“Boyfriend,” Clay says, shrugging. “Or, if we’re talking about kitchen detail, he’s my freeloader.”
“Don’t believe him!” Hale yells from somewhere distant. “Who washes the dishes around here?”
Clay snorts. “Coffee, Beck? I’m having some with one of your cookies.”
“Thank you,” I manage, still recovering from my surprise. The fact that the Stickhandlers have ice time at the Cougars’ practice rink makes more sense to me now, I guess.
Coach Powers gets up to make coffee. “As I was saying…” He grabs two cups off a shelf. “Whatever it is in your life that’s standing between you and more of that greatness you’ve shown us the last couple weeks, let’s figure out what it is. I need a deep bench in Colorado, Beck. Don’t let us down.”
Reeling, I realize that some response is called for. “I’ll try not to,” I murmur, trying not to get distracted by the mental image of Jethro Hale and Clay Powers sharing a house.
And a shower. Possibly at the same time…
Mind. Blown.
Fourteen
The Shirtless Men Section
Forest
The next couple of days are spent wrestling with myself over whether or not I’ll use the hockey tickets Beck gave me. They’re burning a hole in my consciousness from their spot on top of my dresser.
I’d love to go to the game, and I’d love to watch him in action. But if I don’t intend to see him again, I shouldn’t use the tickets. It’s not cool to string the guy along.
Beck wasn’t wrong the other night when he called me on my bullshit. I still want him, even though I know I shouldn’t. He’s the cute, sexy, weirdo goalie I never knew I needed.
Okay, need is the wrong word. What I really need is to work double overtime next week, so I can keep rebuilding my savings account and buy a vehicle that isn’t on the brink of death. And hire two more employees, and switch our bookkeeping system over to a better one and…
And a million other things that demand my attention.
The problem is that I can’t stop thinking about him. His calm confidence in the net as he helped us shut down the Plague. His sly smile in the Jeep that night before I invited him in. I’ve already memorized the dimple on his left cheek, and the way he and Charlie bumped fists after they…whatever it was they were up to in that game.
I just like him, and I can’t turn it off. So when the day of his lunch with Coach Powers arrives, I open up our text thread and send him a message.
How did lunch go? I’m pulling for you.
Unsurprisingly, he responds about a minute later with a long word vomit.
It went okay! I wasn’t too weird. But it was hard keeping my shit together because I learned a lot about Coach Powers. First: he cooks like a badass. Also his salt and pepper shakers are Cougars themed. Even though everyone knows salt shakers should always be shaped like a goalie because we’re the ones preserving everything. Pepper can be whatever.
I crack up. But he’s not even done.
And OMG did you know Powers lives with Jethro Hale???? I’m not sure I’m supposed to talk about it. Lives with him. Not as roommates. Like THEY HAVE SEX I THINK.
I tap his avatar and call. “Hello?” he answers immediately. “I didn’t hallucinate that. They share a house, and Hale touched Powers’s hair.”
“They come into Sportsballs, Beck,” I say as soon as I can get a word in edgewise. “So yeah, I knew that.”
There’s at least a half second of blessed silence before he says, “Fuck, really?”
“Sure. We have these ping pong tournaments, and they’ve shown up once or twice with Newgate and his guy.”
Another half beat of silence and then, “My God. Do you know what this means?”
“Um...?”
“I have to fix my game, Forest. I have to play for the Cougars at least once before I die. They’re, like, the perfect team.”
