“He has to play.” I nibble on my lip, already having said too much.
He tilts his head in question, but before words come out of his mouth, a warm hand meets my lower back, and Raffi kisses my temple. “You ready?”
I give a last lingering look to a curious Ares before nodding. “Absolutely. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 28
Raffi
“Iforgot my book.” Jackson Gilbert drops onto a chair next to me in Apollo’s apartment. Jackson always forgets his freakin’ book.
“I didn’t.” Scott waves his like it’s the most precious thing he owns. “For a change.” His copy has multi-colored tabs sticking out of it. He likes to annotate his books. Each tab means something different, quotes he likes, I dunno what else. There are a bunch of colors and damn near every page has a tab.
Justin and August show up to our monthly Get Lit meetings even though they graduated already. When they can at least. Making a book club meeting in their hometown isn’t always top of their list of post-grad priorities, but it keeps them connected to the team. No matter what goes on in our lives, we all make time for book club.
I make time for the snacks, but book club happens while I eat.
All three de la Peña brothers are here too, so’s Tate and a couple of the rookies. They’re here to suss out what we do. Either that or they think it’s all about the porn.
For the first time ever, we’ve opened our ranks, and there are outsiders staring back at me around the table. Austin Morgan, a friend of the de la Peña twins, is in town from Minnesota. He used to play for one of our opponents, the Minnesota Snow Pirates. He’s here with two of his former teammates, Lincoln Scott and Finn O’Brien.
They’re good guys—hard workers, not assholes during games, and always ready to put their hands in their pockets for a good cause. We may be enemies on the ice, but outside the rink, they’re actually not that bad.
Though I’m not sure they can be trusted to take Get Lit as seriously as it should be. We don’t fuck around with our romance. But the guys say it’s just a one off. Maybe they’ll take it back to their own team.
When a knock sounds on the door, everyone looks at each other. Aren’t we all already here? Another quick headcount tells me we’re full. Plus, the snack table’s buckling under all the food, and there are no more seats, or space, around this table.
Apollo swings the door open and three Flint Flames—two former, one current—stand staring back at him. All the way from Michigan, huh? I smell a rat.
“I brought snacks.” Jeremy Lewis lifts two grocery bags and grins. He walks past Apollo like he owns the place and heads straight to the food table.
“Who invited them?” Tate’s voice is low but carries because everyone else is silent as fuck. It’s common knowledge that AJ Williams’s hit on me in my rookie year didn’t help my concussion problems. He’s standing with Jake Talbot, who we’re playing on the ice tomorrow night.
“No one.” Jeremy turns to face the room. “I saw it on the socials.” He points at one of the rookies, who slinks down in his chair.
Fucking idiot. If anyone else shows up, that kid’s going to be doing the worst chores for a month. And then some.
Jeremy surveys the table we’re all sitting around. “Thought it was a party, not a book club though.” He jerks his head to his buddies, standing like spare tires in the doorway. They’re both red in the face. AJ’s holding a crate of beer, and Jake’s eyeballing the hall leading back to the elevator like he might take off and leave his friends.
Former players from the league like Jeremy and AJ getting together on a whim? Unlikely. What the hell is going on here? To my knowledge no one’s getting married, and there haven’t been any deaths in the extended hockey fam. We don’t have an NHL team so they can’t be here for a game, unless they’re passing through to Minnesota, but why would the Snow Pirates come here to go back to Minny?
AJ and Tate stand in the doorway. AJ’s been staring at me since the damn thing opened like he’s waiting for some permission so I stand up and walk over toward him. There’s a collective breath sucked in around us, like people aren’t sure what I’m going to do. But I forgave him long ago for the accident. It wasn’t a dirty hit, it was just bad luck and that could have happened to any of us.
“You’re letting the heat out.” I hold out my hands to take the beer from him and usher him inside. When I’ve ditched it in the kitchen, I turn to find him behind me, hand outstretched.
“Raffi, how are things?” His eyes narrow like he’s assessing me.
A quick glance back into the living room makes every pair of eyeballs snap away from the two of us like a perfectly choreographed comedy moment.
“They’re…okay.” I rub at the back of my neck before breaking open the pack of beer to stack it in the fridge.
His raised eyebrow says he doesn’t believe me. Like Ares’sdrug problem, AJ’s battle with depression and bipolar disorder isn’t a secret in our world. He kept it to himself at first, but once he’d gotten it under control, he started speaking out about it more and more.
With a heavy sigh, I close the fridge and drop my voice. “Depends on the day. Headaches aren’t as frequent, but when they hit, I’m down and out. They hurt like Satan himself is stabbing my eyeballs with hot pokers.”
His face softens. “Doesn’t sound good, Raff. We should talk about it.” He peeks into the room where our friends are pretending not to eavesdrop on our conversation. “Not here. But soon.”
I agree and return to the table via the mountain of snacks to pick up a plate. That bougie bastard Jeremy Lewis has brought some of the fanciest food I’ve seen. Who the fuck brings Brussels sprouts to a book club?
