Unrivaled, page 31
“Hey,” Max said quietly. “Good game tonight.” It had been a good game—some of the best hockey he’d seen all season. He wasn’t looking forward to playing the Orcas.
“Not for me,” Grady said.
And—well, that was true too.
Grady didn’t look up.
Max cleared his throat. “What’s the verdict?”
Now that there was no chance they’d face each other in the postseason, Grady could tell Max what was wrong with him. He hadn’t earlier in the week. Max would’ve thrown his words from months ago back in his face, but regular season was one thing. Playoffs was another animal. Part of Max hadn’t wanted to know, because if he didn’t know, there was no chance he could use the knowledge, even subconsciously.
“Not broken,” Grady said. He sounded bitter instead of relieved. A break would’ve been a better excuse. He’d have been mad at whoever did it instead of at his own body. “Clavicle contusion. No strength in my arm. Feels like spaghetti, even when they shot it full of the good stuff.”
Max winced. Taken out by a glorified bruise. No wonder he was bitter. “That sucks. You need ice? Heat?”
Grady shook his head. “Sleep.”
He looked like he needed it. “All right. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Max’s heart sank when Grady shook his head again. “I’ll sleep in the guest room. Too many painkillers. I’m going to snore like a chainsaw.”
Max bit his lip. “Okay.”
He watched as Grady shuffled down the hall. Gru looked forlornly after him, tail still wagging slowly.
Sighing, Max scratched behind Gru’s ears. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go to bed.”
Gru curled up on Grady’s side of the mattress, nose tucked under his tail. Max stroked him absently and tried to shut off his brain.
Grady was just trying to be considerate by sleeping in the other room, where he wouldn’t disturb Max, who still needed to get a good night’s rest, since he’d be starting round two of the playoffs in a couple days. Which sucked, because Max also needed a snuggle and someone to tell him that a goal and three assists in five games was a reasonable number of points and hockey was a team sport.
But that was okay. Grady would still be there to tell him those things in the morning.
Gru sighed in irritation, his cue for Max to stop petting him and let him sleep. Max tucked his hand under his head and took his cue from Gru.
GRADY WOKE up sore the day after the Condors’ playoff exit.
But weirdly, it was mostly a physical soreness. His arm hurt, and he was disappointed, sure. Just not disappointed enough to let it affect the good things in his life.
He’d thought this was his year. He liked his new team. He got along with his teammates, who shared his work ethic. He wasn’t ready for locker cleanout and everybody leaving town.
But that was what he’d gotten, and he still had Max. He could make the best of it.
Max was still in bed when he got up, so Grady took Gru for a quick walk—even mostly one-handed, he could do that much—and then braved the task of making breakfast.
It almost ended in disaster when he caught the egg carton with the edge of the sling and sent it teetering toward the edge of the counter, but Max came into the kitchen just in time and made the save.
“Thanks,” Grady said as Max set the carton down. “I was going to make you breakfast, but maybe I’d better not.” At least not until he was more aware of where his elbow was. “Want me to order something?”
Max stared at him for a moment, wearing kind of a funny smile, and then kissed his cheek. “Nah, go sit down. I got this one.”
THAT NIGHT, Max came home from the first Piranhas-Orcas game with his shoulders slumped. Grady hadn’t watched, but he’d turned on notifications on his phone, so he knew the Orcas had won 8–5. Losing the series opener at home like that would sting.
But what could Grady say? Anything he attempted would come across as patronizing or smug.
In the end, he said, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Even Max’s hair looked kind of limp, though his playoff beard was starting to bush out to make up for it. “So that sucked.”
Grady winced in sympathy. “Sorry.” He gave himself a mental point for not adding at least you’re still playing.
Max shrugged. “It is what it is. How’s your collarbone?”
“Bruised.” The sudden subject change disoriented him. “Getting better, though.” He should have his strength and full range of motion back in another week.
“That’s good.” Max shifted from foot to foot. Gru nosed his kneecap for more pets, but Max ignored him. “Come to bed?”
