Page 63 of Scoring Position

And Ryanwouldlose him. They were both on a contract year, and Nico was going to need a huge raise. Ryan was a rental player. With other contracts expiring, Fuel management would be concentrating on those and on bolstering the blue line. There wouldn’t be room for Ryan on the roster, even if he wanted to stay, which he didn’t.

Lying in bed a few dozen feet from Nico’s bedroom and already hating the distance between them, it was impossible not to think of this as a preview of the relationship they could have when they inevitably ended up on different teams. Except then there’d be time zones, conflicting schedules, travel.

Ryan should probably break up with him now, before they dug themselves any deeper. That would be the responsible thing to do. Apart from one lamentable indiscretion in college, he had always been responsible. And Nico’s dad was right. Nico was too good for him, and everyone knew it—too sweet, too genuine, too good at hockey.

But if Nico hadn’t noticed, Ryan sure as fuck wasn’t going to point it out. He wasn’t a good enough person to do something that selfless. He’d spent his entire professional hockey career waiting for the other shoe to drop. He had plenty of practice.

So resolved, Ryan rolled onto his side, punched his pillow, and closed his eyes.

He expected to be awake long into the night. And though he did startle awake once just before drifting off, the hypnotic sounds of artificial waves from the white noise machine soothed him quickly. He was lulled back to sleep in minutes.

He didn’t dream.

THEY LOSTthe next game. It wasn’t a surprise, and at this point in the season, Ryan couldn’t say he was torn up about it. Sure, losing sucked, but it wasn’t exactly heartbreaking.

No, the loss wasn’t making Ryan’s heart hurt—Nico was.

Emotionally, he seemed to have backslid to October. He got caught in his head and made dumb mistakes. Ryan had tried to shock him out of his funk, but he was no match for Rudy Kirschbaum’s presence in the building.

Now, watching Nico slumped in his stall pensively taking off his gear, Ryan wished he could walk over and wrap him up and remind him that he was worth more than one bad game, that his dad was an idiot.

He also wanted to kidnap Nico and take him anywhere but home. Hitting the highway and driving to Canada felt like a better option than letting Nico go home to his father. Regardless of Rudy’s intentions, Ryan knew that whatever he said would leave Nico exhausted and vulnerable and convinced that he should have tried harder, done better.

Kitty leaned over and said something to Nico, who shrugged but replied. As Ryan watched, Nico slowly unbent. Ryan could forgive Kitty for all the side-eye he’d been sending Ryan if he could help Nico.

The car was painfully quiet when they got in, so Ryan put on some music. He even picked the playlist with the weird Russian dance music. He tried to start a conversation, but Nico wouldn’t bite. He sat clutching the steering wheel, so tense he was practically vibrating. Ryan gave up.

When Nico pulled into the garage and put the car in Park, Ryan couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed Nico’s arm and held him in place. “Hey. Remember you can’t play 110 percent every night.”

Nico grunted.

“Also….” This part was harder. Ryan was wary of criticizing family. Still, he had to saysomething, since he couldn’t crawl into Nico’s bed and pet his hair until the self-doubt disappeared. “Just because someone is family, that doesn’t mean that they’re always right. Not even about us.”

Nico looked at him. Ryan couldn’t read his expression.

“Try to remember that, okay? You played well—”

Nico snorted.

Ryan rolled his eyes. At least he’d gotten a reaction. “Fine, you playedokay. Maybe it wasn’t your best, but it wasn’t your worst, and next game will be better. No matter what anyone else has to say on the topic. Okay?”

Nico watched him for several long seconds. Then he leaned forward and gently kissed him on the lips. Short, sweet, affectionate. Coupley. “Thanks.” He was almost smiling when he got out of the car.

It shouldn’t have hit Ryan so hard, one simple word and a bare second of contact. But he still found himself sitting there longer than he should, fighting the urge to bring his hand to his mouth and the realization that he’d fallen so much faster than he thought he could.

THE DAYSbetween Christmas and Nico’s parents’ departure were tense.

At least, they were tense when Nico and his dad were home at the same time. They had away games the twenty-eighth and thirty-first, in Chicago and Detroit, which helped alleviate the tension. Nico played better with some space between him and his dad.

He should probably spend time thinking about that, but he didn’t want to.

They managed two wins, though Detroit forced them to overtimeagain, so altogether Nico felt pleased with himself and his four points. Even if he didn’t get to celebrate them the way he would have preferred, since they couldn’t always duck out of team outings.

Spending New Year’s on a plane back home wasn’t great either. Nico’s priority list had celebrating with Ryan at the top. If he couldn’t have that, he’d have liked to spend the flight catching up on his audiobook, a murder mystery he was desperate to get to the bottom of.

Several more spots down the list was being corralled by Misha on the team plane and getting peppered with interior decorating questions. As if Nico had done a single thing with his house other than move into it, unless you counted keeping up the yard.

But someone had to talk Misha out of painting his house in an increasingly bizarre palette of pastels, and apparently the job fell to Nico.

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