“Because it’s true,” said Jett. “Be prepared, guys. Things are about to get rough.”
“Just for you, Bracken and Cote,” said Harrison. “I think the rest of us will be having fun.”
Jett’s honey-brown eyes looked around at his grinning teammates, and he sighed. “Fuck you, Killinger.”
“Hey, bedroom stuff stays off the ice,” said Wolf.
“Shut up, Wolf.” Harrison kept his gaze on Jett, trying to hold a smirk back. “It’s you three against Powers and five of your buddies. First team to ten points, wins a prize.”
Powers got so excited that his skates nearly slipped from under him. “Ooo! A prize? What’s the prize?”
Wolf snorted. “It better not be his di—”
“I have one hundred acres of land surrounding a private lake in Nova Scotia,” said Harrison loudly. “I won’t miss a couple of acres.”
He didn’t think land in the middle of nowhere would be a prize to get excited over, but he might as well have offered land in Los Angeles or something from the reaction he received.
“Ryan, you gotta win it for us!” said Powers. “I want a lake house—and a boat—and—”
“For fuck sakes, Powers,” said Cormier. “Don’t bother getting excited, because I’m going to kick your boyfriend’s ass.”
Harrison’s gaze flicked to Cote while the guys continued to rib each other, and he was pleased to see he was ready to play.
“We have Rose and no defencemen,” said Bracken, frowning. “How is that fair?”
“Hey!” Rose yelled from his net.
“It’s not,” said Harrison. “I guess you’ll have to keep the puck and score faster than the other team.”
The look on Jett’s face told him he would be in trouble later, but Harrison wasn’t worried. Hopefully, Jett would be too tired after this to go through with any plans for revenge.
Someone handed Harrison a puck, and they cleared the rest of the rink. The atmosphere turned from jovial to serious when he called Bracken and Hellström to the face-off. It was a match-up Bracken easily won, and he flicked the puck to Jett as they propelled forward.
Harrison stuck close to the wall as Jett passed back to Bracken, and Cote took position alongside them. They had no defence, so they were forced to push forward if they wanted to get any points.
They were sloppy, and Cote was nowhere near where Harrison needed him to be, but he put himself beside the net with Jett on the opposite side. And because Jett was the bigger threat, Powers shifted his body to get ready to block, but Bracken sent the puck flying to Cote, who shot it over Powers’s shoulder and into the net.
They had to catch the rebound, so there was no time for celebration.
While Bracken and Wolf fought for possession of the puck in the corner of the rink, Harrison yelled, “Powers! Don’t go easy on them just because Bracken will share the reward with you!”
“I wasn’t—” Powers couldn’t finish when the puck came for him again, a nice shot by Jett that he smacked out of the way with his stick.
It was a very short match. The point was to push Cote as fast as he could without fucking up his mentality and exhausting everyone else before their next game. Team Bracken walked away with a 10-8 win, much to Wolf and Hellström’s disappointment, but the amount of laughter echoing through the space was promising.
Coach Adams ordered them off the ice when they were done celebrating. After such a high-energy thirty minutes of play, they needed rest before getting on the plane later that night.
Harrison waited on the ice with Jett as the others headed to the locker room, circling his tired, sweaty boyfriend with a smirk.
“So, what do you think?”
Jett slicked his curly hair back and groaned. “I think Niko is a great player and he caught up with us fast, but I don’t know if it will be enough towin against Park. Maybe if we had more time, but we only have one practice session before the game, and we can’t go crazy since we’re playing.”
“I guess we’re on the same page then,” said Harrison. He couldn’t stop himself from closing the gap between them and running his fingers through Jett’s wet hair, moving it out of the way to kiss him on the cheek.
“All we can do is show up and fight. Maybe we can shock that pink-haired bastard enough that he chokes.”
“Park?” Jett scoffed, blinking up at Harrison. “I doubt anything can force that guy off his game. He scares the shit out of Wolf, and now that you’ve spent some time with him, I’m guessing you can see how impressive that would be.”
