9. Theo

Theo

It would be a genuine miracle if I made it through this game without falling on my face, bursting into flames, or both. Especially with Christian constantly there, standing alongside the bench between the backup goalie and the stick rack, waiting to jump into action if anyone's gear broke.

Just getting back to the locker room had been an exercise in frustration. We'd both wanted to calm down a little before we stepped out into the flow of foot traffic. The workout pants we both had on would absolutely incriminate us if anyone glanced below the belt.

But how in the hell was I supposed to calm down with Christian right there? Especially after we'd made out against that Zamboni? And made plans to get naked after the game? After we'd come out and said I'd be fucking him after this?

Fortunately, we'd both pulled ourselves together enough to discreetly slip away. He went left and I went right, both of us following the hallway that went all the way around the arena. My direction meant going the long way, which was fine by me—more time for my dick to completely settle down.

Though it did settle down pretty quick when I stepped out into the hall and almost crashed into the Zamboni drivers on their way in.

One of them cocked a brow. "You lost, kid?"

"I, uh…" I cleared my throat and laughed, my face suddenly hot. "Still learning my way around the building. Guess I made a wrong turn." I looked around. "The locker room is…"

"That way," the other said tersely, gesturing down the hall. "Ain't no reason for you to be back here."

"No, no. Sorry. Like I said—made a wrong turn." I laughed nervously. "Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!"

Then I got the hell out of there, my heart thumping with every step.

Oh. Fuck. That could've been awkward if we'd kept making out an extra thirty seconds or so.

I walked the perimeter of the arena, then took a second lap just to pull my head together and calm down. As excited as I was about hooking up with Christian later, it was just that—later.

Between now and then, I had to have my head in the game. Hockey wasn't one of those games someone could play with their mind someplace else. It required all eight mental cylinders or else things went wrong. Sometimes catastrophically wrong. Skating at upwards of twenty miles an hour, staying aware of the other nine skaters on the ice, maneuvering around those other skaters, and controlling a puck, all while others tried to steal the puck and knock me on my ass, meant engaging every available brain cell. And that was before factoring in things like finding a shooting lane, predicting the goalie's reaction, shooting to get around that predicted reaction, actually taking the shot, and maybe finding the back of the net.

There was no room for thinking with my dick.

By the time I made it to the locker room and started gearing up, I was mostly in game mode. Even when I glanced at Christian, I kept my head together and focused on my pre-game routine.

Shooting the shit with Grekov helped. We'd spent part of the morning chatting about Seattle and what there was to do in this area, and he'd apparently looked up a few more places since then. Though I was fluent in Russian, I didn't speak it as often as I spoke English. It took a bit of a mental shift to get into the flow of conversation with someone, and that shift helped me pull my focus away from Christian.

"What about the market?" Grekov asked as he taped his socks. "Pike Place?"

"It's worth visiting." I sat down on the bench and started taping my own socks. "I'd wait until the summer, though. It's a farmers' market more than anything, so there's more selection, you know? But go during the week. It's too crowded on the weekends."

Grekov nodded along as I spoke. "So, summer. Good idea. And the Space Needle?"

I told him what little I knew about visiting the Space Needle. I hadn't been up in it since I was a kid, and that was back when they still had the rotating restaurant. From what I'd heard, that had been converted into a glass-bottomed observation deck. Some people I knew thought it was worth visiting. Some didn't.

"Busy on weekends?" he asked.

I chuckled. "Everything worth doing is busy on weekends. Trust me."

He laughed. "Maybe you come with me?" He pointed his chin toward Sam, his translator, who was doing something on his phone a few feet away. "Give him a break."

"Pfft. He doesn't need a break."

Sam looked up from his phone and cocked a brow at me. I responded with an innocent shrug, which prompted an eyeroll.

Snickering, I nudged Grekov with my glove. "You're on. When we actually have some downtime, we'll hit the Space Needle."

He smiled broadly, and I returned it. As we finished putting ourselves together for the game, I made a mental note to look up some of the other places a tourist might enjoy. Wasn't there an observation deck on the Columbia Tower that was even higher than the Space Needle? I'd have to look that up.

Right now, though, I had a game to think about.

First things first: warmups.

And on the way to the tunnel, I glanced to my right without thinking.

And almost tripped.

Goddamn. One glance into those mischievous blue eyes, and I was right back to stupid.

Fuck my life. I had to get it together. Later tonight, I could forget about hockey and get naked with Christian.

Right now, I needed to forget about getting naked with Christian—oh my God—and focus. On. Hockey.

