Unrivaled, page 16
The problem came when Grady pushed inside and Max arched his back again and sent his neck into agony.
“Fuck!” Max liked a good slap on his ass in the heat of the moment, but this was the bad kind of pain. He gritted his teeth and tried to breathe through it.
Grady put a palm in the center of Max’s chest and pushed down until his shoulders went flat to the bed. Max grunted. “I’d joke about tying you up, but I don’t think your arm could handle it.”
Max exhaled through his nose and consciously relaxed his neck and shoulders. Then he canted his hips; Grady should remember he had a job to do here. “Put a pin in that thought.”
Grady took his cue without further prompting. He snapped forward and nailed Max’s prostate just right. Biting his lip, Max closed his eyes and let himself get lost in it. He braced his right arm against the mattress and wrapped his legs around Grady’s waist.
But Max wasn’t designed to lie there and take it, and he only lasted a handful of deep, perfect thrusts before he dug his left elbow into the mattress and tried to use it for leverage.
Huffing, Grady pulled out.
Max opened his eyes. “Hey!”
“You’re a danger to yourself,” Grady said. “Turn over.”
All the wires in Max’s brain crossed in his haste to obey that particular annoyed, turned-on tone. Grady tugged his hips as Max wrestled to get his right arm beneath him. He had to rest his head on the pillow because the angle would’ve been murder on his neck, but otherwise Grady had the right idea—there was little Max could do to aggravate his injuries in this position.
“Stop squirming,” Grady complained again when he was back inside Max.
“Get the angle right, then,” Max bitched. “What is this, amateur hour?”
Grady fucked in hard enough to rattle Max’s teeth, adjusted the angle of Max’s right thigh, and fried most of Max’s remaining brain cells. “Anyone ever tell you you’re high-maintenance?”
Max swallowed a laugh with a gasp and curled the fingers of his left hand into the bedsheets. That was a new one, but Grady would think so. “Not—ah, do that again—not really.” He thrust his ass backward to meet Grady’s hips.
“For fuck’s sake, stop moving.”
Easy for him to say; he didn’t have to try to hold still while his central nervous system liquified. “Fucking make me. Jesus. You think I’m high-maintenance.”
Grady dug his fingers into Max’s hips. Max would’ve sworn he could feel the slap coming—Larry was ready for it—but it didn’t land. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? But I’m not going to.”
Max opened his mouth to protest. It figured—of course Grady wouldn’t give him what he wanted; Grady was a contrary asshole—but then he continued,
“If you want me to spank your ass so bad, you can behave yourself. It’s only a punishment if you don’t like it.”
At that point Max’s spine stopped working, and he couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it, because his brain went offline. An embarrassing moan escaped his mouth because Max didn’t have any control over that either.
“Knew you could do it,” Grady said, like the smug asshole he was.
The flat of his palm landed against the meat of Max’s ass, sending fire along his nerve endings. Max bit his lip, but the gasp came out anyway, and his body spasmed around Grady’s dick.
But he didn’t move—not voluntarily—until his cock was dripping between his legs, his right arm was shaking with the effort of holding him up, and his ass stung so good from being slapped he couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck,” he groaned into the pillow. “Grady, I gotta—”
“Yeah,” Grady said, sounding every bit as wrecked as Max felt, and Max wasn’t gonna ask twice.
He didn’t have a perfect range of motion on his left arm, but he could get his hand around his dick. One more stinging slap on the back of his thigh and he hurtled into orgasm, shuddering and shaking and making a mess of Grady’s sheets.
Grady followed like he always did. His grip on Max’s hips tightened and he bit off a curse Max only vaguely heard through the roaring in his own ears, and his balls twitched against Max’s ass as he came.
With the endorphins leaching out of his brain, Max gave himself a moment to recover. He kept doing this. Realistically, he was going to keep doing it until he couldn’t anymore, which was stupid. Eventually he’d break and his feelings would come flooding out, and Grady would be horrified.
