Page 94 of Hockey Bois
Ugh, stupid Brady. The guy was in Pittsburgh and certainlynotthinking about Nick, so why was Nick thinking about him?
Because Nick was an idiot, that was why.
Fuck his life.
“Were you showing off for my cousin?” he asked Gail as they skated away from the handshake line. Nick had noted that the guy Gail had checked hadn’t made eye contact with her as she fist-bumped him.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Gross. You know he wet the bed until he was five.”
Gail snorted. “Yeah, so did both of my brothers. I’m not surprised. Boys are gross.”
Later, Nick not-so-subtly pulled Jenna aside in the lobby, letting Gail and Terry flirt and exchange numbers while Nick did his best to talk around the elephant in the room.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t score for you.”
“It’s okay, I know you’re no Ovechkin. Even he can’t score on command, I assume.”
“Well, actually, there are a lot of times when he—”
Jenna shut him up with A Look. “You looked good out there. Almost like you’ve been doing this your whole life.”
“Almost?”
“Considering this is, what, a year after you really started? C’mon, that’s pretty good!”
“Yeah, yeah.” He blushed and did his best to come up with something, anything, he could say to keep things centered on hockey.
“I’m sorry I’m giving you so much shit about Brady,” Jenna said. “I want you to be happy. I saw you playing tonight, and you were definitely happy. So… I guess I’ll ease off and let you figure out the ‘cute boy’ issue, since you seem to be handling it okay so far. Not healthily,” she added, “but you’re not a mess about it, so that’s something.”
“Thank you. I’ll take that ‘not a mess’ as a compliment.” He nodded toward where Terry was babbling his way through a goodbye. “You backing off on me because you need to focus on that ‘definitely a mess’ over there?”
Jenna peeked over her shoulder and winced. “Oof, yeah. I mean, good on him, but yikes. Terry is so very… Terry.”
“And Gail is very,veryGail.”
“I like her, though.”
“Was it the ‘humoring you before the game’ or the ‘yelling shit at men who towered over her’?”
“Both, for sure. I’m Terry’s ride so I gotta head out. Movie this weekend?”
“Of course.” He rubbed his hands over her hair and pulled her into a half-hug. “Enjoy smelling like sweaty hockey player.”
“Gross.” It didn’t stop her from hugging him back. “Night.”
“Night.”
*
In Nick’s defense, he didn’t mean to Facebook-stalk Brady. He was avoiding getting out of bed on Sunday morning. It was pouring rain, and the paths he liked to run would be flooded, so his usual motivation to get up was ruined. He had nothing but week-old leftovers and an empty DVR, so there was no siren call to lure him downstairs.
Therewasa nice warm bed right here, and a fully charged phone with a dozen apps that could keep him distracted until even the leftovers looked appetizing.
Facebook was merelyoneof those apps. Not even the first one he checked. He wasn’tlookingfor Brady; he was scrolling to see what people were up to. That was a thing he did, a completely normal thing, and never ever did friggin’ Brady Derek Jensen appear on his feed because Brady Derek Jensen did not post to Facebook, so therefore he couldnotbe using it to stalk Brady.
As it turned out, Brady’s sisterdidpost to Facebook. As did her new husband. And their friends and family. And all of them were diligent about tagging the relevant people in the many, many,manypictures they posted of the wedding festivities. Pictures andvideos.
