Page 44 of Two for Charging

With only one puck remaining between the two of them, Breezy jerked his head toward an open patch on the ice. Luca followed, drawing a lazy circle around him before completing a perfect figure eight backward and halting across from him.

“Show-off!” Breezy called and shot the puck over to Luca.

“Come and get it.” Luca resumed skating in reverse, flicking the puck from left to right and around and around.

Breezy laughed and took off after him.

They made it around the Sea Lions’ half of the ice twice, the puck passing between them multiple times, before Tom called them to a halt.

“Save some energy for the game, kids,” he said with a shake of his head.

Breezy smiled so widely his dimples widened into creases, a hint at the lines his face would hold someday as he aged.

God, Luca loved him so much. And he would be allowed to touch him. To make him feel things that no one had made him feel before.

As heady and seductive as he found the thought, it did make Luca feel a little guilty.

Being a better, more open person wasn’t compatible with engaging in a sexual relationship with a man and not telling him he had feelings for him. But the whole point of the exercise was to make Breezy more comfortable with himself and his body so he could find a girl to settle down with. Luca could content himself with helping him get there. If he squinted and turned his head to the left, teaching Breezy about good sex practically counted as a selfless act. Besides, from what he’d said, all Breezy needed was a partner who would validate his need to not perform particular acts or have sex at all. If he only ensured Breezy felt comfortable not doing anything, Luca didn’t need to feel guilty.

He would keep telling himself that for now, at any rate.

He skated off the ice and to the changing room, ready to face the game and whatever came after.

Ever since Luca was a little boy playing on his first team—two bus rides or a hair-raising trip in his grandmother’s car away from his parents’ apartment in Rome—he’d loved the game but found some of the locker room rites cringeworthy to say the least. He didn’t need a rousing speech to have faith in his abilities. And having a loudmouthed team member shouting “We got—” followed by the names of all his teammates bored him at best and embarrassed him at worst. Likewise, the insistence at the start of every season that “this could be their year” was unnecessary in Luca’s opinion. All it achieved was ramped up pressure on the players. Unsurprisingly, Luca also didn’t go for elaborate pregame handshake rituals.

Of course, Breezy had one with every member of the team.

With most teammates, the ritual could be described as a fancy high five, but Breezy and Howie had started a very stupid routine during playoffs involving brushing their shoulders off and spinning in a circle. The idiocy of it was enhanced by them both wearing skates, making their steps both dainty and clunky.

Finally, Breezy turned to Luca, his last stop before the team exited to the ice. He held up his hand for their customary high five, the only ritual Luca had allowed him last year.

Luca didn’t know what possessed him. Maybe the exhilaration from warm-ups pumping in his veins, maybe the belief he would never articulate that this actually could be their year, maybe the buoyancy of loving someone even knowing it would never be returned.

“I think we need a new ritual,” he said.

Breezy’s eyes lit up. He wasn’t, as far as Luca could tell, superstitious. He had no issues about changing up his pregame routines, and he didn’t attach any magical thinking to his gear, unlike some other players Luca could name (most notably Tom, who still wore the base layer he’d had on for his second hat trick last season despite it being patched in multiple places). Breezy simply enjoyed being part of a team so much he was always up for new ridiculousness.

Luca bypassed his outstretched hand and wrapped him up in a firm, brief hug.

A happy sigh sounded in his ear as Breezy’s arms squeezed tight around him. “Good handshake,” Breezy said, somewhere right above Luca’s ear.

“Let’s go!” Lindy called from ahead of them, and they hit the ice.

The Chicago Firecrackers should have been a decent team on paper. They weren’t as good as they had been ten years ago, when they last won the Cup. Most of the veterans who had played then either aged out of relevance or retired, but they had a few decent younger guys they’d traded for at a bargain. Still, something about their lineup refused to gel, and they’d finished in the bottom of the standings three years running.

Their only real strength was their goaltending.

Goaltenders had to be treated like a fine wine. They needed aging to be ready for the NHL in the lower-pressure environment of AHL or college hockey. When they were drafted, luck more than anything else decided for the team choosing them whether they would live up to their potential.

The Sea Lions had gotten lucky with Dmitriyev, who had hit his stride last season at twenty-five.

The Firecrackers had gotten lucky with all three of the goaltenders they currently had on the roster. They had traded for one. The other two were fortunate draft picks from past years who ended up being excellent choices. Luca might have been insulted they played a backup on opening night if Henderson, with number one splashed all over his jersey and helmet, were less good.

He still couldn’t hold a candle to the Sea Lions at full strength.

At first, it felt like a regular game. Jax won the face-off. Vanderbilt lost the puck to Denisov, a hulking giant of a winger. Breezy got it away from the Firecrackers, and Luca sauced it to Tom, who passed to Jax, but Henderson blocked the shot.

“I hate when goalies wear number one,” Luca muttered to Breezy as they headed for the bench. “It seems so conceited.”