But right now Grady was too come-dumb to notice if Max waved a sign advertising his feelings in front of his face, so it was fine.
Grady collapsed on the bed next to him, breathing hard. “Not that I don’t appreciate the booty call,” he mumbled into the pillow, “but what are you doing here?”
Max could’ve taken offense, but Grady clearly didn’t mean anything by it. “Getting laid?” He patted Grady’s hip. “Good job, by the way.”
“You’re the worst.” Grady peered at him with his face half smashed into a pillow. “And that’s not what I meant.”
Max rolled onto his back so he could pretend Grady couldn’t see him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Sex is a pretty good motivator.”
Grady muffled a sigh.
Fuck it. He wouldn’t believe the truth anyway, if Max told it right. “Couldn’t stomach the idea of spending a whole week in my own company, so I figured I’d impose on you instead. Knew you were on a home stand. So here I am.”
Blessed silence for all of three seconds. Then, “A week?”
Max braced himself. “My bag’s still in the car.”
“The car?” Grady squawked. Max looked at him. His eyes were as big as pucks. “You parked that monstrosity in my driveway? The lime-green one with the vanity plates? Are you nuts? Do you know how nosy my neighbors are?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Relax. I took Hedgie’s wife’s car. You saw it when I came in, remember?”
“Fantastic,” he said wryly. “They can think I’m screwing her instead.”
Yeah, it was probably best if that rumor didn’t circulate. “What was I supposed to do, rent a car?”
“Or park it in the garage like any normal person having a clandestine hookup.”
Max laughed. “That’s a bit rich coming from you, since Hedgie and El already saw your car in my driveway overnight.”
That stopped Grady cold. “Oh shit, seriously?”
“I had to answer so many awkward questions, Mr. Pennsylvania Plates. But I’d be happy to park in your garage to save you from the same fate.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure your teammates will appreciate the good mood all the extra vitamin D will put you in.”
“Gosh. Awfully gracious of you.” Grady gave a theatrical sigh. “Fine, you can stay. But you’re not sleeping in my bed.”
From the way he said it—no trace of annoyance, an amused twist to his lips—it was clear he neither believed that nor was he particularly bothered. Max grinned sunnily. “That’s cool. Can I still fuck you in it?”
Grady hit him with the pillow.
Then he said, “I need lunch first. You want an omelet?”
GRADY WAS a call-first kind of guy. When Max presented himself on his doorstep, it threw him.
But he was also having a tough week—news had broken that he’d requested a trade, so now he got to deal with fans dragging him for disloyalty on the internet and a combination of accusatory questions and sympathetic understanding from the Firebirds’ beleaguered beat reporters. Having Max around provided a distraction, not to mention an outlet for some of Grady’s pent-up energy. Feeding him seemed like the least Grady could do.
Grady made the omelets while Max watched from the breakfast bar, brow furrowed. “Why’re the yolks so orange?”
“Farm-fresh eggs are always richer in color.” And flavor. But he’d figure that out soon enough.
Grady plated up and Max dug in, then made an orgasmic, outraged sound through his closed mouth. Once he’d swallowed, he looked at his plate in disbelief. “Oh my God, this is amazing. How is it so much eggier than a regular egg?” He looked up at Grady and his expression became accusatory. “How am I supposed to go back to grocery store eggs after this?”
Grady finished his own lunch around a self-satisfied smirk. “That sounds like a you problem.”
Laughing, Max tossed his balled-up napkin at his head.
And then Grady made good on his promise and spread himself out on his bed with Max between his thighs.
Max hadn’t missed the mark when he accused Grady of being a control freak, but he didn’t miss it in bed either. He kept his thrusts slow and steady and perfectly aimed, which left Grady without anything to complain about.
Well—he could have complained Max didn’t have a hand free to wrap around his dick, but that seemed in poor taste since Max was injured and Grady’s arms worked fine.
He did drop the condom on the sheet afterward, so Grady bitched about that instead, even though the linens were already destroyed from earlier.
