Page 20 of Love of the Game
DRAKE
I hadn’t realized how awful living in a hotel room had been until Loki walked into the room and sat in my suitcase while I was unpacking.
Damn, that cat was huge. When stretched out in the suitcase, he took up one entire side, almost. And this was a full-sized one, not a carryon. I gave him a pet on the head. “I’m gonna need to get the rest of that stuff out, buddy.”
He pushed his head against my hand and started to purr, which sounded kind of like a motorcycle engine.
So I moved on to one of my other suitcases.
I hadn’t broughtthatmuch with me. Suits. Some casual wear. T-shirts and shorts. I wondered what Jon wore around his house. I’d seen him in a suit and in chaps and a leather jacket, and in Otters team sweats. Also half naked in the locker room. Those tattoos of his were something else.
Loki took an interest in everything I touched, and fuck, he was… long and massive and loudly purring at me.
“I guess you really are marking me as yours, huh?” This smoky dark lion of a cat. Felt weirdly odd to be part of something in Jon’s life other than hockey.
His giant cat liked me. Life couldn’t be that bad, could it?
Eventually, despite Loki’s help, I got all my clothes put away in the huge closet, my toiletries unpacked into the bathroom, and my few books, tablet, and laptop set down on the desk. One of the windows in the room looked out toward the side of the house. I could see both the road and the edge of the woods behind, depending on which why I stared.
This place was kind of amazing. So different from my apartment in downtown Pittsburgh, though I loved that space, too. I felt— liminal. I think that was the word… caught between two times and spaces. I was an NAPH player playing in the PHL and I felt like a failure, but also I had so much of my career ahead of me. I wanted to tell Jon about my life, what was rattling around in my head, but I didn’t even know where to begin. He’d shared an awful lot of himself with me in the past—God, had it only been two days? And this place, this peace. Stress and worry peeled off me just being here, but what was left was—a hollowness. I’d been fine on the ice this morning, but now?
I didn’t know what I was now. Liminal. Between.
Fuck. I picked up my phone and scrolled through my contact list until I got the sports therapist I’d had sessions with my first season. Put my phone back down. Sat on the bed and pet Loki, who crawled into my lap.
And that’s where Jon found me when he climbed the stairs from the ground floor and appeared at the open door.
“I see Loki has decided you’re his now.” Jon’s smile was magnificent. “The little traitor.”
“There is nothing little about this beast.” I scratched under Loki’s chin. “You’re a big, beautiful monster, aren’t you?” I crooned at him.
Loki closed his eyes and, remarkably, purred louder.
Jon chuckled. “He likes you a lot. He’s friendly with everyone, but your lap is the first one he’s ever gotten in on day one.” He shifted his gaze around the room. “You settled in?”
“Yeah, as much as I can. This is so much better than a hotel.”
“I know, right?” he said.
When he wasn’t smiling, Jon looked like one of those sly foxes, like a trickster deity. But smiling like that? He was—I don’t know—a prince. Something out of a storybook. Perfect. Beautiful.
Yeah, I’d been swept off my feet. He hadn’t even kissed me yet. What the hell would it be like when he did?
I ducked my head. “Thanks again. I know you said you do this a lot, but I was… I was shitty coming in here and you didn’t…”
“Drake.”
I met his gaze. His smile was softer. “It’s all good. Turn the page.” He nodded in the direction of the steps downstairs. “Come down and eat.”
I followed him down to the dining area off his kitchen. Jon filled the silence, as he sometimes did. “I forgot to ask you how you like your steak, so I did one medium and one medium rare and you can have either.” He leveled me with a look. “If you want it more done than that, tough. I’m not burning it for you.”
I laughed outright at that. “I usually order medium rare, but I’m fine with either.”
He indicated the seat I should take, so I sat. Along with the steak, there was also a heaping amount of salad, and some kind of mixed grain and vegetable dish, plus a bottle of red wine. All of it looked good.
“You cook often?” A lot of the guys in Pittsburgh got meal services, even the guys with partners. I understood, really. We eat a lot, have particular dietary needs, and fuck if I wanted to cook that much. Plus, many of the guys have kids and given our travel schedule—well. I didn’t envy their partners having to run a household by themselves a good portion of the year.
He shrugged in a way I was taking to mean “yes but I’m going to downplay it.” “I like to cook,” he said. “Honestly, though, it’s so much easier to cook for two than one, so I’m grateful for the company.”
