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Goddammit. Yeah, this would get Darius focused. A single look his way confirmed it. Now, suddenly, Darius had something to prove. He wasn’t all that different from Ryan. Darius could get riled up too. As a Quinn, you had to be competitive.
“I guess we’re done canoodling and acting all love-sick,” Gray said.
Ryan chuckled.
Darius nodded with a dip of his chin. “For the time being. Yeah.” He cleared his throat and kissed Gray’s cheek, then addressed his brother. “We should go gear up and talk strategy. If I don’t make at least one goal…” He shook his head, the notion evidently abhorrent to him.
“Finally.” Ryan was satisfied, and he turned around on his skates and summoned all the old folks for his Old Folks Team. “Inspiring pep talk in the home team’s locker room in two minutes!”
Christ.
Abel and Gray remained by the boards and watched the old-timers skate off the ice.
On Team Gray, they had Gray, Abel, Shay, Gabriel, and Gideon. Two NHL players, four total who had grown up playing hockey, and Shay, who had his own valuable skill set.
On Team Darius…Darius, Ryan, Ethan, Avery, Madigan, River, Reese, Case, Boone.
Five against nine. And they’d be allowed to have eight players on the ice at the same time.
Not the approach Gray would use, but whatever. Strength didn’t merely come in numbers in hockey. It came from technique, strategy, being agile and fast; it came from being organized and knowing where your teammates were. Darius and Ryan were bringing a disorganized shitshow to the ice.
Gabriel, Gideon, and Shay skated over to Gray and Abel, and they might as well have their talk right here—before they went to gear up.
A low hum of chatter traveled down from the stands—kids who wanted to see their daddy or uncle, Adeline and Mom who’d brought snacks for everyone, Lincoln who asked if anyone cared to make the game more interesting…
So that was when the betting began.
“Okay, so this won’t sound like any pep talk a coach has ever given us…” Abel scratched the side of his head, and Gray chuckled. “We know the rules.” The fake ones, loosely inspired by the actual sport of hockey. “No cross-checking, gloves on at all times, no using skates as weapons—seriously, I can’t get over when he said that. What kind of life do you live if you feel the need to point out that skates shouldn’t be used as a weapon?”
Gabriel laughed.
“A life where anything can be a weapon,” Gray chuckled. Damn Marines and PMCs. “We might as well suss out our main antagonists instead. The ones who’ll stop at nothing—except for the rules—to win. So, Ryan… Definitely Ryan.”
“Reese,” Shay provided. “River and Darius seem similar in that they’ll try to be sneaky about the shit they pull, so we should keep an eye on them at all times.”
Gray nodded in total agreement, then looked to Abel. “What about Madigan?”
“We don’t have to worry about him,” Abel stated confidently. “I don’t call him a sadist for nothing, but he’ll be too busy making sure I don’t get too overwhelmed or something. He’ll be in complete Daddy mode for this.”
That made sense. It was one of the reasons Gray adored Madigan. The man was so focused on Abel’s well-being and mental health.
“All right, that leaves us with the wild cards,” Gray went on. “Ethan, Case, Boone, and Avery. I don’t have the faintest idea how the Vegas guys are on the ice, but Avery and Ethan can hold their own. Avery has his boxing regimen with Darius that they’ve kept up for years, and Ethan is a man of many sports. He played football in high school, survived years of field hockey with his brothers, works as a PT and instructor at his own fitness center, and, worst of all, he’s a Quinn.”
Ethan had undergone a…quite fucking huge change the past eighteen months. He wasn’t as arrogant as he used to be; in fact, he’d proven to be really funny to be around once a certain woman had removed the stick up his ass. And that woman was Gray’s own aunt. But that was another story. Ethan was still a threat.
“These hotheads have a flaw, though,” Shay said. “I think we can get into their heads with trash talk. That’s a hockey thing, isn’t it?”
Boy, was it.
“I may have some experience.” Gideon brushed some lint off his hoodie.
Gray smirked. “How about we discuss our targets while we gear up?”
Team Gray hit the ice way before Team Darius arrived. The youngsters were playing in white uniforms, and the more seasoned men wore black.
Jesse, Abel’s big brother, Gage, Gray’s big brother, and Lias, Darius’s youngest brother, had been assigned the duty of making sure everyone played by the few rules they’d set. They wouldn’t be on the ice like a regular ref, but they’d sit on the scorekeepers’ bench between the penalty boxes.
