1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Tanner

"If you would just chill out for five minutes, I could get to you around the pack of dogs and help you stand up," Rudy chided as he grasped my arm and I yanked on my walker.

"I don't need help to get up and go piss," I replied, giving the contraption a firm tug that freed the front left leg from under the couch while also popping off the tennis ball. The dogs lost their minds. A small war broke out as the four of them battled it out with Bingley, the old pug who thought he was a young Doberman, emerged from the scrum victorious. "You show them whippersnappers," I whispered to the geriatric dog as he pranced about with his trophy. "You show them we old guys still have some fight left."

Rudy, my younger brother and caretaker for the next four hundred years, gave me a look that could have melted stone. He flipped his dark hair over his shoulder with a huff. I love my little bro dearly, he was all the family I had left, but him living here with me while I recuperated from knee surgery was going to test the sibling bonds big time.

"And now we have to fetch the ball from the dogs," Rudy mumbled as he escorted me, his term for helping his grumpy older brother every fucking place, to the bathroom. Thank God this old farmhouse had a toilet on both floors. Climbing to the second story to piss every couple of hours would get really old, really fast. "And it will be slobbery. And I'll have to wash it."

"Rudy, my man, it's an old tennis ball that skids over the hardwoods. It does not have to be washed."

"The nurse who discharged you said to keep things sanitary around the patient." He eased around me to open the door to the powder room, his word for the small bath off the living room, not mine, then guided me in with a hand on my back.

"She meant around the incision," I replied, pushing my walker minus one tennis ball into the tiny bathroom with a grunt. "Fucking hell, why is this room so small? Were people a hundred fifty years ago all tiny little goblins?"

"As a matter of fact, humans have gotten taller over the past two centuries," he said, easing the walker from me as I tried—and failed—to stand. "They attribute it to better nutrition and overall health. So probably the people who built this old farmhouse were smaller. There is no shame in sitting to pee, Tanner."

I shot him a glare. "I know, Rudolph , it's just a pain in the knee having to sit down and then get up."

"Well, it will only be for a wee bit. Get it? Wee?" He snickered, and I had the urge to call him bad names or tug on his neatly trimmed beard. "Just let me help."

"I'm good. Go get that damn ball from Bingley before one of the others grabs it. The last time they had a tennis ball with a slice in it, Darcy tried to eat the damn thing." I jerked my scruffy chin at him. I caught his gaze touching on my scraggly facial hair. Unkempt men gave him hives, he claimed.

I might not be on the ice for the Calder Cup race, but I was not shaving my playoff beard. I'd be at the Schaffer Salt Arena tomorrow night for the first game of the first round against Cayuga come hell or high water. I didn't care if I had to fucking crawl. This might be my last season— God, please do not let it be —and I was going to be there for my team. My stupid knee had crapped out on them, but the rest of my worn-out body was showing up to give the Gladiators support in some small way.

"I hope Elinor has taken it from Bingley and has hidden it in your shoe," Rudy huffed.

I rolled my eyes. He sighed like only a theater queen could then flounced off, his breezy summer shift billowing around him. And yes, my gloriously proud enbee brother flounced. He was one of the most proficient flouncers in Manitoba. I rather envied his skill at being able to tell the world his emotions with a well-executed jounce. I tended to be a little less adept at expressing my feelings. My parents, God rest their souls, used to joke about how they had two queer sons who only had one thing in common: being gay. Rudy was not like me at all.

While I was hip-checking other kids over the boards in pee wee hockey, Rudy, a mere eighteen months younger, was taking tap lessons. When I had to read essays aloud in class I'd throw up in my mouth a little. When Rudy hit the stage, he was the Winnipegger Sir Lawrence Olivier. No puking in his mouth ever took place. So yeah, Rudy was not at all like me. He had a loving partner back in Canada, awaiting his return. I had four dogs and a weedy garden. Rudy believed that communication was key to every relationship. I believed in a cold beer and zipped lips. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to a lover about feelings I just had no idea how to. And when I tried, I sounded stupid. The last time I'd fumbled through what I thought was a heartfelt declaration of my undying love, the guy laughed in my face.

