Page 27 of Body Check

“Sparkles aren’t your style?” Jesse teased.

“It’s less the sparkles than the whole dating-a-teammate shit.”

“Oh God, you sound like Crawford.”

“No! Dude! Fucking take that back!”

Dakota smiled as their voices faded and he stretched his legs.

He generally wasn’t the sort of person who had trouble sitting still, but long flights always made him a little antsy.

Eventually, when Dakota was afraid he was making a nuisance of himself, he sat again and read for a while until they were served lunch. He ate it, grateful no one had batted an eye when he’d requested vegetarian meals at the beginning of the season.

After lunch, he read a little bit more, then stood, stretching.

He caught a glimpse of Gavin looking at him intently before he glanced away.Huh. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately and Dakota wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

After another stroll up and down the aisle of the plane, Dakota used the toilet in the back.

When he came out, he was face-to-face with Gavin.

“Sorry,” Dakota muttered, though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for.

The charter flight was roomier than most planes, but Gavin wasn’t a small man and Dakota had to turn sideways to slip by him.

“No, you’re fine. Excuseme.” Gavin pressed a hand briefly to Dakota’s waist as they traded positions, the touch sending an unexpected shiver through him.

Their bodies brushed and Dakota’s skin heated.

He glanced at Gavin, struck once again by the color of his eyes. They were a deep amber with little flecks of mossy green in them.

Dakota froze and Gavin did too, staring right back at him. He licked his lips and Gavin did the same, his gaze trained on Dakota’s mouth.

There was a laugh from the front part of the plane that seemed to shake them both out of their staring contest and Dakota turned away, shakily walking back to his seat.

He couldn’t resist a quick, final glance over his shoulder though and when he did, he found Gavin still looking at him with a thoughtful expression on his face.

As Dakota slipped into his seat, he wondered what the hell that had been about.

In anyone else he would have immediately chalked it up to attraction without questioning it. But even as his brain scrambled for alternate explanations for the way Gavin had been looking at him lately, he couldn’t come up with anything else.

This couldn’t be his imagination. There was something here, right? Some mutual attraction? There had to be.

Dakota didn’t have any intention ofdoinganything about it but, well, it was flattering to think that he’d managed to catch Gavin’s attention that way.

SIX

Gavin sat back from his enormous meal with a contented sigh, surveying the table of happy, laughing people.

Following the team’s loss in San Jose and win in Anaheim, the guys would spend the next few days practicing and playing a game in LA, before heading back home to Boston.

Tonight, they’d chosen to go to a Brazilian steakhouse, which had been a compromise between Connor’s love of steak and Jesse’s desire to do something new.

Gavin had been a little surprised the coaching and support staff had been invited as well, but he had no complaints. Leah, Danny, and Dakota had been seated around him at the long table set up on the restaurant’s patio and it had been a delicious meal with good conversation.

Heavy on the meat, exactly the way he liked it.

“Were you able to get enough to eat?” Gavin asked Dakota.

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