Page 129 of Hockey Bois
fair
Within an hour, he had all his stuff behind the main lobby desk waiting for him to rush out if he got the chance. He pushed overcooked eggs back and forth on his plate, his stomach too unsettled to keep anything down.
“Are they gonna fire you?” Brady asked by way of hello. He’d loaded up a plate with bacon, eggs, sausage, fruit, a chocolate donut, and an English muffin.
Nick’s stomach turned again. “I fucking hope not, and I doubt it.”
“Okay,” Brady said around his first bite. “That’s a plus. But you’ll be up shit creek if you don’t make it back into the office tomorrow?”
“Something like that.”
Brady was quiet for a good minute. He ate his food, but Nick sensed that there was more coming. Like he was only pretending to eat to fill the time, to put the necessary space between his previous questions and his next one. “You know,” he said, dragging out the words, “it’s only a nine-hour drive back.”
Nick blinked at him. “Okay.”
“I got room in my car,” Brady said conversationally, like he didn’t know what he was doing. “For your gear, too. I can leave whenever. Get you there by this evening.”
Nick sat there frozen. Half of him really wanted to accept, because fuck he needed to get back and this was an easy way to do it. He liked road trips, though he rarely went on them, and he got along so well with Brady. But the other half of him knew it was a bad idea because… well… because…
“Yeah, okay. You sure it’s fine? I can pay for gas—”
“Dude, shut up. I gotta drive anyway. It’s not like you’re weighing down my car enough for me to get worse gas mileage.”
“I could buy you lunch,” Nick insisted, because if this were more of a business transaction than a favor, maybe that would let Nick dodge whatever it was that terrified him about spending nine hours alone with Brady in the confined space of his Jeep. “Snacks for the road?”
“Well, obviously,” Brady agreed. “I also put my breakfast on your room tab, so we’ll start with that.”
Nick kicked him under the table. “You’re an ass.”
“I’m offering to smuggle you across country borders. More like a ‘godsend’ and ‘hero.’”
“Look, if you’re gonna rub it in that you’re helping—”
“Eat your breakfast and we can head out. I wanna get out of here before the weather gets worse.”
Nick didn’t think that was possible—what’s worse than grounding all flights?—but he didn’t argue. If his flight was postponed indefinitely, then maybe itwasgetting worse.
Fuck.
*
They were twenty minutes onto the road, the wipers going full blast as rain pelted down and cast the road ahead of them into gray obscurity, when Nick got a text from the airline.
Unknown Number (9:19 a.m.)
United Flight 827B canceled. Please text “Help” to connect with an agent who can assist you with finding hotel accommodations or making alternative travel arrangements.
“Great,” he snorted. If he’d waited until now to make a move, he’d have been stuck with his rental car and a solo drive home.
“Problem?” Brady asked, voice raised over the rain. It was one of the hidden perks of the storm. Nine hours in the car was a lot, and Nick still dreaded the possibilities that could come up… but conversation was nearly impossible. Nick couldn’t fall harder for a guy if they couldn’t actually talk to each other.
Right?
Nick held up his phone, not that he expected Brady to read it. “Flight is officially canceled. Guess I made the right call.”
Brady nodded and hummed in agreement. Or at least that’s how Nick imagined it, a deep rumble that was a rare show of approval. Better than the grunts he gave during games when he was too winded to talk, better than his small smiles because those had onlyseemedrare when he first met Brady but were actually pretty common—a brightness that started in his eyes, twitched at his lips, and maybe crinkled his eyes if Nick was lucky. No, the low hum was one Nick had only heard a few times, most recently when Nick had reluctantly praised the Pens’ PK unit this season.
Shit, apparently the silencewasn’thelping. Instead of bitching about the tournament, he was thinking about eye crinkles and cataloging casual ways Brady showed happiness. That wasn’t very platonic of him, was it?