Grady had been sleeping in the guest room, conscious that his tossing and turning could keep Max awake. But maybe having him sleep in a different bedroom was just as bad. Besides, he missed being close to Max, and he could see from the strain around Max’s eyes that Max missed it too.
“Yeah. Let me take Gru out for a pee and I’ll join you.”
By the time Gru had finished showing the clover who was boss, most of the lights in the house were out. Grady locked the back door and left his slides on the mat, then used the screen of his phone to make sure he didn’t stub his toe on the hall table as he made his way through the dark house.
The lamp on the nightstand on Max’s side of the bed was lit to the dimmest setting when Grady entered. Max lay on his side facing the center of the mattress, one hand tucked under his head.
Grady turned on his own lamp and took a quick detour to the bathroom. When he came back out, Max’s light was off, but he still had his body turned toward Grady’s side.
Grady slid under the covers. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Max opened suddenly sharp blue eyes and narrowed them, but his mouth gave him away, the corner of his lip tugging up into a sort of smushed smirk under the beard. “Did it physically hurt you to ask that?”
“I’m not sure. It might’ve been my collarbone.”
That earned a smile complete with eye crinkles, and Grady’s heart skipped a beat. “Get over here and cuddle me.”
Grady scooted closer, a little awkwardly since doing anything on his left side was still hit-or-miss, and wrapped his arm around Max’s waist.
He thought Max had forgotten about the original question, so it surprised him when he said quietly into Grady’s chest, “I lost my lucky cuff links.”
Grady blinked. “The ones with the weird tentacle monster thing?”
Max’s snort tickled his chest hair. “It’s Cthulhu. Well, on one side. The other one’s a big hairy foot, for Bigfoot. My parents got them for me when I got drafted. Monsters, you know?”
Grady rubbed his thumb in an absentminded circle over Max’s hip. “Where’s the last place you saw them?”
“I wore them the last night of the first series. We went out after, and I rolled my sleeves up. I usually put them in my jacket pocket when I do that, but I looked there. There’s a hole in the pocket lining.”
Probably gone for good, then. “Did you call the bar?”
“I even offered a reward,” Max said moodily. “Maybe they fell out in the Lyft on the way home.”
“Maybe.” Grady kissed the top of his head. He wanted to say something about how Max didn’t need lucky cuff links to win, but he thought that might be missing the point. But maybe there wasn’t a point. Maybe Max needed to talk.
After a moment of silence, Max sighed and some of the tension melted out of him. “Thanks for listening.”
Grady mentally awarded himself another point for guessing right. He could absolutely do this supportive-partner thing. “Of course.” Then he paused. “Hey, Max?”
“Mmm.”
“Can you be the big spoon? My collarbone is killing me.”
MAX WAS already gone to practice when Grady woke up the next morning, infused with determination to do something to cheer Max up. He took Gru for a quick walk before it got too hot, fired off a text to Mitch and Farouk to see if they wanted to get lunch, and hopped in the shower.
When he got out, he had two messages waiting, along with a meeting invitation to a trendy but casual place with a great patio. Mitch had a Google Calendar obsession, but Grady appreciated people who made reservations too much to tease him. He accepted the invite and shoved his toothbrush in his mouth while he went to investigate his laundry situation.
An hour later he was sitting under an umbrella with Mitch and Farouk, nursing a beer and studiously not talking about the season.
Until Mitch said, “So has he reached out to you yet?” and suddenly Farouk started acting cagey. He grimaced and set his phone, which he’d been fidgeting with, facedown on the table.
Mitch had been asking Grady, who didn’t follow. “Has who reached out?”
Mitch rolled his eyes. “The captain, obviously. I mean it’s only his second season, but he does take being the captain pretty seriously. He’s usually on the ball making sure nobody is blaming themselves, they know nobody else blames them, we’ll get ’em next year, blah blah.”
Yeah, well, he didn’t punch most guys’ boyfriends in the face. “I haven’t heard from him.” And he didn’t need a pep talk from a guy more than a decade younger than him. Hard pass. “Are you sure he doesn’t just do that with you?” Goalies were notorious for taking losses personally.
First Mitch looked offended, then like he was considering the possibility. But before he could answer, someone cleared their throat.
