Page 40 of Goaltender Interference

Connor quickly lost track of his children as they ran off to play with their cousins, and Jesse disappeared down the stairs, captured by Finn, who was already talking his ear off about something.

Poor kid. Well, nothing like a trial by fire when it came to this family.

Instead of heading downstairs, Connor followed his mother into the large kitchen, where she was assembling a few trays to augment when she’d ordered from a caterer.

“Thanks for organizing this, Ma,” he said, leaning against the counter.

She gave him a warm smile. “I was glad you asked.”

He felt a little guilty that he’d been leaning on his parents so heavily since his divorce. When they were married, Viv had taken care of all of the social stuff. He was a grown-ass adult, he should know how to host a party. But his mom had decades of experience and he’d felt stretched so thin, scrambling to be enough for his team and his kids.

“What time is the team getting here?”

She glanced at the clock. “Half an hour. I figured we’d give Jesse a little time to acclimate to the family before we threw the team at him too.”

“Probably smart,” Connor agreed. “We’re a lot.”

Jesse would know how to handle himself with a hockey team. The O’Shea family? That took some practice.

“You know, I think he’ll fit in fine,” his mother said, pushing some boxes of crackers and a bag of chips his way. “He seems very outgoing.”

Connor snorted, dragging over a tray with a bowl of clam dip in the center. There were already some vegetables set out and he opened the bag of chips to add to it. “That’s one way to put it.”

“Do you have your hands full with him already?”

“He’s …” Connor thought about Jesse. Honestly, after the rocky first twenty-four hours of arriving late and getting his car towed, then being late to the PR stuff, he’d done well. However, Connorwas deeply skeptical that it would last. “He’s doing better than I expected.”

“Well that’s good, right?”

“It is,” Connor agreed.

He didn’t love the fact that Jesse was pretty much with him 24/7 but otherwise, it was going more smoothly than he would’ve expected.

Honestly, that made Connor nervous. When it came to kids, pets, and goaltenders, silence and good behavior were suspicious.

“How does he like his room?” his mom asked.

“You’d have to ask him but he seemed to like it.”

“And the girls?”

“Theylovetheir room,” Connor said with a smile. “They’re nuts about the bunk bed.”

“Good.” She stirred a slow cooker full of barbecue meatballs, the scent rising up and making Connor’s stomach rumble. “How’d Viv take to Jesse when they met?”

“Better than I expected,” Connor admitted. “I don’t know that she’s completely sold, but she’s at least not objecting to him living with us.”

What the fuck he would have done if she’d objected, Connor wasn’t sure. Probably he’d have begged his parents to take Jesse in, then apologized to Gavin and hoped he didn’t lose his captaincy.

But it was nice that now itappearedlike he actually had his life together.

“Oh, and the girls want to take Jesse riding,” Jesse added.

“Yeah?” Catherine chuckled. “I think you’ll have to find him something a little taller than Biscuit. Jesse has such long legs.”

Connor went warm under the collar of his Henley, thinking about those long, flexible legs. God, he needed to get laid. Not with Jesse of course, but Connor hadn’t fucked anyonesinceJesse and he was starting to feel it.

He’d spent long stretches of his marriage not having sex, so he wasn’t sure why it suddenly felt so urgent. It was like Jesse had ripped the lid off his libido and there was no stuffing Pandora’s mess back into the box. He’d spent way too much time jerking off in the shower and thinking about what else he and Jesse could have gotten up to after the wedding if the trade hadn’t happened.

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