Page 130 of The Trade Deadline
Thompkins didn’t seem amused by the sass, and he didn’t even glance Ryan’s way as he followed Lars down the tunnel, as though making sure Lars didn’t turn around or do something stupid.
The doors for the zambonis were already open, the drivers waiting for him. With nothing left, he got off the ice and followed Anders to the Otters’ locker room.
Game time.
Chapter39
Lars
BLUE CRABS RETURN TO BALTIMORE DOWN 0-2 IN SERIES
Lars aggressively swiped awaythe notification and glared at his phone for betraying him with that stupid headline. What an awful way to wake up.
He didn’t like losing. Obviously he didn’t like it. You couldn’t get this far in professional sports without having a competitive drive, and that went hand-in-hand with wanting to win. Lars could handle losing. He could bounce back and he could talk himself down from being too upset and spiraling into worse games. It hadn’t been that bad, back on the Prowlers. They won more than they lost, and it never seemed like a dry spell lasted more than three games.
With the Crabs, he’d had to grow some tougher skin. There’d definitely been worse streaks than three losses in a row, and some of those losses had beenbad. He’d thought he’d matured a lot over the season by not letting it ruin his focus.
Turned out he was wrong. It was really just having Ryan there suffering with him that had made it okay. Now he was losingtoRyan. In theplayoffs. One playoff loss hurt as much as a month’s worth of regular season games, and it was brutal to be around someone who was happy about the series, even if Ryan was doing his best to hide his excitement.
It was fucking awful.
Except he was really proud of Ryan. Ryan, who never necessarily wenteasyon former teammates but was obviously still friendly with most of them, locked into every game the second the puck dropped. It didn’t matter that they were often in the face-offs against each other or battling along the boards. Ryan genuinely didn’t seem to notice or care if it was Lars or Jake or Vorny or anyone. He played, he went hard, and he wasspectacular.
“Why the fuck did they trade him?” Tomas had hissed in the locker room during the first intermission of Game Two; moments before, Ryan had embarrassed the whole team by skating through them and scoring a beautiful backhand goal. “We’d be winning this series right now.”
“Or if you’d do your job and score,” Pavel had muttered as he pulled off his jersey.
“If you’d doyourjob andstopthem from scor?—”
“Enough,” Thompkins had snapped. Credit where credit was due: no one had thought the Crabs would get this far and despite not having much playoff experience, Thompkins had done a hell of a job adapting to the Pythons. They just couldn’t seem to get a handle on the Otters. “We’re all going to do our jobs and keep our heads in the game. Let’s win this next period and build from there.”
They hadn’t won that period, or the next. Certainly not the game. It was an uphill battle, and Lars was starting to worry they needed to focus on not getting swept versus actually winning the series. He wasn’t used to being the underdog, and he really didn’t like it.
Ryan’s breath hitched on a snore and then evened out again. He snuggled closer to Lars, his arms around Lars’s waist and his nose buried in his hair.
It was really hard to stay upset when he got to see Ryan every day. The longer this series lasted, the longer they could pretend nothing had changed. Great motivation, honestly. Lars knew where he stood, but there were too many variables to know what that meant for them. He was absolutely in love with Ryan and wanted to continue being with him, and was absolutely dying to call Ryan his boyfriend. He’d never had a real boyfriend, and the idea made him giddy.
And that was as far as he got. What did it mean if they were boyfriends? Would they keep it a secret? Lars was out, a fact that he’d mostly been ignoring but would probably have to deal with sooner rather than later. Ryan wasn’t, though, and he had no idea how feasible going public was. Did the league have any rules against it? And how would things work long distance? Sure, Ohio and Baltimore weren’t far and it was convenient that Ryan was near Lars’s family, but that was only a guarantee until the playoffs ended and Ryan’s contract was up. What if Ryan didn’t evenwanta relationship and?—?
He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath for ten seconds, let it out slowly and started over. It took effort to clear his head, but he did it. This was a later problem, and one he’d tackle with Ryan.
His flight wasn’t until the afternoon; he set an alarm on his phone and rolled onto his back, pulling Ryan with him. He fell back to sleep with his fingers trailing along Ryan’s beard.
* * *
“I can’t believe you shoved me out of the crease,” Ryan grumbled as he discarded his dress slacks and began on the buttons of his shirt. They were at Lars’s apartment after Game Three—a narrow victory for the Crabs—waiting for the shower to heat up. Neither wanted to admit it, but they were sore and tired and needed the scalding water to help them relax. “You could’ve hurt me.”
“It was either me or Vorny, and Vorny wouldn’t have been so gentle,” Lars said. He’d seen Vorny winding up to slash Ryan’s legs out from under him, so he’d practically tackled Ryan to get him out of the way. It’d earned him a roughing penalty. “Though they probably wouldn’t have given him a penalty.”
“Can you believe they dinged me for one, too?” Ryan hadn’t known it was Lars who’d knocked him over, so he’d blindly shoved back. When he’d seen who it was, he’d rolled his eyes and huffed an annoyed,“Really?”Lars had even tried arguing with the refs, swearing up and down they weren’t trying to hurt each other. They hadn’t bought it, and the two had shrugged helplessly at each other from their respective penalty boxes. It’d been kind of funny, actually, though their teams hadn’t thought so. Anders, at least, had looked amused when he’d skated by and caught Lars’s eye.
“They didn’t call shit when we played the Pythons,” Lars said. He checked the water, just shy of being too hot, and held the shower curtain back for Ryan. “I could’ve used one when your winger interfered with me.”
“First of all”—Ryan stepped into the tub—“that wasn’t interference. You’re just not as fast as you think you are. Second of all, they barely call interference in the regular season. They sure as heck aren’t calling itnow. Most importantly, why aren’t you in the shower with me?”
Lars couldn’t argue; he got into the shower and they stopped talking about hockey (or anything) for the rest of the night.
* * *