Grady looked up, and God damn it, there was Dawg, hunched awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, hiding behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses that had gone out of style before he was born. “Hey.”
Grady tried to catch Farouk’s eye, but Farouk was studiously looking anywhere but at him, so he had a feeling he knew who’d shared their location.
Dawg cleared his throat again. “Uh, Grades, can I talk to you?”
This was definitely a setup.
“Um, privately?”
Grady shot a warning look at Farouk, but he took one last sip of his beer and gestured toward the back of the patio, away from anyone who might overhear.
“Okay,” he said mildly when they’d gotten as far away from other people as you could get on a patio in LA. “Talk.”
And then Dawg squared his shoulders and lifted his head, his face set in determination, and shocked the hell out of him. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have made my feelings your problem, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Grady blinked. Honestly he hadn’t been sure Dawg could say anything to improve the situation, but though the apology was short, it hit on exactly why Grady had felt so upset. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Dawg repeated. The maturity that had settled into his expression a moment before evaporated. “So, like… are we good?”
Were they good? Grady didn’t know if he’d go that far. But they were going to be teammates for the foreseeable future, and he didn’t want any drama. “Try not to punch my boyfriend in the face again. At least not without provocation.”
Dawg smiled and held out his hand to shake on it. “Deal.”
“Deal.” Grady glanced back at the table. Mitch and Farouk both quickly turned away and pretended they hadn’t been watching. Idiots. Grady sighed inwardly. In for a penny. “Do you want to join us for lunch? Fair warning, I invited them here to get relationship advice.”
Dawg’s shoulders straightened again. Grady was starting to think of it as his Captain Posture. “I can handle it.”
They might as well test that somewhere he couldn’t punch Max in the face, so Grady gestured him toward the table.
Their server ambled by when she noticed Dawg had joined them, and they all ordered another round and some burgers.
Then Grady figured it was time to get down to business. “So. You may be wondering why I asked you here.”
Mitch and Farouk exchanged looks.
“It’s Max.”
“Told you,” Farouk said, holding out his hand. Mitch pulled out his wallet and slapped a twenty into his palm. “But bro, it’s too soon to be talking marriage.”
Not according to Max’s nephew. Grady shook his head. “It’s not about that. More like… it’s been a long time since I had a season as good as this one, and it got fucked up at the end, and that sucks. But I need to get over myself—”
“This is way above our pay grade.”
Maybe Grady should get a new new set of friends. He glowered at them. “—and do something nice for my boyfriend. He lost his lucky cuff links. And it turns out I actually might want him to, you know….” Win the Cup.
It was too embarrassing—and unlucky—to say out loud.
Mitch and Farouk stared at him in horror.
But Dawg, though he wrinkled his nose in distaste, nodded. “That makes sense. I mean, you’re not going to do it, so you might as well be happy for him.”
Now Mitch and Farouk turned their stares on him. Dawg turned red. “What? Look, last year we went all the way to the Cup Final and lost and then my sister had a baby while everyone else was out of town.”
Grady couldn’t figure out how this story was relevant. A glance at Mitch and Farouk showed that they were similarly at sea. “And?”
“And babies are fragile and they cry a lot, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had to take care of someone who just gave birth, but, like, I’ve seen some gross hockey injuries. This was not like that.” His tone made it clear which one was worse. “But it was also kind of nice. I couldn’t help my team win the Cup, but I could make dinner and run the dishwasher and change a diaper, you know? And meeting my niece for the first time was awesome. I couldn’t spoil that for my sister by sulking about the playoffs.”
Damn it. That was actually insightful.
Then Dawg ruined it by patting Grady on the shoulder and intoning, “I’m just saying. I’m proud of you for being so mature.”
Mitch and Farouk fell over each other laughing.
Grady groaned but accepted his lumps. “All right, let’s try to leave my reputation as a sore loser in the past.”
Fortunately, Mitch and Farouk were too invested in taking apart Dawg’s analogy to make fun of Grady.
“So, wait,” Farouk said, “is Max the baby in this scenario?”
“No, the Cup is the baby. Max is the sister.”