Max snorted into Grady’s shoulder and wiped his lube-sticky hand on Grady’s stomach. “I don’t know why I thought this would make you mellow.”
Objectively, they were disgusting, but Grady was comfortable and Max wasn’t that heavy. They could shower later. “Me neither. You really misread that situation.”
Max’s laugh tickled the hairs on the back of Grady’s neck. Neither of them got up for several minutes.
Grady didn’t have a game that night, but if he thought spending the entire day with Max would be awkward and strange, Max surprised him again. Grady did an off-day workout in his home gym while Max helped himself to Netflix, and then they argued about dinner for twenty minutes before settling on gnocchi with kale, Italian sausage, and a browned-butter sauce.
“If you turn the heat up in the pan, you can get the kale to crisp up on the edges,” Max commented as he drained the pasta.
Grady didn’t remember telling him where to find the colander. “Maybe I like it wilted.”
But he turned the heat up when Max wasn’t looking.
Everything went surprisingly well until bedtime rolled around and they realized they’d forgotten about the state of the sheets.
Max pursed his lips in consideration. “So when you said I wouldn’t be sleeping in your bed… you meant that you wouldn’t either?”
Asshole. Grady pointed. “Guest bedroom’s upstairs.”
Last time they’d shared a bed, Max slept ass naked, passed out facedown. This time Grady woke up to find him curled into a ball on his side like a kid, wearing Grady’s stolen boxers since he’d been too lazy to get his bag out of the car.
Maybe he thought it was rude to sleep naked in someone else’s bed.
Probably he was just a weirdo.
Grady had practice in the morning, so they made a quick breakfast before he left. He had no idea what Max planned to do while he was gone, but as long as he didn’t burn the house down, Grady didn’t care.
His agent called when he was halfway home. “Keep this quiet for now, but things are in motion. Don’t be surprised if you get scratched this week.”
For years, Grady’s shoulders had been gradually tightening with stress about the team. Half a dozen seasons now he’d spent training up a new linemate, working to generate chemistry, only for management to turn around and trade him for a defenseman or picks because Grady’d played with him enough to inflate his numbers. They seemed to expect Grady to play just as well with anyone.
Now the tension finally started to relax. It felt… strange.
Of course part of him was sad too. He liked Coop and Zipper. He liked his home here.
But he could like it somewhere else too. “Any idea where they’re sending me?”
“Looks like Anaheim.”
Anaheim had a stable full of young talent. When they clicked, they steamrollered their opponents. When they didn’t, they could blow a 5–0 lead in a single period. It made sense that they’d be looking for a few veterans to keep the hotheads in line and keep them on an even keel. Grady could see himself fitting in there.
It was on the other side of the country, though—kind of a long way to go for a booty call. He should enjoy this time with Max while he could.
“Thanks, Erika.”
When he entered the house, Max was sitting in the living room in his boxers, eating a bowl of cereal. He paused the TV and looked up when Grady entered.
Grady looked over Max’s shoulder at the TV screen. Apparently he was fifty-seven minutes into Pride & Prejudice.
“Don’t judge me.”
Grady raised his hands. “No judgment.” Max could watch whatever he wanted.
“So.” Max craned his neck to meet Grady’s eyes. “Where are they dealing you?”
He must’ve been paying attention after all. “Erika thinks Anaheim.”
Suddenly saying it out loud exhausted him. He sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Max, and they finished watching the movie together.
Grady expected to get scratched for the next game as a preventive measure, since an injury could kill a trade. But Coach put him in the lineup at the last minute. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I do what they tell me. Suit up.”
So he did. He got a few shifty looks in the locker room, but at least soon it wouldn’t be Grady’s problem.
He went out and put up three points against Pittsburgh, which was good enough to earn him first star of the game but not good enough to get the Firebirds a win against their second-most-hated rival team.
Grady did his standard postgame media bullshit, spent long enough on the bike to keep from cramping, hit the shower, then hit the road.
