6. Christian

Christian

This season

My job meant seeinghockey players the way the public didn't. For all people thought it was sketchy to have a gay guy in the locker room since I'd be perving on all the players, everyone who worked with a hockey team knew that was stupid. Anyone who worked in a locker room (even those wielding cameras) quickly got used to seeing the players in various states of undress. I'd been doing this for so many years, it didn't even register on my radar. Sure, I'd notice a tattoo sometimes, and there was that one goalie whose dick was so big it probably even turned some of the straight guys' heads. Otherwise, naked men caught my eye in here about as much as towels and stick tape.

Theo Mathis, though? I couldn't even concentrate when he was dressed.

I'd thought he was cute the first time he'd walked into the locker room, wide-eyed and starstruck. Now he seemed a little more confident in himself, even if he was obviously and understandably wary of my dad, and—I mean, who was I kidding? I couldn't look at him without remembering the sparks that had flown when we'd touched.

The night we'd hooked up, I'd fully expected him to get sent down the next day. Hell, I'd been sure that while we'd been flirting at that bar and then fucking around in my condo, my dad had already made the necessary calls and signed the necessary forms. When Theo turned his phone back on, there would be a message from his agent saying to get his butt back to Everett.

And knowing my dad, Theo would never darken a locker stall in Seattle for the rest of either of their careers.

So what was the harm in hooking up? Wasn't like we'd ever cross paths in a locker room again.

But it had been so damn good. This man's kiss had been living rent-free in my head ever since, not to mention his other oral skills, and I'd been kicking myself for not getting his number. Especially since he'd been wrung out from the game and I'd been wiped from the long day, so we hadn't even had enough left in us to fuck. The whole time I'd had his dick in my mouth, I'd imagined how spectacular it would feel in my ass, but we just… hadn't had anything left. We'd gone our separate ways, and then he'd been gone, and that was that.

And now he was back. He was here. He was undressing in the Rainiers' locker room while I had to pretend I still knew how to do my job.

At least my current task wasn't a difficult one, and as a bonus, it meant getting my butt out of the locker room.

I wheeled the cart full of sweaty, stinking practice jerseys into the laundry facility. As soon as I was in the room, I shut the steel door and paused to just exhale. I had to pull my damn head together. There was way more at stake right now than Dad ripping into me for having a crush on a player. When that had happened, there hadn't been any backlash on the players. Just Dad flipping out at me.

"Do you want to keep this job, Christian?" he'd demanded. "Because you are far more replaceable than you think."

"Yes, I want to keep my job. And I'm not doing anything."

He'd glared at me. "So I'm just imagining you checking out—"

"Yes!" I'd thrown up my hands. "Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I can't be respectful and keep my eyes where they belong."

"Bullshit. I saw the way you were looking at Barker."

I'd blinked. "What? I'd just finished patching his socks and I was making sure the patch held." I'd shown my palms. "He knew exactly what I was doing."

That argument had lasted a good hour and a half. In the end, he still hadn't believed me that I didn't and wouldn't perv on players. He'd threatened my job a few more times, and I'd finally just agreed not to look at any of the guys because then he'd feel like he won and we could be done with it.

Sometimes I wondered why he didn't fire me. Maybe because the coaching staff and players loved me? They were very vocal about that—about all the equipment managers, but especially me. I could have as much of an ego as the next person, but I wasn't stupid—they weren't singing my praises because I was God's gift to equipment management. They just knew Dad wasn't thrilled about me being here.

In the present, I sighed and pushed myself off the door. As I loaded jerseys into two machines—two smaller loads took far less time than one giant one—I let my brain wander to the man who was currently the target of my dad's ire.

Theo wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to come back. That was the whole reason I'd said "to hell with it" and hooked up with him; because I didn't dare touch a player who would be staying with the team or coming back any time soon. In fact, the one other time I'd slept with a player had been Kessler. We'd circled each other all season, and then he found out the night before the trade deadline that he was heading for Edmonton the next day.

Theo and I had both believed his time in Seattle was as finished as Kessler's had been, so why the hell not?

And… here we were.

"Fucking hell," I muttered over the sound of the washing machines. I rested my hands on the now-empty laundry cart, closed my eyes, and let my head fall forward. I needed to get back to the locker room—there was a shitload of work to do between now and tonight's game—but I needed a goddamned minute.

Theo was here. There was no telling how long he'd be here. With the ever-growing list of injuries and the revolving door between the Rainiers and the Orcas, it was impossible to guess. If he impressed Coach Baldwin, then he might be here for the bulk of the remaining season, as long as there was cap space and room on the roster. If his performance was tepid or some of the injured players rallied faster than projected, then the problem could resolve on its own.

I winced. I didn't want Theo to go back down. I mean, I did in the sense that I didn't think I could stay sane around him. But I also wanted the best for his career, which meant staying up at this level for as long as possible. I really didn't want to be selfish about this. At the same time… Fuck. I didn't know what outcome I really wanted. Was it too much to ask to just stay sane no matter what? Probably.

One thing was for sure: I would be stupid to imagine there was any chance of us crossing that line again. I'd seen the shell-shocked look on Theo's face when he'd come back from that little one-on-one with my dad, and I could read between those lines. Dad had undoubtedly warned him not to fuck up again. He'd threatened him within an inch of his career, promising grave professional consequences if Theo didn't toe the line. I didn't have to be a mind reader or even overhear the conversation to know that. I knew my dad. I knew Theo's expression because I'd seen it on other players' faces, and I'd worn it myself.

I wanted to pull him aside and tell him not to be afraid of my father's bullshit. Theo was a good hockey player, and it wasn't his fault Dad was an asshole on a power trip. I wanted to tell him everything would be fine if he just played hockey and kept his head down (well, metaphorically; he needed to keep his head up on the ice).

But I couldn't do that.

One, because I was afraid that if we so much as made prolonged eye contact, people would immediately see through to that scorching hot night last season.

And two, because I would be lying. I knew my father. I knew he'd be scrutinizing Theo's every move, looking for a reason to give him a one-way express ticket back to the minors. I knew Dad could and would ruin a player's career over the smallest slight, especially if there was any perceived disrespect toward him personally.

God help this team if Dad ever managed to take over as president of hockey operations. Right now, Bruce Collins was in that position, and he was the only one who had a leash of any kind on Dad. Not a very tight one, and not one he used very often, but a leash. The owners wouldn't lift a finger to rein Dad in; they just didn't care enough about anything except winning. As long as the Rainiers held a respectable position in the standings and made a valiant run at the Cup each season, they were completely hands off.

Dad with the full power of the presidency without Bruce to talk him down? Yeah, I would probably go looking for a job on another team at that point. As if I hadn't already considered that a few million times.

So there wasn't anything I could do to reassure Theo that he wasn't skating on dangerously thin ice. I couldn't even risk being seen talking to him unless it was obviously about equipment, or Dad might decide there was something between us and lash out professionally at Theo.

He was here. I was here.

And if either of us valued our careers, we'd pretend like hell we didn't notice.

Fuck my damn life.