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Eli waved a hand in acknowledgment. “I’m really not in the mood to celebrate,” he muttered.

“We can go pub hopping,” Sandbaker said from wherever he was outside of Eli’s field of view.

“On Halloween?” Eli said. “Terrible idea. There’ll be lines everywhere. Plus, I gave up drinking, so there’s really no point.”

Deeley raised an eyebrow. “Since when?”

“Since . . . um . . .”

Since he’d drunk twice his weight in beer the last time the man he’d had feelings for since he was a teenager had rolled into town.

Nolan Madolora.

A decade ago, Coach Madolora had been Eli’s coach in the major juniors, back in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He’d been head coach of Saskatoon’s Junior B team for several years prior, and it was because of him that Eli’s team had won the Memorial Cup when he was a teen.

Coach Madolora was awesome.

And his son? Even more so.

At a decade older than Eli, Nolan had been so effortlessly cool. Self-assured and smart and kind, even to a very young, very swimming-in-hormones Eli who’d no doubt hung all over him, making his crush super obvious.

God, he hoped he hadn’t been obvious. Because Nolan had dated his older sister for half a year or so before they’d eventually split, and having a super obvious crush while the guy was dating his sister was weird, right?

Of course, Coach Madolora had eventually gotten a new job elsewhere, and Nolan had moved to Toronto—also for a new job—and Eli hadn’t seen him until ten months ago, when Nolan arrived in Burlington to visit his dad, who was Eli’s coach for the second time in his life, this time at the coveted NHL level.

Nolan had invited Eli out for drinks after a game last year, and Eli, still swimming in feelings for the guy, had had several beers too many, probably making Nolan think that he indulged that much on the regular, which wasn’t an attractive quality. Then he’d landed on Zanetti’s doorstep after midnight, feeling sorry for himself because Nolan had an incomprehensibly pretty and Uber-smart astrophysicist girlfriend who taught at Stanford.

Yes, in a moment of shame, he’d looked her up.

He’d sworn off drinking after that.

“Since when?” Deeley pressed.

“Just . . . since.”

“You had a beer at my place the other day.”

“Right.” Eli pursed his lips. “I meant I’ve given up drinking in excess.”

“You know you don’t have to drink at the pubs, right?” Sandbaker appeared on Deeley’s left. “They do have soft drinks.”

True. Eli wasn’t in the mood to party, even for his birthday, but a night out with his friends did sound fun.

Except for the pub-hopping thing. That just sounded tedious.

Wait, would he have to dress up?

Hold on a second . . . Eli had a thing tomorrow night, didn’t he? An appearance at a charity event? Or was that next week? Maybe tomorrow was the meeting with his agent? But that would be during the day. He was due in Boston at some point to shoot a promo for one of his sponsors, but that was . . . next month? There had to be something. There was always something. Since he’d been called up from the Trailblazers’ AHL affiliate last season, the demands on his time had increased by two hundred percent.

He patted his thighs for his phone to check his calendar, forgetting that he was only in underwear and a T-shirt after his shower.

“We should bring Matty Coates—he and his girlfriend broke up again to the surprise of absolutely no one,” Sandbaker said. “Bellamy and Gaff might want to join us too. Oh hey, let’s ask Nolan. I don’t have his number, but he was in the kitchen a few minutes ago.”

“What?” Eli scrambled to sit up. “Nolan’s still here?”

“In the kitchen,” Sandbaker maintained. “Like I just said.”

Great. Awesome. Nolan had witnessed Eli’s sophomore slump in person. Fantastic.