He hoped Max wasn’t expecting much from him tonight. Between the exhaustion and the frustration, he didn’t feel particularly social.
As had become routine, Max had the TV on when Grady got home. TSN was playing highlights from the Nordiques game—no, not just one game. The video flashed to a shot of Dante Baltierra in an away jersey. He’d been playing at home in the first one.
Had Baller hit a milestone tonight?
Grady looked away from the screen and met Max’s eyes.
Max said, “I’m really sorry.”
With a sinking sensation, Grady turned back to the television. This time he read the ticker along the bottom. Nordiques trade Dante Baltierra to Anaheim in three-way deal.
If they’d taken Baller, they weren’t taking Grady. Not without significant other moves, or an injury, or a roster overhaul that made no sense at this point in the season.
Which meant Grady wasn’t going anywhere for now.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Max regarded him for another moment and then turned off the TV. “You want to get high about it?”
MAX DIDN’T make a habit of smoking. He needed his lungs in top condition. But sometimes he needed to unwind more.
He’d been pretty sure Grady would turn him down—Grady was uptight by default, and weed wasn’t legal in Pennsylvania.
So when Grady blinked at him and then laughed and said, “Fuck it, YOLO,” Max kind of thought he was hallucinating.
It turned out weed made Grady tactile. They sat shoulder to shoulder on his back porch, passing the joint between them.
Grady was warm and solid against him, leaning with a good amount of weight, and he smelled good. Max suspected he’d made a terrible mistake, so he reached for the conversational equivalent of a bucket of cold water. “So. How’s the dating going?”
“Fucking terrible.” Grady turned his face until his forehead was pressed to Max’s shoulder. He snickered. “I quit.”
Well, that backfired. “What?”
“It was a dumb idea.” He slumped and rotated again as he held out his hand for the cigarette. Automatically, Max handed it to him. “I could’ve been traded anyway. And, like, it’s already November. I don’t wanna spend the holidays with some guy after dating him for a month. That would be weird and clingy.”
“True.”
Without dislodging himself from Max’s shoulder, Grady held the joint up to Max’s lips. Max took a drag. The paper was slightly damp in his mouth.
Grady sighed theatrically and flopped backward onto the deck. “I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Jess, though.”
The high was hitting now—it always took a little longer than Max expected—and his head got that detached floating feeling. “Hmm?” What did Jess have to do with it? Max didn’t remember.
“’Cause, like, she’s gotta go. If she doesn’t see Amanda again and get closure, she’s gonna pine forever, you know?”
Max nodded. He might not remember what Grady was referencing, but he understood the pine forever bit and why it was bad.
“And she’s all I’ve got, but she’s also my big sister, who raised me since I was fifteen.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the sky. “They broke up because of me, ’cause Amanda wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
“Oh fuck.” That was a lot to hang on a fifteen-year-old.
Now Grady let out a frustrated groan and rolled his head against the deck boards. “But if Jess finds out I have nobody to spend Christmas with, she won’t go.”
And this was the moment Max knew smoking was a bad idea, because his brain didn’t even try to stop his mouth from saying, “So spend it with me.”
Why was he such a dumbass?
Grady turned toward him with dazed eyes and smiled a high, uncomplicated smile. “Yeah?”
Max was completely fucked. “Yeah. I mean, it’ll be chaos. It’s me, my parents, and my brother and sister and their families. Last year my sister’s best friend was getting a divorce, so she tagged along. We rent a place.”
“What, you don’t have room for them all at your house?” Grady laughed. In the dim porch light, Max could make out the crinkles around his eyes.
Sometimes Max forgot how handsome Grady was when he smiled, since he didn’t do it often. This laughing, relaxed Grady was like kryptonite.
Max’s chest hurt. He blamed the pot.
“I could buy a bigger house,” he said, aiming for levity. “But then I couldn’t leave it when my mom starts getting on me about my love life.”
Grady flat-out giggled. It was adorable. “Okay, but, like, that brings up a good point. What do we tell your family? Like, ‘Mom, I brought home a stray hockey player for the holidays’?”
