Page 120 of Hockey Bois
“He didn’t say shit!” Gail pressed her pointer finger into Terry’s cheek. “You’re cute, though, so I’m gonna let it slide. You, though…” She rounded back on Nick so quickly he jumped. “You aren’t off the hook. Spill.”
“Spill?” He looked around at the ground. Was that what happened to his beer?
“About you and your bromance with Jensie. Is it really bro and not just mance? You two are all buddy-buddy all the time, and sometimes it looks like you wanna grab his stupid face and kiss him.”
Nick was not so drunk that he couldn’t feel embarrassment, red hot and prickly, heating up his cheeks. He was too drunk, however, to stop his answer. He leaned forward, luckily hit a table that kept him from toppling over, and said, “I would love to grab his stupid face and kiss him.”
Gail flailed wildly. “Then whynot? Is that why you two were stupid out of sync? I know I said I don’t—” She hiccuped, hiding her mouth behind her hand in surprise as she waited for another hiccup to subside. “I don’t really want to know, but Terry and your girl Jenna got medyingwith all their gossipy shit.”
Nick leaned in even more. At this point, his whole torso was on the table, and Gail mirrored him, arms folded in front of her in interest. He cupped his hand around his mouth as he whispered, “I have no fucking clue what the problem is.”
Gail mock smacked him, barely the brush of her hand against his hair, but he vividly recalled every time she’d knocked over someone twice her size (sometimes three times her size) and winced reflexively. “Y’all are a fucking mess.”
“Babe,” Terry said gently.
Nick choked on his nonexistent drink.
She put up her hands in surrender. “I’m done. They can continue to be a fucking mess so long as that mess can play hockey.”
“I just won a fucking championship!” Nick said, voice booming with the word championship. “I can play the hockeys!”
“Champions!” Lexi called out and lifted a drink. “Another round!”
This led to another, even worse, chorus ofWe Are the Championswhich he was fairly certain most of the bar onlookers were filming.
By the end of the night, Nick had gravitated into Brady’s space. He looked too damn hot, happy and easy in a way he normally wasn’t. Nick was like a moth to a flame. It hurt his chest when he saw how Benns and Brady would take turns protectively cradling the coffee cup, their reputations as Captain and Alternate Captain on the line if they didn’t return it in one piece. There’d been no warnings about it reeking of booze, and he was sure the league would make an amendment that the cup also needed to be properly cleaned before being returned.
Nick drank in the sight even though a voice in the back of his head warned him he should stop.
His cousins knew.
Gail knew.
Who else knew about his inconvenient, undying crush?
…Brady probably knew and had more-or-less decided they worked better like this. Or maybe he’d decided it would be too messy to get involved with someone on his team.
Itwouldbe messy, probably, no matter how much Nick craved the good parts. He watched Brady dump a fresh beer into the cup, then sip from it like it was hot coffee in a regularly proportioned mug. “So messy,” he grumbled to himself, no longer believing it. “Totally not worth it.”
His feet also didn’t agree, moving him closer. No longer just at the same table, but side by side, practically sharing a chair as Brady gushed about the game, the whole championship run. It was adorable, and Nick’s drunken tongue couldn’t add anything more articulate than the occasional “For sure.”
At the end of the night, they were too drunk to drive. Some of the smarter, more forward-thinking members of the team had sobered up or even gone home to get to bed, but Nick and Brady were among those stranded outside the closed bar. They’d abandoned their cars at the rink hours ago, and they scrambled to get the sparse Ubers in the area to come their way.
“We can share,” Brady offered as he leaned over Nick’s shoulder to look at his phone. “You live pretty close to me. I could walk it.”
Nick’s mouth was so dry he had to swallow twice before he could actually speak. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.”
The drive got lost in the murkiness of an alcohol-soaked night. Things were said, arms brushed against each other, and the coffee cup—finally reclaimed by Benns before he disappeared home—was loudly missed.
“You shouldn’t have to walk home,” Nick grumbled. “It’s 2 a.m. Not safe. Not worth it.”
“Can take care of myself,” Brady scoffed. He followed Nick up his front steps. Into the foyer. Right past him into the living room where he flopped onto the couch. “Can I stay here?” he mumbled into the throw pillow. “Tired.”
“’kay,” Nick said. He had to tap down something welling up inside his chest. “I’ll get you a blanket?”
“Water?”
“Aspirin?”