Fortunately their lunch and drinks arrived, so Grady only had to listen with half an ear as Farouk and Mitch debated what it would be like to give birth to the Stanley Cup. Grady was replacing them both with Dawg.
“Okay, new subject,” he interrupted when things got a little too graphic. They all turned to look at him. No point beating around the bush. He was going to get shit for this either way. “I need a shopping recommendation. Specifically jewelry.”
“GRADES?” MAX looked into the closet and cursed his own lack of foresight. None of his nice shirts’ sleeves had buttons. He’d always worn his lucky cuff links.
“Yeah?”
Max hated to ask, but unless he wanted to show up looking like a slob, he didn’t have much of a choice. “Can I borrow a shirt?”
After a moment, Grady poked his head into the bedroom. “Do you actually not have any shirts with button cuffs?”
“Not ones that are nice enough to wear with a suit.” At least not during playoffs. He had another set of cuff links, but they didn’t feel lucky. Maybe one of Grady’s shirts would.
Grady opened the other closet. “Yeah, I might have something.”
“Oh, you might have something,” Max joked. “In your designer closet full of designer dress shirts—”
When Grady turned around holding a small velvet jewelry box, Max’s words died in his throat and morphed into a strangled, “You’re not gonna tell me there’s a shirt in there.”
Grady must’ve caught Max’s runaway train of thought, because he gave a wry smile. “Breathe, Max. I am not a good enough loser to be proposing to you right now.”
The nervous tension in Max’s belly broke into a laugh. At least Grady could own up to it. “Thank God. I thought maybe you were concussed.”
“No concussion.” Grady rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling faintly, his cheeks tinged with red, like he was nervous or embarrassed. Maybe both. “Stockholm Syndrome, maybe.”
What an asshole. Max grinned and made grabby hands for the box. “So what did you bring me?”
Wordlessly, Grady opened it and held it out.
On the left side of the box sparkled a tiny lobster studded with red and blue gems. On the right, a rose-gold fish with shiny dark turquoise scales bared sharp white mother-of-pearl teeth. Max swallowed. “You romantic motherfucker.”
“I know they can’t replace the ones you lost.” Grady took a deep breath. Was he nervous? Why? Max was on the brink of tears over here. “But I thought maybe these could be lucky too—”
Max cut him off with a kiss. The box dropped to the bed as Grady wrapped both arms around him.
Finally. Grady hadn’t touched Max like this since before the Condors’ last game. Max had been starting to despair. He fell into the kiss.
“I love them,” he said when the kiss broke. He waggled his eyebrows. “And they’re definitely lucky.”
Grady snorted at the joke. “I’m glad you think so.”
Max thumbed the side of his mouth. His own emotions were doing an impression of a microwaved marshmallow, warm and sticky-sweet and exploding all over everything. “Do you think piranhas eat lobsters in the wild?”
“I don’t think they meet in the wild. Piranhas are freshwater fish.”
Of course he knew that, thereby spoiling Max’s innuendo. He went in another direction with it instead. “Well, this fish wants to get fresh with you. And after tonight’s game, we’ve got two days off before the next one.”
Grady’s hands drifted down to Max’s ass. “Is that so?”
“It is,” Max chirped. “And personally I think that if these cuff links turn out to be lucky, we should get lucky too.”
“I do owe you for what you did to my suit.” Grady kissed him briefly and then pulled back. “Can I pick the shirt?”
“Not for me,” Grady said.
And—well, that was true too.
Grady didn’t look up.
Max cleared his throat. “What’s the verdict?”
Now that there was no chance they’d face each other in the postseason, Grady could tell Max what was wrong with him. He hadn’t earlier in the week. Max would’ve thrown his words from months ago back in his face, but regular season was one thing. Playoffs was another animal. Part of Max hadn’t wanted to know, because if he didn’t know, there was no chance he could use the knowledge, even subconsciously.
“Not broken,” Grady said. He sounded bitter instead of relieved. A break would’ve been a better excuse. He’d have been mad at whoever did it instead of at his own body. “Clavicle contusion. No strength in my arm. Feels like spaghetti, even when they shot it full of the good stuff.”