“Fuck!” Max liked a good slap on his ass in the heat of the moment, but this was the bad kind of pain. He gritted his teeth and tried to breathe through it.
Grady put a palm in the center of Max’s chest and pushed down until his shoulders went flat to the bed. Max grunted. “I’d joke about tying you up, but I don’t think your arm could handle it.”
Max exhaled through his nose and consciously relaxed his neck and shoulders. Then he canted his hips; Grady should remember he had a job to do here. “Put a pin in that thought.”
Grady took his cue without further prompting. He snapped forward and nailed Max’s prostate just right. Biting his lip, Max closed his eyes and let himself get lost in it. He braced his right arm against the mattress and wrapped his legs around Grady’s waist.
But Max wasn’t designed to lie there and take it, and he only lasted a handful of deep, perfect thrusts before he dug his left elbow into the mattress and tried to use it for leverage.
Huffing, Grady pulled out.
Max opened his eyes. “Hey!”
“You’re a danger to yourself,” Grady said. “Turn over.”
All the wires in Max’s brain crossed in his haste to obey that particular annoyed, turned-on tone. Grady tugged his hips as Max wrestled to get his right arm beneath him. He had to rest his head on the pillow because the angle would’ve been murder on his neck, but otherwise Grady had the right idea—there was little Max could do to aggravate his injuries in this position.
“Stop squirming,” Grady complained again when he was back inside Max.
“Get the angle right, then,” Max bitched. “What is this, amateur hour?”
Grady fucked in hard enough to rattle Max’s teeth, adjusted the angle of Max’s right thigh, and fried most of Max’s remaining brain cells. “Anyone ever tell you you’re high-maintenance?”
Max swallowed a laugh with a gasp and curled the fingers of his left hand into the bedsheets. That was a new one, but Grady would think so. “Not—ah, do that again—not really.” He thrust his ass backward to meet Grady’s hips.
“For fuck’s sake, stop moving.”
Easy for him to say; he didn’t have to try to hold still while his central nervous system liquified. “Fucking make me. Jesus. You think I’m high-maintenance.”
Grady dug his fingers into Max’s hips. Max would’ve sworn he could feel the slap coming—Larry was ready for it—but it didn’t land. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? But I’m not going to.”
Max opened his mouth to protest. It figured—of course Grady wouldn’t give him what he wanted; Grady was a contrary asshole—but then he continued,
“If you want me to spank your ass so bad, you can behave yourself. It’s only a punishment if you don’t like it.”
At that point Max’s spine stopped working, and he couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it, because his brain went offline. An embarrassing moan escaped his mouth because Max didn’t have any control over that either.
“Knew you could do it,” Grady said, like the smug asshole he was.
The flat of his palm landed against the meat of Max’s ass, sending fire along his nerve endings. Max bit his lip, but the gasp came out anyway, and his body spasmed around Grady’s dick.
But he didn’t move—not voluntarily—until his cock was dripping between his legs, his right arm was shaking with the effort of holding him up, and his ass stung so good from being slapped he couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck,” he groaned into the pillow. “Grady, I gotta—”
“Yeah,” Grady said, sounding every bit as wrecked as Max felt, and Max wasn’t gonna ask twice.
He didn’t have a perfect range of motion on his left arm, but he could get his hand around his dick. One more stinging slap on the back of his thigh and he hurtled into orgasm, shuddering and shaking and making a mess of Grady’s sheets.
Grady followed like he always did. His grip on Max’s hips tightened and he bit off a curse Max only vaguely heard through the roaring in his own ears, and his balls twitched against Max’s ass as he came.
With the endorphins leaching out of his brain, Max gave himself a moment to recover. He kept doing this. Realistically, he was going to keep doing it until he couldn’t anymore, which was stupid. Eventually he’d break and his feelings would come flooding out, and Grady would be horrified.
But right now Grady was too come-dumb to notice if Max waved a sign advertising his feelings in front of his face, so it was fine.