I followed my teammates down the tunnel, and as soon as my steel met the ice, my mind was on hockey. Skating. Passing. Shooting. Hockey.

Okay. Okay, I had this. I could do this. I wasn't doing so hot about getting pucks into the net, but at least I was staying on my skates and hadn't, like, let go of my stick or something. Maybe that meant I could really keep my head together for the game.

By the time line rushes started, I was pretty confident I wouldn't make an ass of myself tonight.

But holy fuck, every time I so much as glanced toward the bench, I was lucky I didn't lose an edge.

Fuck me. I could still taste his kiss. I swore I could still feel his hard-on pressing against mine. I couldn't really—my athletic cup didn't feel nearly as good as Christian's hard dick rubbing insistently against—

I stumbled, then bumped into Sorenson as he skated by. We both staggered a little, but he caught himself on the boards and I somehow managed to get my dumbass upright.

"Easy there, Mathis." Sorenson smacked my shin with his stick. "You hiding whiskey in your water bottle or something?"

"Pfft. I wish. Sorry, man!"

He tapped my leg again. "Don't worry about it." As he skated away, he threw over his shoulder, "Dinner's on you next time we're on the road!"

I just laughed. Seemed like a fair trade.

Warmups ended a few minutes later. On the way into the locker room, I caught Christian's eye, and the little shit smirked at me. I chuckled and rolled my eyes.

As I listened to Coach's pregame speech, I sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening that we won this thing in regulation. Knowing my luck, we'd end up in one of those protracted shootouts where nobody could get that decisive goal, and it was just shooter after shooter after shooter. What was the league record for shootouts, anyway? Like nineteen, twenty rounds?

Fuck that. Regulation win tonight, or else I was going to wind up banging Christian in the parking garage.

The first period didn't instill much faith that this was going to be settled in sixty minutes. They scored. We scored. They got a power play. We got a power play. They scored. We scored. By the end of the second period, it was 2-2. Both teams had the same number of penalty minutes. Both goalies had made exactly eleven saves.

We still had forty minutes of hockey, and this sport was chaotic enough that anything could happen during that time. All it would take was one side tilting the ice and hammering a goalie, and the score could become promisingly lopsided (ideally in Seattle's favor). But given my postgame plans and the decidedly even game so far, I wasn't holding my breath that things would change.

Five minutes into the second period, I was eating those words.

The first two minutes were more of the same from the previous period, but then Philly got a breakaway at the worst possible moment. Our defensemen had been out for almost the full two minutes. They were gassed, and thinking the action was well into our offensive zone, they'd gone to the bench for a much-needed line change. In the same moment, Condit did a badly timed drop pass, probably expecting one of his wingers to be right behind him. Unbeknownst to him, one of Philly's forwards had swooped in. He stole the puck and flew toward our end of the ice.

There wasn't much our skaters could do. They were way too far behind him, and he was one of those guys who was both fast as hell and deadly with the puck.

Yanni was ready for him, glove and stick both poised for whatever came his way. The player wound back for a slapper, and Yanni dropped into the butterfly position, probably anticipating a low shot.

As soon as the goalie went down, the player switched to his backhand and chipped it right over Yanni's left shoulder.

Goals like that weren't great for morale. A turnover in the middle of a line change that left our zone undefended—that had everyone off their game for a couple of shifts. We pulled it together and found our game again, but not before their rookie scored his first NAPH goal, making this a two-goal game. Fuck.

We rallied, though. In the minute and a half after that rookie's goal, we peppered their netminder with eight shots on goal. Another shot pinged loudly off the crossbar. That sound could throw a goalie off his game, so this might be our chance if we kept hammering him with shots.

I hit the ice a few seconds after that crossbar shot. Condit and Wilcox were tied up the defensive zone; they'd been out for almost a minute of very intense play and were probably running out of steam. They'd tried to peel away for a line change, but only Sorenson had been able to get off the ice. We needed a whistle, or we needed to get the puck out of our end so our exhausted forwards could get to the bench.

That was when I realized Philly was so focused on a puck battle in the corner, they hadn't noticed me. Grekov and I were both behind their D with nothing but open ice between us and their goal.

Condit got the puck free and started up the wall. I tapped my stick to call for the puck, and he sent it my way. Their defenseman noticed me and charged toward me, so as soon as the puck hit my tape, I passed it to Grekov… but my damn stick snapped in half.

I shouted, "Fuck!" as the bottom half of the stick went flying. Before it had even landed, I dropped the handle to the ice, kicked the puck toward Grekov, and sprinted toward the bench.

