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It has its perks. Good luck tonight. I’ll be the one holding an I heart Eli sign.

Eli:

You and half the arena. They like me here, you know.

Nolan:

I can relate.

Grinning so wide his face hurt, Eli sent a series of hearts back.

He couldn’t believe last night had happened. He’d had sex with Nolan Madolora!

That sentence needed to be punctuated by two or three or a thousand exclamation marks.

And then Nolan had stayed over and there’d been this morning, and . . .

Eli really needed to stop thinking about Nolan before he popped a boner in front of his teammates.

He dressed in his base layers and ate a banana, and by the time he’d donned his uniform, Coach Madolora entered the room.

Eli couldn’t meet his gaze. What was the etiquette when you’d just slept with the coach’s son?

“All right, boys, listen up.”

Coach stood in the center of the locker room, and it hit Eli all at once that Madolora looked exactly the same as he had a decade ago when he’d coached Eli’s juniors team: broad-shouldered, receding albeit grayer hairline, thin mustache. He had the air of someone who was either the head coach of a professional hockey team or the head of a lucrative smuggling operation.

Eli wasn’t convinced the two jobs didn’t require the same skill set.

“I don’t care who scores tonight,” Madolora said. “I care that we’re playing smart. That we’re supporting each other. That we’re playing Trailblazers hockey. The scoreboard will take care of itself after that. So let’s go!”

A cheer went up, its roar deafening as Eli and his teammates tapped their sticks against the floor.

He strapped his helmet on and, adrenaline firing in his veins, followed his teammates down the chute for the pregame warm-up.

“Which one’s yours?”

Having anticipated the question—although not in such Neanderthal terms—Nolan side-eyed his best friend during a break in play. “If you can guess, I’ll buy you the three-hundred-dollar, all-you-can-drink souvenir cup.”

King’s eyebrows went up, and he leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees. He already looked smug as fuck. “How many guesses do I get?”

“One.”

“Fuck you. Five.”

“Three.”

“Fine,” King said. “I can work with three.”

Dabbs won the face-off, and Bellamy Jordan nabbed the puck a second later. It had been an exciting game so far. The Waves had scored early in the first period, and the Trailblazers had retaliated a few minutes later, Owen Cotton’s goal hitting the back of the net over the goalie’s left shoulder.

Nolan was a lot less interested in the game than he was in a certain player who currently sat on the bench. He and King sat three rows back from the home team bench, and the only thing separating Nolan from Eli was two rows of spectators and tempered glass.

“You said he’s ten years younger?” King asked.

“When did I say that?”

“When we spoke on the phone.”