Grady collapsed on the bed next to him, breathing hard. “Not that I don’t appreciate the booty call,” he mumbled into the pillow, “but what are you doing here?”
Max could’ve taken offense, but Grady clearly didn’t mean anything by it. “Getting laid?” He patted Grady’s hip. “Good job, by the way.”
“You’re the worst.” Grady peered at him with his face half smashed into a pillow. “And that’s not what I meant.”
Max rolled onto his back so he could pretend Grady couldn’t see him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Sex is a pretty good motivator.”
Grady muffled a sigh.
Fuck it. He wouldn’t believe the truth anyway, if Max told it right. “Couldn’t stomach the idea of spending a whole week in my own company, so I figured I’d impose on you instead. Knew you were on a home stand. So here I am.”
Blessed silence for all of three seconds. Then, “A week?”
Max braced himself. “My bag’s still in the car.”
“The car?” Grady squawked. Max looked at him. His eyes were as big as pucks. “You parked that monstrosity in my driveway? The lime-green one with the vanity plates? Are you nuts? Do you know how nosy my neighbors are?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Relax. I took Hedgie’s wife’s car. You saw it when I came in, remember?”
“Fantastic,” he said wryly. “They can think I’m screwing her instead.”
Yeah, it was probably best if that rumor didn’t circulate. “What was I supposed to do, rent a car?”
“Or park it in the garage like any normal person having a clandestine hookup.”
Max laughed. “That’s a bit rich coming from you, since Hedgie and El already saw your car in my driveway overnight.”
That stopped Grady cold. “Oh shit, seriously?”
“I had to answer so many awkward questions, Mr. Pennsylvania Plates. But I’d be happy to park in your garage to save you from the same fate.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure your teammates will appreciate the good mood all the extra vitamin D will put you in.”
“Gosh. Awfully gracious of you.” Grady gave a theatrical sigh. “Fine, you can stay. But you’re not sleeping in my bed.”
From the way he said it—no trace of annoyance, an amused twist to his lips—it was clear he neither believed that nor was he particularly bothered. Max grinned sunnily. “That’s cool. Can I still fuck you in it?”
Grady hit him with the pillow.
Then he said, “I need lunch first. You want an omelet?”
GRADY WAS a call-first kind of guy. When Max presented himself on his doorstep, it threw him.
But he was also having a tough week—news had broken that he’d requested a trade, so now he got to deal with fans dragging him for disloyalty on the internet and a combination of accusatory questions and sympathetic understanding from the Firebirds’ beleaguered beat reporters. Having Max around provided a distraction, not to mention an outlet for some of Grady’s pent-up energy. Feeding him seemed like the least Grady could do.
Grady made the omelets while Max watched from the breakfast bar, brow furrowed. “Why’re the yolks so orange?”
“Farm-fresh eggs are always richer in color.” And flavor. But he’d figure that out soon enough.
Grady plated up and Max dug in, then made an orgasmic, outraged sound through his closed mouth. Once he’d swallowed, he looked at his plate in disbelief. “Oh my God, this is amazing. How is it so much eggier than a regular egg?” He looked up at Grady and his expression became accusatory. “How am I supposed to go back to grocery store eggs after this?”
Grady finished his own lunch around a self-satisfied smirk. “That sounds like a you problem.”
Laughing, Max tossed his balled-up napkin at his head.
And then Grady made good on his promise and spread himself out on his bed with Max between his thighs.
Max hadn’t missed the mark when he accused Grady of being a control freak, but he didn’t miss it in bed either. He kept his thrusts slow and steady and perfectly aimed, which left Grady without anything to complain about.
Well—he could have complained Max didn’t have a hand free to wrap around his dick, but that seemed in poor taste since Max was injured and Grady’s arms worked fine.
He did drop the condom on the sheet afterward, so Grady bitched about that instead, even though the linens were already destroyed from earlier.
Max snorted into Grady’s shoulder and wiped his lube-sticky hand on Grady’s stomach. “I don’t know why I thought this would make you mellow.”