Max winced. Taken out by a glorified bruise. No wonder he was bitter. “That sucks. You need ice? Heat?”
Grady shook his head. “Sleep.”
He looked like he needed it. “All right. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Max’s heart sank when Grady shook his head again. “I’ll sleep in the guest room. Too many painkillers. I’m going to snore like a chainsaw.”
Max bit his lip. “Okay.”
He watched as Grady shuffled down the hall. Gru looked forlornly after him, tail still wagging slowly.
Sighing, Max scratched behind Gru’s ears. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s go to bed.”
Gru curled up on Grady’s side of the mattress, nose tucked under his tail. Max stroked him absently and tried to shut off his brain.
Grady was just trying to be considerate by sleeping in the other room, where he wouldn’t disturb Max, who still needed to get a good night’s rest, since he’d be starting round two of the playoffs in a couple days. Which sucked, because Max also needed a snuggle and someone to tell him that a goal and three assists in five games was a reasonable number of points and hockey was a team sport.
But that was okay. Grady would still be there to tell him those things in the morning.
Gru sighed in irritation, his cue for Max to stop petting him and let him sleep. Max tucked his hand under his head and took his cue from Gru.
GRADY WOKE up sore the day after the Condors’ playoff exit.
But weirdly, it was mostly a physical soreness. His arm hurt, and he was disappointed, sure. Just not disappointed enough to let it affect the good things in his life.
He’d thought this was his year. He liked his new team. He got along with his teammates, who shared his work ethic. He wasn’t ready for locker cleanout and everybody leaving town.
But that was what he’d gotten, and he still had Max. He could make the best of it.
Max was still in bed when he got up, so Grady took Gru for a quick walk—even mostly one-handed, he could do that much—and then braved the task of making breakfast.
It almost ended in disaster when he caught the egg carton with the edge of the sling and sent it teetering toward the edge of the counter, but Max came into the kitchen just in time and made the save.
“Thanks,” Grady said as Max set the carton down. “I was going to make you breakfast, but maybe I’d better not.” At least not until he was more aware of where his elbow was. “Want me to order something?”
Max stared at him for a moment, wearing kind of a funny smile, and then kissed his cheek. “Nah, go sit down. I got this one.”
THAT NIGHT, Max came home from the first Piranhas-Orcas game with his shoulders slumped. Grady hadn’t watched, but he’d turned on notifications on his phone, so he knew the Orcas had won 8–5. Losing the series opener at home like that would sting.
But what could Grady say? Anything he attempted would come across as patronizing or smug.
In the end, he said, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Even Max’s hair looked kind of limp, though his playoff beard was starting to bush out to make up for it. “So that sucked.”
Grady winced in sympathy. “Sorry.” He gave himself a mental point for not adding at least you’re still playing.
Max shrugged. “It is what it is. How’s your collarbone?”
“Bruised.” The sudden subject change disoriented him. “Getting better, though.” He should have his strength and full range of motion back in another week.
“That’s good.” Max shifted from foot to foot. Gru nosed his kneecap for more pets, but Max ignored him. “Come to bed?”
Grady had been sleeping in the guest room, conscious that his tossing and turning could keep Max awake. But maybe having him sleep in a different bedroom was just as bad. Besides, he missed being close to Max, and he could see from the strain around Max’s eyes that Max missed it too.
“Yeah. Let me take Gru out for a pee and I’ll join you.”
By the time Gru had finished showing the clover who was boss, most of the lights in the house were out. Grady locked the back door and left his slides on the mat, then used the screen of his phone to make sure he didn’t stub his toe on the hall table as he made his way through the dark house.
The lamp on the nightstand on Max’s side of the bed was lit to the dimmest setting when Grady entered. Max lay on his side facing the center of the mattress, one hand tucked under his head.
Grady turned on his own lamp and took a quick detour to the bathroom. When he came back out, Max’s light was off, but he still had his body turned toward Grady’s side.
Grady slid under the covers. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Max opened suddenly sharp blue eyes and narrowed them, but his mouth gave him away, the corner of his lip tugging up into a sort of smushed smirk under the beard. “Did it physically hurt you to ask that?”