Granted, that guy was a jerk and eighteen years old. Still, the pain went deep. When the memory popped up, usually when I was entertaining telling a man who I was involved with how I felt, the pain reignited in my breast and I would get a beer instead. Whereas my brother would sit for hours discussing sentiments with his partner Wade as if life were some Jane Austen novel. Not that I read a lot of Jane Austen back then, but I saw a show once and that changed everything. Rudy has read tons of it since he was old enough to have a library card. I used to like to read historical outdoor literature. Books about mountain men, pirates, and adventurers braving the elements and wilds in manly fashion. You'd not find one parasol or primly held tea cup in any of my those reads. But after seeing Sense and Sensibility once when Rudy and I were both down the the flu my love for all things Austen was born. You would, if you dug deep into my book and movie shelves, find just about every book Ms. Austen penned.

I may be slightly secretly obsessed with them but they're my clandestine treats. Like the hidden Oreos you pull out when the kids are asleep. I'd named my dogs after the characters in those books, and so far only Rudy had called me on it.

Rudy and I were not at all alike as I previously said.

My sibling was prone to great bouts of effusing, his feelings flowing freely out of him at the drop of a tissue, which worked for him as a theater teacher at the Winnipeg Acting Academy. I, on the other hand, did not effuse. My emotions were more low-key, which was perfect for a hockey defenseman. No one liked a hot-headed gusher on the ice. Unless they were Phil Greco, but Greck was a talkative anomaly. Most hockey players were reserved, polite gentlemen who, on occasion, had to punch an opposing player in the face.

Night and day the LaBrie boys.

Once he was gone, I eyed the elevated toilet seat. I hated that damn thing. It was the first thing to go once I was back on my skates. That and the fucking walker.

"Drop it! Drop it right now, you little shitter, or I will not buy another box of those peanut butter cookies you enjoy so much."

My brother was blackmailing my dog. Good grief. I'd been home exactly four days, and I was ready to bolt. This old house, huge as it was, felt smaller and smaller every day.

"I thought so. Now go outside the lot of you. Go, shoo. And no digging under the azalea, Elizabeth! I will give you a bath again."

I closed the door on Rudy and my pack of rescues. Then, because I was recovering from knee surgery, I yanked my joggers down and sat on the raised toilet seat like a toddler learning how to use the crapper. It was humiliating. I'd known this would be a long, trying haul, which was why I'd put it off for so long. Then my knee decided to stage a coup, and that irked me. Lots of things about being an invalid irked me. It has been pointed out to me by several people—my mother, my father, my brother, and a few men I'd been in relationships with—that I was not the ideal patient. That came as no surprise. I despised being laid up. My life was on the ice. If you took that away, then what was there for a thirty-eight-year-old Canuck who had never risen above the minor leagues? Retirement might be a longed-for thing for some guys, but I was terrified of hanging up my skates. I had nothing or no one to turn to once my hockey career ended.

"Do you want to eat before therapy or grab something after?" Rudy called out and sailed by the bathroom door, peeking in to make sure I'd not flushed myself or something. "You look tight. Are you in pain?"

"Sort of yeah. They cut my leg open." I pointed to the puffy-wrapped mess that was my right knee as I wheeled out of the bathroom, one walker leg scraping over the hardwood floors. Rudy had picked up every throw rug in the house the day before I came home to avoid me falling on my face and my floors were showing the wear already.

"They did? Well, that explains why you were in the hospital," the smart-ass replied while pulling his hair back into a pert ponytail. "I think there's that new Chinese restaurant that opened up a few weeks ago by your gym. We can hit that."

"After therapy," I said as we made our way to the living room at a snail's pace. I was starving, but the first therapy round I had had made me want to barf. The pain was intense. The therapist, a tiny girl named Trish who had a will of pure titanium, questioned if I needed stronger pain meds. I told her I didn't need any pain meds. I'd take ibuprofen if needed thank you. Course, I'd not told Rudy how much it hurt. He knew I had a pill thing, so he didn't push me too hard on that. I'd lost an old college buddy, a footballer, to opioids two years ago.

"Okay, after. Let's get you into the car, then I'll call the wild beasties back inside." I nodded, sat down in my recliner, and eased my foot into a pair of bright yellow Crocs with puppy faces on them that Greck had gifted me last summer. Once I had my feet dressed, Rudy followed behind, talking away as the dogs could be heard barking at something in the back. Probably one of about four hundred gray squirrels that bedeviled the pack as well as my bird feeders. Rudy deposited me at the front door where I sat like someone's grandfather, shorts and socks and Crocs, my ass resting on the wooden bench in my foyer.