Christian was ready and waiting, holding out a new stick handle first.

Our eyes locked for a split second as I grabbed the stick—oh my God, you're so pretty—and I gave him a nod of acknowledgment before I tore after my teammates.

Grekov was charging toward the other end of the ice with Rusanov. Condit and Wilcox both sped toward the bench, and I hurried after Grekov and Rusanov, confident that fresh bodies were on their way.

Rusanov had the puck now. He shouldered his way through a much smaller forward, but a huge defenseman was coming his way, so he passed the puck to me. Abrahamsson appeared in the zone, and I passed to him. We cycled it, keeping the Philly players moving while we tried to find or open a shooting lane.

I once again called for the puck, and Abrahamsson sent it to me. The puck hit my tape but now there was too much traffic in front of the net, so I passed to Grekov. I thought he'd send it to Rusanov, who was wide open, but instead, he wound up and fired a one-timer at the net.

The puck whizzed past everyone in front of the goal and sailed right through the netminder's five-hole.

Before the light even went on or the horn sounded, the crowd roared to their feet as Grekov fist-pumped.

Now we had some serious momentum going, and Coach shouted at us to "Keep it up, keep it up!"

We did, too. The ice tilted hard in our direction. There was usually a brief delay—a minute or two at most—between when a goal was scored and when the arena announcer called it out. The situation room sometimes needed a little time to figure out who got the primary and secondary assists and the precise time on the clock when the puck crossed the goal line. So we were usually well into another shift when he'd bellow, "The Seattle goal!" followed by the names of the players responsible for it.

Tonight, before he'd even had a chance to announce Grekov's goal, Sorenson put another puck into Philly's net.

Awesome. Now the score was tied. We could focus on getting and widening a lead instead of digging ourselves out of a two-point hole.

Except… now the score was tied. Again.

So help me if this game goes into fucking overtime…

Just my goddamned luck—aftera spicy back-and-forth game, time ran out when the score was 6-6.

It would've been 5-4 in our favor if the refs had been halfway competent. Early in the third, Coach Baldwin challenged Philly's goal for offside. On the replay, it was blatantly clear that the play was offside; the defenseman's skate had cleared the blue line enough that there was a painfully obvious strip of not-blue ice between his skate blade and the line when his team's puck carrier entered the zone. It wasn't even questionable—it was offside. Full stop.

But nooo, the refs said it was onside, so the goal stayed, and we were assessed a bench penalty for delay of game. That gave Philly's power play a chance to rack up another point and put us back into a two-point deficit.

Sheer anger drove us to pocket two more goals, one of them with only twenty-three seconds left on the clock, and tie up the game.

So now… overtime.

Goddammit.

There would be no never-ending shootout tonight, though—nineteen seconds into overtime, Philly's star center scored, and just like that, it was over.

I was bummed that we'd lost. We still got a point, which was great, but losing sucked.

Secretly, though? I was just glad the damn game was over. All I had to do was get the hell out of here and finish what Christian and I had started up against that Zamboni.

And… also I had to ignore him as much as possible so I didn't telegraph to everyone in the room that I was painfully horny.

Just breathe. Get a shower, get some food, and then go get Christian. Just. Breathe.

That would've been a lot more doable if Christian had been someone who was easy to ignore. But even for the guys who weren't quietly lusting after him, he was very noticeable.

At one point, Christian put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. "Where is my Coach bag? Has anyone seen my Coach bag?" He huffed melodramatically. "That bag is expensive, gentlemen! Where is—ooh, there it is!" Then he picked up the gear bag marked Coach Baldwin.

Everyone in the room chuckled. Christian hoisted the giant bag onto his shoulder, struck a pose, and strutted out of the room like a model on a runway, leaving the team in stitches.

As I watched him go, warmth rushed into my face, but it wasn't a blush. It wasn't embarrassment. It was straight-up heat. I was hot from the game, but now I was even hotter from watching him goofing around and being, well, him.

Goddamn. I could not get out of this place and into Christian's bed—into Christian—fast enough.

I still had to shower and shove some food into my face. Both of those especially needed to happen before I went to Christian's place. I was just impatient. Restless with need. Now that I no longer needed to concentrate on hockey, my mind was free to grab on to all those fantasies I'd had about him since the first night.

Except I didn't need to get an inopportune hard-on, so I made myself concentrate on hockey just so I wouldn't embarrass myself in the locker room or the showers.

All I had to do was shower. Get dressed. Eat enough that I wouldn't pass out.

And then get the hell over to Christian's condo.

Almost there…