9. Denny

9

DENNY

P layoff hockey was a whole new kind of stress. I thought I knew what I was in for: nonstop travel, high-profile press conferences, and physically grueling games. My two trips to the Frozen Fours with Denver and my AHL playoffs last year were a glimpse into the future, but the reality was ten times more nerve-wracking.

As per my usual, I was one thousand percent in the zone while I was on the ice and a complete basket case in street clothes. Well, not really. I was actually doing okay lately. I used breathing exercises and mindset awareness techniques to talk myself through a few spur-of-the-moment interviews where I'd been cornered, a microphone shoved in my face. They worked.

That was bigger news than I wanted to admit. I mean, last year, I'd had a panic attack in a crowded elevator that had brought me to my knees. Yeah, that was mortifying. The team doctor had diagnosed exhaustion, which my coach decided sounded better than a bout of crippling anxiety.

I'd known from the start that if I wanted a career in the NHL, I was going to have to find creative ways to handle my stress. Most of the time, I called a friend from home—usually MK. She had a calming voice, and she knew me. I didn't have to pretend I was okay with her.

But we weren't who we used to be. There was an unspoken tension between us neither of us wanted to address. She had someone new and I didn't want to interfere with that, which meant we probably needed to make a clean break and tell our friends and family members. It was the right thing to do—after playoffs.

For now, I needed to concentrate on my game. I didn't have the bandwidth to deal with outside complications. That should have included Hank, but in a twist, my gay fuck-buddy was the ultimate stress reliever.

There wasn't much to it. We saw each other two more times in Denver—once early on in the playoffs and after a nail-biter where I'd scored the winning goal that propelled us to the next round and helped the Condors move one step closer to the Stanley Cup. Exciting stuff, right?

When he buzzed into my apartment building later that night, my heart pounded faster than it had during the third period. We came together in a heated tangle of tongues and grabby hands, tearing at clothes in a frantic effort to get to skin. We were desperate for friction yet unwilling to stop kissing long enough to speed things along.

Or maybe we knew speed wasn't the issue. I came the second Hank took both of us in hand, sliding his cock alongside mine. Three strokes and I was done. Later, we took a lazy shower. At some point, he fell to his knees on the tile and sucked the life out of me while I threaded my fingers in his hair. He milked me dry, then stood, turned me to face the wall, and rubbed his cock against my ass, spurting cum over my lower back.

I vaguely recalled drying off and stumbling into my room, satiated and exhausted.

We'd sat in my bed, talking about the game, the playoffs in general, and next thing I knew we were at it again, sucking, licking, biting…whatever it took to get as close as possible.

He maneuvered me on the bed, so we could blow each other at the same time. That was another first for me. He'd fingered me while he deep-throated my dick before changing tactics to licking my balls and the sensitive skin around my hole. I'd gone perfectly still but didn't stop him. And when my orgasm hit, it wrung me out for the night.

He'd left my place at three a.m. with a quick kiss on the cheek and a sleepy "good luck." I'd thought about asking if he wanted to stay, but…no. I didn't want this to feel complicated for either of us.

It occurred to me the next day that we'd never once discussed Elmwood.

Maybe Hank saved Elmwood questions for texting.

I went to the diner yesterday and asked the chef's opinion about using pre-minced garlic.

JC? I'd typed.

Thumbs-up emoji. I think that was a mistake. He started speaking French and threw his arms in the air. I might be barred from the diner for life.

The next day… Problem solved. I brought JC a garlic plant. He's speaking to me again. In English.

I'd read that particular text in the locker room and had busted up laughing, accidentally drawing attention my way. "Winning feels good, eh, rookie?" someone had teased.

"Tell your girl we said hi, Hotshot."

"Ask her if she has a friend!"

"Ask her if she has two friends!"

I hadn't responded, obviously. "My new fuck-buddy is funny" would have required a bigger explanation than I was ready to give.

In another text, Hank had mentioned that he'd met a few of the coaches and their significant others in Elmwood, and had been blown away by how normal it was to see same-sex couples in town.

This place is wild. JC asked me if I'd met his hockey star husband and two minutes later, I saw Ivan the barista kissing Court in front of the coffee shop. No one seemed to notice .

Except you , I'd replied.

Shrugging emoji. It's inspiring.

I supposed it was. It made me proud of my town and pleased that Hank appreciated some of the cooler quirks of the Four Forest area. And that he'd made a real effort, like he'd said he would.

Grams reported that my new "friend" had become a regular at Henderson's Bakery, Rise and Grind, and the diner. She said he smiled and waved like an annoying car salesman.

"He buys a maple cookie every damn day. It's disgusting," she grumbled on the phone. "I like him."

Based on our text messages, I got the impression that she wasn't the only one who'd thawed toward the new guy. Hank mentioned JC often enough that I could picture the gruff French Canadian leaving his post in the kitchen at the diner to spar with Hank, or bellied up to the counter at the coffee shop chatting with Ivan while he waited for his latte.

Mary-Kate liked him too. "I met the new cowboy."

Okay, I'd almost veered off the interstate at that one. "The…who?"

"You know, the guy from Colorado we saw at the bar," she explained. "Hank Cunningham. He popped into the bookstore the other day. He's even better looking in daylight."

Yeah, I agreed, but I couldn't say that. Could I?

"Uh…"

MK had laughed and changed the subject to my game that night and her thoughts on how the playoffs were going. She hadn't brought up her new guy in Burlington again, and I hadn't asked. We'd seen each other after my game in Seattle, but she'd been with her family and an in-depth conversation hadn't been possible.

Fine by me. Hockey was easy, Elmwood was easy, and surprisingly, so was Hank.