The dogs made a run through the house, found me, got a scratch, and then raced off to find Rudy with the treats. They'd spend the few hours we were gone in the dog room, which had once been a mudroom, and still was, to be honest, but now it held their food and water dishes as well as four comfy beds as well as tons of toys.

"Whoever had this last dropped it under the bird feeder." Rudy sighed as he flicked sunflower shucks off the missing tennis ball. He kneeled down to slide the soggy ball back on the walker, smiling that charming smile of his. "I love the socks and Crocs look. Very fashion-forward. I wager you draw the eye of every gay man in Watkins Glen."

"Ha. Funny." I pushed slowly to my feet as Rudy rose and opened the front door. "For your information, there are no available queer men left in this town. They've all been snatched up."

"I doubt that," Rudy quipped and slid his little backpack over one arm. The sun was brilliant today. Overhead, the sky was baby blue with a few wispy clouds. A light breeze rustled the leaves on the trees that crowded my farmstead. Old oaks and maples, dozens of white birch in a stand by the barn that badly needed a new roof, and over by the tiny creek that flowed through my property was an apple orchard. I loved trees. And I had put all kinds of care into them. Last year I'd had so many apples I'd given away bushels of them to the local food banks. The whitetails had enjoyed the rest in the evenings when they would visit with ears pricked and tails flagging at the first sound of a dog. "Maybe it's that beard. If you just let me tidy it up a bit, I—"

"Come near me with a razor and you'll pull back a bloody stump," I warned, only half joking. I could add nothing to my team as we made our playoff run physically, but I could add the luck of a full beard to the cosmos.

Rudy sighed dramatically as he gave the key fob to my SUV a squeeze. I knew him. He was in no way, shape, or form done with grooming advice. Like I really had to worry about a ratty beard. No one would see it but the dogs, the physical therapist, and my brother. Wasn't like I was going to run into Prince Charming while doing my quad sets.

***

Turns out I ran into Prince Charming at the Purple Lantern Chinese restaurant after doing quad sets. If my damn brother had mentioned that the new eatery was a two-minute walk from Williams Wellness, I might have forced myself into nicer clothes, skipped the Croc and sock combo, and possibly combed my beard. But no, he'd not said a word about our destination, a fact that I pointed out rather furiously when we parked beside the red brick building with bright purple awnings.

"No, no, you just weren't listening," Rudy had clapped back. "I said by your gym."

Shit. He had said that. Dammit. I glowered anyway, trying my best to save face. "Whatever. Let's get it to go."

"Tanner, let's just check it out inside. It looks charming. I love purple. And the food will be cold by the time we drive back to your farmhouse. Rice does not take microwaving well, and the egg rolls will be soggy. I always get burpy when I reheat egg rolls. I'll be up all night with the belches, which will then manifest itself into day trotting to the potty."

"Fine, okay, we'll eat in, but I need to go home afterward to rest my knee."

"We'll ice it inside." With that, he was out of the SUV and yanking open my door with glee. He chattered nonstop as we crept into the restaurant and found a table by the wide front windows. I'd kind of forgotten how much Rudy loved being out and about with people. Again, polar opposites. He thrived on human interactions. He and Wade were always going out at night, traveling, and visiting friends. I was happiest at home, with a cold brewski, a ballgame on the radio, and the dogs at my feet. Only thing missing from that homey dream was a man sitting in the rocking chair beside me.

Hard to find that man when you stay home with the dogs, Fossil. Oops, Fossie.

Great, my inner voice was riding my ass now. Super. This was why dogs were the best things ever. They never gave you shit about watching the squirrels and just being.

Rudy and I had just been seated and sipping on our tea when the best-looking man in Watkins Glen walked past the window. Keyshaun Williams, the owner of the gym I frequented, passed by, paused, backed up, and then grinned at me as if I were a long-lost lover.

We wish.

Yes. Yes, we do. Keyshaun was the sexiest male I had ever seen, and I'd seen some damn fine-looking men in my day. Tall, strong, vibrant, with closely cropped ebony hair, big brown eyes with thick black lashes, and a smile that could stop a poor, lonely man's heart. A former Army boxer, he had a physique made for late night fantasies.

