Page 80 of Decked, Wrecked and Pucked
“Me? What the hell does that mean?”
“Dude, you look at them like you’d murder anyone who even breathes wrong around them. Only an idiot wouldn’t have figured it out.”
Zeke and Roman are both smiling, and my heart pounds like adrum in my chest from this overwhelming rush of love I never stop feeling for them.
“Why didn’t anyone say anything?” Zeke asks, shaking his head. “None of you went to Coach?”
“Hell no.” Lincoln shrugs. “It wasn’t our business. We figured you’d say something when you were ready. You’ve always had our respect, and nothing about this changes that.”
It’s strange how a moment you think might break everything wide open turns out to be the one that stitches you back together. There’s no fallout, no disaster, just the strength of men who know what it means to bleed for each other.
Brotherhood has always been the backbone of this team, and today, it holds steady, just like it always does. I look around the room, at faces I’ve battled beside, and at the two men standing next to me who carry my heart in their hands, and I know we made the right call.
There’s no more hiding, and whatever noise the outside world makes, whatever bullshit is thrown our way, we’ll face it head-on. Because we’re not just out, we’re free.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
ROMAN
It’s game day.
Zeke, Jasper, and I are already out on the ice—it’s barely five in the morning, but none of us could sleep. This is our first game since we went public with our relationship, and the world found out that the three of us are more than just linemates.
According to Coach, it’s all anyone’s talking about—sports networks, blogs, the league, sponsors. Some fans are rooting for us louder than ever. Some… not so much. We’re bracing for whatever’s coming but secretly hoping it’s not as bad as we fear. That’s why we’re here so early, skating laps and passing the puck.
Tonight, we play our rivals.
We’ll walk into that stadium with our heads high, with our team behind us, and maybe with the weight of the world on our backs, but we’ll carry it together.
I’m on edge, and I can feel it in every part of me. I miss my woman. We all do. It’s been a week since we returned to Boston, and every second without her feels like a punishment. I’m skating hard, pushing myself to the edge just to burn off the need clawing beneath my skin, but it doesn’t help.
Not when all I see is Addie.
Last night, we fucked our fists while she touched herself. Her fingers were buried between her thighs, her mouth parted, and her eyes half lidded and locked on us through a screen. That call should’ve taken the edge off, but it didn’t. It just made the distance worse.
We’re not built for separation. We’re built for touch, for skin-on-skin, and the kind of love that demands blood and bone and everything in between.
“Rome,” Jasper says, snapping me out of my spiral. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I call back, a little too loud.
“You’re all over the place,” he says, and he’s right.
My brain’s a fucking minefield, and every thought is way too loud. I’m trying to figure out how to protect Zeke and Jasper when that puck drops and thousands of strangers are watching, attempting to dissect something they’ll never understand. They don’t know our hearts, and they don’t see how fiercely we love or how deep it runs between us. And Addie… fuck. I don’t even know when she’s getting here, and that uncertainty is chewing me up from the inside.
Suddenly, both of them are at my side, skates scraping the ice. I lean back against the boards, my helmet clattering against the wall.
“What’s going on, big guy?” Zeke asks, searching my face for answers.
“I don’t know… I’m just?—”
“She’ll be here soon,” Jasper says softly.
“It’s not just Addie. It’s everything about tonight too.”
Zeke cups the back of my neck, and the second his skin touches mine, it’s like the chaos quiets. “We’ve got this.”
