AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stifled a giggle, then started when her mother called, “Alyssa, what do you want to eat?”
She darted over to hover over the tablet with her parents, and Evan turned to Colin. “Want to order a drink?”
“Sure,” Colin said, but when Evan started forward, Colin held him back.
Evan turned. “You okay?”
“I realized I forgot to thank you,” Colin said, pitching his voice low so it wouldn’t be heard over Alyssa and Jenny arguing about how much junk food the girl could order. “For the suite. Jude may have arranged it, but you thought of it.”
“And it’s the thought that counts?” Evan teased, wanting to lighten the mood a little.
But Colin’s eyes stayed serious. “Yeah.”
Emotion made his throat close up, so it took Evan a moment to get the words out. “You’re welcome.”
Colin waited a beat, his eyes seeming to bore into Evan’s. Then a hint of a smile curved his pretty mouth. “I’ll thank you properly later,” he murmured, and with a last squeeze, dropped Evan’s hand to saunter over to the bar.
Evan just stared after him for a moment, his heart thudding in his ears. Then he hurried to join Colin, lest the child in the room notice that his jeans no longer fit properly.
Colin nibbled on a chicken wing,his eyes on the ice. With twelve minutes to go in the third period the home team was ahead by a goal, but two of their players were sitting in the penalty box, and the opposition was pressing hard. Jude was on the ice to defend, his stick skimming across the surface in a wide arc as he tried to cover two players at once.
“This shit is tense,” he muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Evan replied. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, concentrating on the action below, a bucket of popcorn dangling from his fingertips.
Then the left winger fanned on a pass, and the puck was on Jude’s stick.
“There he goes,” Evan crowed, leaping to his feet along with Colin, the three Bacotes, and everyone else in the arena. The crowd roared as Jude streaked across center ice into the offensive zone, JJ Bacote right behind him. A lone defender stood in his path, taking away his shot, so Jude passed the puck to JJ. When the defender shifted his focus, Jude put on a burst of speed and skated around him. JJ passed the puck back, and with a little shoulder wiggle and a fake to the left, Jude sent the goalie sprawling and the puck into the back of the net for a shorthanded goal.
“Woohoo!” Evan shouted, flinging his arms up into the air and sending his popcorn flying.
Colin laughed and snagged a piece in mid-air. Beside him, Alyssa was filming on her phone, and her parents were jumping up and down in jubilation.
“Did you see?” Jake shouted, his face alight with joy. He was sweating like he’d just run a marathon and wore a mile-wide grin. “My boy got an assist! On a shortie!”
“Did you get it, Alyssa? Did you?” Jenny yelled, clinging to her husband as he spun her in a celebratory circle.
“I got it, I got it,” Alyssa assured them with a grin, still recording.
“That was awesome,” Colin said, shouting to be heard over the celebrating crowd.
“Hell yeah, it was,” Evan shouted back, and did a hip-shaking boogie as down on the ice, Jude skated past his bench to high-five his teammates, the assist providing JJ Bacote right behind him.
Colin tried to sit back down, then stood again to brush the popcorn out of his chair. Then he spotted his chicken wings on the floor, where they’d fallen when he surged to his feet.
Taking it philosophically—especially since he’d had nachos, two pretzels with mustard, and a barbeque pork sandwich—he scooped them up and walked past a still-boogieing Evan to the trash bin by the bar.
Benjamin gave him a nod. “Want a napkin?”
“Thanks.” Colin wiped his hands clean, then sent the napkin after the wings. “What time do you have to start closing up?”
Benjamin looked past Colin to the game clock. “At the ten-minute mark. I was just about to announce last call.”
“I’ll take a last beer, and a Coke for Evan,” Colin said and shook his head when Benjamin reached for a pair of glasses. “The cans are fine.”
Benjamin handed them over with a smile. “You guys are making my job easy.”
“You must not have seen the popcorn go flying.”