Keyshaun waved, then disappeared stage left, only to be seen a second later ducking into the Purple Lantern's front door. Bells rang, the other diners glanced up from their lunches, and my stupid heartrate spiked. God he was pretty. And wearing shorts that showed off his long, muscular legs as well as a T-shirt that clung to his chiseled upper body like a second skin.

"Fossie, hey man, it's good to see you," Keyshaun said as he stopped at our table to visit. "Greck and the guys said your surgery was a success. ACL repairs, right?"

"Right, yeah, ACL," I mumbled into my tea. And that was the last of the words that would exit my stupid pie hole, so I reached for a fried noodle to dip into the bowl of sweet and sour and shoved it into my dumb mouth. Rudy, bright-eyed at the prospect of someone else to talk to who wasn't me, leaped into the rapidly asphyxiating conversation.

"Hello there, I'm Rudy LaBrie, Tanner's younger and much more personable brother." Rudy offered Keyshaun his hand as a dowager would a knight. Key, as everyone but me called him because I generally got tongue-tied around him and said nothing, not even his name, took my brother's hand and bowed gallantly over it, kissing the back of it. The urge to kick my brother in the shin was strong. "It's so nice to meet you in person. Tanner speaks of you all the time." The urge won. I booted him under the table with my good leg. He squeaked but carried right on talking like a fucking magpie. "He praises your gym and the equipment and says he wishes he had your grace and finesse in the boxing ring." Key gave me a winsome smile that was sweeter than the sauce dripping from my noodle to my beard. "Oops! Look at that. Dribbles." Rudy dabbed at my beard with his napkin. "Tell me, Keyshaun, what do you say about this playoff beard monstrosity?"

Rudy flicked my beard. Noodle crumbs fell to my lap. I pushed his hand aside as Keyshaun stroked his smooth chin, deep in thought, as he studied me intently. If I could move faster, I'd make a mad dash to the men's room. Thankfully, my facial hair hid my red cheeks.

"I like it," Key confessed, his gaze catching mine and holding it as he spoke. "I like big bears with lots of hair."

Rudy's eyes flared. My mouth fell open. Oh shit. Did that mean the man was into other men?

"Order for Williams!" a thin, older Asian woman called from the back of the eatery.

"Oh, that's me. My sister stopped by for a visit. She had a hankering for something spicy and wanted it right now! I'm not man enough to argue with a woman in the final four weeks of carrying twins about one damn thing, so here I am to pick up her double order of Kung Pao shrimp. It was really good to see you, Fossie. Look forward to having you back at the gym." He slapped me on the shoulder and hustled past several tables filled with patrons to engage the woman at the register. Amiable, friendly, sexy. The man was a walking dream.

"Oops, dribbles again." Rudy patted my beard. I swatted at his hand. He giggled madly, waving like a fool at Key when he passed by on his way out. I nodded and got a nod in return. When the bells over the door closed, my brother whipped around in his seat to stare at Keyshaun jogging back to Williams Wellness. After he had gotten his fill, he turned to face me, smiling a smile that spelled trouble in bright flashing neon letters. "So that is why you go to the local gym all the time instead of using the facilities at the rink. He is stunning! Reminds me of Wade."

"Wade's Asian and loathes working out as much as you do."

"I mean, his personality is like Wade's."

Okay, yeah, they were both bubbly sorts, which clicked for Rudy and Wade as they could bubble together. Me and Key, on the other hand…

"And just to straighten you out, I go to the gym to help ensure a local Black-owned business stays in business," I countered smoothly. Almost as if I had told myself that a thousand times.

"Of course, and well you should, but you cannot deny that Keyshaun Williams is eye candy. And he likes bears! You know what that means?!"

"He's a forest ranger in his spare time?"

Rudy rolled his eyes at the purple paper lantern moving in the AC over our table. "No. It means he's queer and likes hairy men. You should ask him out. Oh! I can help you plan it all out. We could find some baggy pants, fitted of course, but with room to get up over that brace. Hmm, you'd need a new shirt. All of yours are old Gladiators tees and those tacky floral Hawaiian shirts you love. Oh! Oh! We could go to the mall. Yes, let's do that tomorrow. I'll rent a wheelchair and push you! I think they have a nail salon in the mall. I'll check to see if they can squeeze us in around—"

And it was at this point of his effusing that I zoned out. A man like Keyshaun would have zero interest in an older, crippled, scraggly hockey player in socks and Crocs. Even if I did get my cuticles trimmed and wore something dressy like a polo shirt.