Objectively, they were disgusting, but Grady was comfortable and Max wasn’t that heavy. They could shower later. “Me neither. You really misread that situation.”
Max’s laugh tickled the hairs on the back of Grady’s neck. Neither of them got up for several minutes.
Grady didn’t have a game that night, but if he thought spending the entire day with Max would be awkward and strange, Max surprised him again. Grady did an off-day workout in his home gym while Max helped himself to Netflix, and then they argued about dinner for twenty minutes before settling on gnocchi with kale, Italian sausage, and a browned-butter sauce.
“If you turn the heat up in the pan, you can get the kale to crisp up on the edges,” Max commented as he drained the pasta.
Grady didn’t remember telling him where to find the colander. “Maybe I like it wilted.”
But he turned the heat up when Max wasn’t looking.
Everything went surprisingly well until bedtime rolled around and they realized they’d forgotten about the state of the sheets.
Max pursed his lips in consideration. “So when you said I wouldn’t be sleeping in your bed… you meant that you wouldn’t either?”
Asshole. Grady pointed. “Guest bedroom’s upstairs.”
Last time they’d shared a bed, Max slept ass naked, passed out facedown. This time Grady woke up to find him curled into a ball on his side like a kid, wearing Grady’s stolen boxers since he’d been too lazy to get his bag out of the car.
Maybe he thought it was rude to sleep naked in someone else’s bed.
Probably he was just a weirdo.
Grady had practice in the morning, so they made a quick breakfast before he left. He had no idea what Max planned to do while he was gone, but as long as he didn’t burn the house down, Grady didn’t care.
His agent called when he was halfway home. “Keep this quiet for now, but things are in motion. Don’t be surprised if you get scratched this week.”
For years, Grady’s shoulders had been gradually tightening with stress about the team. Half a dozen seasons now he’d spent training up a new linemate, working to generate chemistry, only for management to turn around and trade him for a defenseman or picks because Grady’d played with him enough to inflate his numbers. They seemed to expect Grady to play just as well with anyone.
Now the tension finally started to relax. It felt… strange.
Of course part of him was sad too. He liked Coop and Zipper. He liked his home here.
But he could like it somewhere else too. “Any idea where they’re sending me?”
“Looks like Anaheim.”
Anaheim had a stable full of young talent. When they clicked, they steamrollered their opponents. When they didn’t, they could blow a 5–0 lead in a single period. It made sense that they’d be looking for a few veterans to keep the hotheads in line and keep them on an even keel. Grady could see himself fitting in there.
It was on the other side of the country, though—kind of a long way to go for a booty call. He should enjoy this time with Max while he could.
“Thanks, Erika.”
When he entered the house, Max was sitting in the living room in his boxers, eating a bowl of cereal. He paused the TV and looked up when Grady entered.
Grady looked over Max’s shoulder at the TV screen. Apparently he was fifty-seven minutes into Pride & Prejudice.
“Don’t judge me.”
Grady raised his hands. “No judgment.” Max could watch whatever he wanted.
“So.” Max craned his neck to meet Grady’s eyes. “Where are they dealing you?”
He must’ve been paying attention after all. “Erika thinks Anaheim.”
Suddenly saying it out loud exhausted him. He sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Max, and they finished watching the movie together.
Grady expected to get scratched for the next game as a preventive measure, since an injury could kill a trade. But Coach put him in the lineup at the last minute. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I do what they tell me. Suit up.”
So he did. He got a few shifty looks in the locker room, but at least soon it wouldn’t be Grady’s problem.
He went out and put up three points against Pittsburgh, which was good enough to earn him first star of the game but not good enough to get the Firebirds a win against their second-most-hated rival team.
Grady did his standard postgame media bullshit, spent long enough on the bike to keep from cramping, hit the shower, then hit the road.
He hoped Max wasn’t expecting much from him tonight. Between the exhaustion and the frustration, he didn’t feel particularly social.
