Page 104 of Unrivaled

Max smiled ruefully. He still looked tired, but the sadness around his eyes had faded. “I slept through breakfast.”

“How?” He shook his head. “And then you went and did a full practice. I’d better feed you before you keel over. Baller will kill me.”

They decamped to the kitchen, where Max took a seat at the island while Grady threw together some omelets. “What’s his deal, anyway?”

An excellent question. “Baller?” Grady shook his head. It wasn’t just that Baller was an incurable romantic and the league’s biggest busybody. He wanted his friends to live happily ever after, and if that meant meddling in their love lives, that was what he’d do. “He thinks he’s everyone’s fairy godfather.”

Max snickered. “Aren’t you older than he is?”

“Four months,” Grady confirmed. “He says it’s because he became an Old Married at a young age.”

“I’d buy it.”

Grady plated the omelets and sat down next to Max with their knees touching, and Max ate like he’d never seen food before. Grady let him go at it for several minutes. “How the fuck did you sleep past breakfast if you’re this hungry?”

Max looked up from his plate, sheepish. “Software glitch. Apparently putting my phone on Do Not Disturb also killed my alarm.”

That explained why Max never texted him back. “Why did you put your phone on Do Not Disturb?”

He pushed a bite of omelet to the side of his plate. “I got overwhelmed reading all the goodbye texts.”

Poor Max.

Grady nudged his ankle in support. He left it there until the meal was finished.

“WE SHOULDprobably talk more,” Max said in bed later. He was eye level with Grady’s tattoo, dancing his fingertips over the ink. Despite the fact that it was obviously a joke, it was beautiful. Max was going to leave a hickey on it next time. “But first—did you deliberately get this on this hip so it would line up with Larry when we fuck doggy style?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Grady rumbled, which meant he absolutely had.

Max smiled and raised his head. “You romantic asshole.”

Grady snorted and wrapped his hand around Max’s upper arm. He tugged until Max crawled up the bed to lie down face-to-face. “You wanted to talk,” he said.

Not so much that he wanted to, but playoffs were coming. This wouldn’t have mattered so much when Grady played for the Firebirds, who had as much chance of making the playoffs as they did of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But the Piranhas and the Condors were neck and neck for first place in the Pacific Division. They might play each other in the first or second round. Only one team could advance.

“Playoffs,” Max said.

Grady lifted Max’s hand and laced their fingers together. Apparently months of frustrated romantic tendencies had pushed to the surface now that the dam had broken. “Yeah. That’s going to be interesting.”

“One word for it.” Max pillowed his head on his other hand. He had a good understanding of his own strengths and failures. He could handle a playoff series loss to the Condors without torpedoing his relationship with Grady, but if he did something stupid or played badly and fell into a funk because of that, it would complicate matters.

On the other hand, Grady had never compartmentalized well. If the Condors lost to the Piranhas, Max anticipated a lot of sulking and bitterness.

But he wasn’t going to come out and say,Hey, babe, are you going to break up with me if my team eliminates yours?That would be a terrible way to restart their relationship. It wasn’t like Grady didn’t know what he was like.

So Max said diplomatically, “How are we going to handle that?”

“Badly?” Grady guessed.

Max smothered a laugh. Grady knew what he was like, all right. “I’m serious.”

“Oh, a role reversal,” Grady teased. “Really, I don’t know. It’ll be one day at a time. We’ll just have to….” He made a face as he trailed off.

“Communicate?” Max suggested wryly. “Not your strong suit.”

“God, this is going to be awful.”

“Hi, honey. I really love you a lot, but if you score on my team tonight, you’re not getting laid for a week.”

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