that I wasbotheredby Morgan.”

“No, but we both know it was more complicated than that. Maybe the world didn’t know about it because you didn’t spout off about the dickhead every chance you got, but he bothered you.”

And there it was, in a nutshell.

“Icanteach him to block out noise, though. I can teach him to be a good—agreat—goalie.”

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