As had become routine, Max had the TV on when Grady got home. TSN was playing highlights from the Nordiques game—no, not just one game. The video flashed to a shot of Dante Baltierra in an away jersey. He’d been playing at home in the first one.
Had Baller hit a milestone tonight?
Grady looked away from the screen and met Max’s eyes.
Max said, “I’m really sorry.”
With a sinking sensation, Grady turned back to the television. This time he read the ticker along the bottom. Nordiques trade Dante Baltierra to Anaheim in three-way deal.
If they’d taken Baller, they weren’t taking Grady. Not without significant other moves, or an injury, or a roster overhaul that made no sense at this point in the season.
Which meant Grady wasn’t going anywhere for now.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” Max regarded him for another moment and then turned off the TV. “You want to get high about it?”
MAX DIDN’T make a habit of smoking. He needed his lungs in top condition. But sometimes he needed to unwind more.
He’d been pretty sure Grady would turn him down—Grady was uptight by default, and weed wasn’t legal in Pennsylvania.
So when Grady blinked at him and then laughed and said, “Fuck it, YOLO,” Max kind of thought he was hallucinating.
It turned out weed made Grady tactile. They sat shoulder to shoulder on his back porch, passing the joint between them.
Grady was warm and solid against him, leaning with a good amount of weight, and he smelled good. Max suspected he’d made a terrible mistake, so he reached for the conversational equivalent of a bucket of cold water. “So. How’s the dating going?”
“Fucking terrible.” Grady turned his face until his forehead was pressed to Max’s shoulder. He snickered. “I quit.”
Well, that backfired. “What?”
“It was a dumb idea.” He slumped and rotated again as he held out his hand for the cigarette. Automatically, Max handed it to him. “I could’ve been traded anyway. And, like, it’s already November. I don’t wanna spend the holidays with some guy after dating him for a month. That would be weird and clingy.”
“True.”
Without dislodging himself from Max’s shoulder, Grady held the joint up to Max’s lips. Max took a drag. The paper was slightly damp in his mouth.
Grady sighed theatrically and flopped backward onto the deck. “I don’t know what I’m gonna tell Jess, though.”
The high was hitting now—it always took a little longer than Max expected—and his head got that detached floating feeling. “Hmm?” What did Jess have to do with it? Max didn’t remember.
“’Cause, like, she’s gotta go. If she doesn’t see Amanda again and get closure, she’s gonna pine forever, you know?”
Max nodded. He might not remember what Grady was referencing, but he understood the pine forever bit and why it was bad.
“And she’s all I’ve got, but she’s also my big sister, who raised me since I was fifteen.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the sky. “They broke up because of me, ’cause Amanda wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
“Oh fuck.” That was a lot to hang on a fifteen-year-old.
Now Grady let out a frustrated groan and rolled his head against the deck boards. “But if Jess finds out I have nobody to spend Christmas with, she won’t go.”
And this was the moment Max knew smoking was a bad idea, because his brain didn’t even try to stop his mouth from saying, “So spend it with me.”
Why was he such a dumbass?
Grady turned toward him with dazed eyes and smiled a high, uncomplicated smile. “Yeah?”
Max was completely fucked. “Yeah. I mean, it’ll be chaos. It’s me, my parents, and my brother and sister and their families. Last year my sister’s best friend was getting a divorce, so she tagged along. We rent a place.”
“What, you don’t have room for them all at your house?” Grady laughed. In the dim porch light, Max could make out the crinkles around his eyes.
Sometimes Max forgot how handsome Grady was when he smiled, since he didn’t do it often. This laughing, relaxed Grady was like kryptonite.
Max’s chest hurt. He blamed the pot.
“I could buy a bigger house,” he said, aiming for levity. “But then I couldn’t leave it when my mom starts getting on me about my love life.”
Grady flat-out giggled. It was adorable. “Okay, but, like, that brings up a good point. What do we tell your family? Like, ‘Mom, I brought home a stray hockey player for the holidays’?”
