Page 69 of Gap Control

"Congrats. You made it to round two."

He grinned and nudged my shoulder, then wiped his hand on the blanket with zero shame. "You know, statistically, you're now part of a very elite club."

"Someone should give me a ribbon."

He reached up, plucked a pillow off the bed, and lightly smacked me in the side of the head. "That was a very delicate moment, Ryker. We just crossed a major threshold. You can't ruin it with a joke."

"Sorry." I wasn't sorry at all. "I'll send you a trophy in the mail. Something tasteful."

He hit me again. We both crawled up onto the bed. "You're incorrigible."

"Big word for you."

He grinned, grabbed the other pillow, and swung both at once. Feathers exploded from a split seam, drifting down over the covers, settling over our naked bodies. TJ looked at the mess he'd made, then at me, and then at the mess again.

It broke something loose inside me. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the fact that my body was still humming, or the whole post-game, post-sex afterglow, but I started to laugh. It was good and loud until my stomach ached.

He kept whacking at me until I wrestled the pillow from his grip and pinned him, both of us wheezing, feathers in our mouths, covered in sweat and stuffing.

We looked like absolute hell. We looked like home.

Eventually, we collapsed side by side, a heap of limbs and half-suffocated giggles.

TJ poked me in the side. "You realize we'll have to clean this up, right?"

"Not tonight." I burrowed into the crook of his shoulder. I closed my eyes.

Soon, his breath evened out, slow and steady, as he drifted off. My mind spun for a while about hockey, what was happening in my apartment, and whether it was as simple as it felt.

I woke up with TJ half on top of me, drooling into my shoulder, his hair a crime scene. He was heavy and warm and smelled like sleep and the faintest hint of strawberry gym deodorant.

It was impossible to move without waking him, so I didn't. I lay there, listening to his soft snores and watching how his hand twitched when he dreamed.

Around six, he blinked awake, rubbed at his face, and mumbled, "Did we actually do it on the floor, or was that a weird hockey dream?"

I grunted. "Check the rug burn."

Chapter fifteen

TJ

Coach MacPherson clapped his hands once. Loud, sharp. Like a starter pistol going off in a library.

He stood at the whiteboard like he was about to recite a eulogy or start a bar fight. "Gentlemen, we are officially in spitting distance of a playoff berth. I don't say that lightly, because spitting is a penalty. Keep your fluids to yourselves."

The room stayed quiet. Not respectful quiet—more like braced-for-impact quiet. Coach Mac was holding a marker like it might explode, and his eyes had that wild sparkle they got when he was either inspired or sleep deprived.

He drew a bracket. Rough, angular, just names and lines, no flair. Then he slapped a big red circle around the Forge logo with a satisfying squeak of marker on dry-erase.

"You know what that is? That's your goddamn destiny. Circled. In red. Which symbolizes blood, obviously. Passion. Guts. Possibly cherry Gatorade."

Lambert cleared his throat, clearly trying not to smile. Monroe leaned back and mouthed, "Here we go."

Coach pointed the marker at us like a weapon. "You've been skating like you want it. You've been grinding like you want it. Even you, TJ—though let's talk later about your definition of defensive zone responsibility."

I saluted from the bench. He ignored me.

"You give me four more weeks like that? You stay hungry, stay gritty, stay out of jail—we're not just a team with heart. We're a team with teeth. You hear me? TEETH."

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