In cynical moments, I reminded myself that Hank was just buttering up the natives for his own gain, but then he'd comment about the blooming wildflowers on the hill between the Black Horse Inn and Main Street and how beautiful the lake looked on the drive to Wood Hollow. And that shit got to me.

See, he'd become an unwitting conduit to home. During the most important games I'd ever played, I wasn't plagued by homesickness, depression, or my old friend anxiety. I felt surprisingly calm and whole. On and off the ice.

My focus was rock solid. I was playing the best hockey of my life, doing whatever was necessary to be an invaluable asset…a go-to scorer, a fierce defender. I was smart, I was tough, and I worked my ass off.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

We were about to lose the Conference Final.

We left everything on the ice, but we'd been outplayed from the start of this series. Boston had a deeper, younger bench than Denver. They had young superstar talents like Jake Milligan, Sergei Balic, and Ace Turner. We had Trinsky and me…and a few veterans. A number of Condors were injured and worn out, and it showed.

Personally, I'd been nursing a tweaked hip since game one, and I could feel it slowing my transitions off the boards. A half a second loss of speed was the equivalent of swimming in honey with a team as tightly honed as Boston. We couldn't catch them, couldn't defend against them. We were just…done.

I hated that this was how my last game as a rookie would go down—with me chewing the fuck out of my mouthguard as I chased Jake Milligan, deking in between players built like Mack trucks only to have him outmaneuver one of our D-men and sink the puck in the crease with deafening precision. Petey never stood a chance.

The score was 4–1 Boston with less than a minute on the clock in the third period.

I growled in frustration. There was nothing quite like getting your ass handed to you by one of your teenage idols. And that was what was happening here. Jake was schooling me the way he had almost seven years ago when he'd started coming around occasionally to help Coach Smitty with practice at Elmwood High.

Jake had been playing in the AHL at the time, and that was enough to impress a group of hockey hopefuls. Sure, Coach had played pro too, but Jake was only a few years older than us and for some reason, that made our own pro aspirations seem doable.

He was a smart, wily player; a lightning-quick skater; and a shrewd strategist. He could suss out scoring opportunities based on the slightest clue: the turn of a wrist, the tilt of an opponent's stick, the rate of speed they bounced off the boards. I knew I was good, but Jake was better and I'd looked up to him.

All these years later, it fucking sucked to know that the climb to greatness was steeper than I'd realized.

And now, time ticked like a doomsday gong.

I wished I could conjure four more goals out of thin air and save the day, but that wasn't going to happen. This was why I hated that fucking nickname. I could see the headline now: "Hotshot Unable to Deliver." The promising rookie who'd failed…in front of some of his favorite people, no less.

Coach Smitty was here with Bryson and their kids; Mary-Kate was here with her dad and her uncles, Vinnie and Nolan; and I was pretty sure Niall, Micah, and Abe were in the stands somewhere too. Grams couldn't make it. She was still a ballbuster, but she was frail and I didn't want to worry about her worrying about me, so it was for the best.

Hank wasn't here either. Again, for the best.

However, I superstitiously wondered if I'd have played better if he was in the building. Like some kind of good luck charm.

Three seconds, two seconds, and… buzz .

My first season in the NHL was officially over.

Jake skated to my side and pulled me in for a bear hug. He was my height and lean like me with dark-blond hair, blue eyes, and a winning smile. As much as I was bummed for my team, I was happy for him.

"Congratulations," I said in his ear, aware of the swarming cameras.

"Thanks. Great game, Den. Great series." He patted my shoulder and punched my chest in a bro show of affection. "I'll see you this summer."

"Bring it home, man."

"It" was the cup, never to be mentioned by name until it became a reality. I wanted it for myself, but if it couldn't be me this year, I hoped it was him. Elmwood deserved a win.

Jake grinned and moved on to celebrate with his teammates while I commiserated with mine.

I was bummed for sure, and after an agonizingly awkward press conference, I was even more frazzled. How many ways were there to say "Losing sucks, it's been a good year, looking forward to next season?"

But the second I spotted my friends waiting for me in the corridor afterward, my heart squeezed in my chest. I blocked out the photographers who followed me and greeted them, falling into a monster group hug with some of my favorite people in the world.

Cameras clicked and for once, I didn't give a fuck.

Then Mary-Kate pulled me aside and launched herself at me, wrapping her arms and legs around me like an octopus. It was a silly post-game tradition she'd started in high school well before we were more than friends. She'd said it was her way of getting me to loosen up and not take every win or loss so seriously. It worked. Sixteen-year-old me had looked for her after the games, and I supposed that was how we'd begun.

We were over now, but apparently, the octopus hug tradition remained. I didn't expect the fierce lip mash, though. Cameras clicked away, and our friends hooted.

I laughed as I released her. "What was that for?"

"Just giving them something to talk about."

"Your new boyfriend won't like those pics," I teased, peeling her off me, limb by limb.

"Meh, that didn't work out. And someone somewhere would comment if I didn't greet you properly. Can't have that," MK said breezily. She met my concerned gaze a moment later and went still, whispering, "Oh, shit. You met someone."

"What? No," I sputtered.

"You're blushing! I love it. I can't wait to hear all about her."

Okay, she was messing with me now, riling me up to get my mind off the cameras and press and a harsh loss. She knew me well, 'cause yeah, it still worked.

"There is no her , MK."

" Mmhmm , sure." She laced her fingers in mine and tugged my arm. "Are you ready to go home?"

Yeah, I was ready.

I missed Elmwood, I missed Grams, and…I missed Hank.

It was just sinking in that we'd have the whole summer together.

Sure, we were using each other for sex and profit and things I should have been ashamed to want, but fuck it. I didn't care. This summer was going to be all about saying yes before I had to say no again.