Page 60 of Goalie interference

We weren’t late for the game by any means–we were late for lunch with my team before the game. It was one of the guys' birthdays, which meant dinner as a team, but I was also coming from a promotional shoot, so I was covered in baby oil and needed a shower.

Things had been going really well with Thayer and me the past few years.

My parents took some time to come around fully, but we now reached the point where they got mad at me and called Thayer to bitch.

Now, whether they expected Thayer to fix my attitude or just make me do whatever they wanted–I wasn’t sure, but it was effective.

Reed and Thayer still talked and hung out when they could, but he spent most of his time here with me, and Reed spent most of his time with his girlfriend on various trips now that he was retired.

His girlfriend, who was twenty-five and a swimsuit model…who graduated from the University of Michigan.

Yes, his acceptance of Thayer and me made more and more sense as that relationship came to light.

Once I was showered and changed–letting Thayer tie my tie because he did it better than I did…and I liked it when he did it–we were off.

I was a little annoyed that my only free time today with Thayer was going to be spent at a dinner with my team, but with my weird traveling schedule, I wasn’t going to complain.

At least I wasn’t sleeping alone in a cold hotel bed in fucking Toronto or something.

No, Calgary was worse.

When we got to the restaurant, something wasn’t right. I normally heard my team before I saw them, but there were no obnoxious, rowdy grown men ruining this nice restaurant, so naturally, I assumed we had the wrong place.

I checked my phone again, but no, it was this restaurant.

“Stop it,” Thayer said calmly, resting a hand on the back of my neck to make me look up from my phone. “Nothing's wrong–we’re in the right place.”

“But my team’s not–”

“They’re where they’re supposed to be, and so are you, baby,” he hummed, smiling at me before leading me further into the restaurant.

To a table that was only ever meant for two people, not twenty.

We sat down on either side, and I was sad to have his hand leave me, but then his foot tapped mine under the table. He offered his hand to me on the table while he looked through a menu with the other, and I was good again.

This new schedule made it hard to find time for Thayer and me.

We’d get little flashes of time and bursts of hot, I missed you sex, but very little stretches of time where I could just kind of be. I missed letting him take control all the time, and it was hard to self-regulate on the road when I was angry or upset, but it was always worth it.

And we had a really nice way of reconnecting when I’d been gone too long.

“Are you going to tell me why–”

“Shh,” Thayer hushed me, not even looking up from his menu, but holding my hand and stroking it with his thumb. “Don’t worry about it, Ash. Worry about what you want to eat–that’s all you need to worry about.”

Even now, two years later, it was easy to just roll over and let him worry for me.

It was relaxing not to have to stress about anything when Thayer was there–he made sure everything was in its place for me, and all I ever had to worry about was if I was happy.

Was he still making me happy?

Yes.

Then I was good.

Dinner was nice.

We liked a lot of the same foods, so it was always easy to find places we both liked, and I really liked this place, but it was fancy.