“I’m not sure. It might’ve been my collarbone.”
That earned a smile complete with eye crinkles, and Grady’s heart skipped a beat. “Get over here and cuddle me.”
Grady scooted closer, a little awkwardly since doing anything on his left side was still hit-or-miss, and wrapped his arm around Max’s waist.
He thought Max had forgotten about the original question, so it surprised him when he said quietly into Grady’s chest, “I lost my lucky cuff links.”
Grady blinked. “The ones with the weird tentacle monster thing?”
Max’s snort tickled his chest hair. “It’s Cthulhu. Well, on one side. The other one’s a big hairy foot, for Bigfoot. My parents got them for me when I got drafted. Monsters, you know?”
Grady rubbed his thumb in an absentminded circle over Max’s hip. “Where’s the last place you saw them?”
“I wore them the last night of the first series. We went out after, and I rolled my sleeves up. I usually put them in my jacket pocket when I do that, but I looked there. There’s a hole in the pocket lining.”
Probably gone for good, then. “Did you call the bar?”
“I even offered a reward,” Max said moodily. “Maybe they fell out in the Lyft on the way home.”
“Maybe.” Grady kissed the top of his head. He wanted to say something about how Max didn’t need lucky cuff links to win, but he thought that might be missing the point. But maybe there wasn’t a point. Maybe Max needed to talk.
After a moment of silence, Max sighed and some of the tension melted out of him. “Thanks for listening.”
Grady mentally awarded himself another point for guessing right. He could absolutely do this supportive-partner thing. “Of course.” Then he paused. “Hey, Max?”
“Mmm.”
“Can you be the big spoon? My collarbone is killing me.”
MAX WAS already gone to practice when Grady woke up the next morning, infused with determination to do something to cheer Max up. He took Gru for a quick walk before it got too hot, fired off a text to Mitch and Farouk to see if they wanted to get lunch, and hopped in the shower.
When he got out, he had two messages waiting, along with a meeting invitation to a trendy but casual place with a great patio. Mitch had a Google Calendar obsession, but Grady appreciated people who made reservations too much to tease him. He accepted the invite and shoved his toothbrush in his mouth while he went to investigate his laundry situation.
An hour later he was sitting under an umbrella with Mitch and Farouk, nursing a beer and studiously not talking about the season.
Until Mitch said, “So has he reached out to you yet?” and suddenly Farouk started acting cagey. He grimaced and set his phone, which he’d been fidgeting with, facedown on the table.
Mitch had been asking Grady, who didn’t follow. “Has who reached out?”
Mitch rolled his eyes. “The captain, obviously. I mean it’s only his second season, but he does take being the captain pretty seriously. He’s usually on the ball making sure nobody is blaming themselves, they know nobody else blames them, we’ll get ’em next year, blah blah.”
Yeah, well, he didn’t punch most guys’ boyfriends in the face. “I haven’t heard from him.” And he didn’t need a pep talk from a guy more than a decade younger than him. Hard pass. “Are you sure he doesn’t just do that with you?” Goalies were notorious for taking losses personally.
First Mitch looked offended, then like he was considering the possibility. But before he could answer, someone cleared their throat.
Grady looked up, and God damn it, there was Dawg, hunched awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, hiding behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses that had gone out of style before he was born. “Hey.”
Grady tried to catch Farouk’s eye, but Farouk was studiously looking anywhere but at him, so he had a feeling he knew who’d shared their location.
Dawg cleared his throat again. “Uh, Grades, can I talk to you?”
This was definitely a setup.
“Um, privately?”
Grady shot a warning look at Farouk, but he took one last sip of his beer and gestured toward the back of the patio, away from anyone who might overhear.
“Okay,” he said mildly when they’d gotten as far away from other people as you could get on a patio in LA. “Talk.”
And then Dawg squared his shoulders and lifted his head, his face set in determination, and shocked the hell out of him. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have made my feelings your problem, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Grady blinked. Honestly he hadn’t been sure Dawg could say anything to improve the situation, but though the apology was short, it hit on exactly why Grady had felt so upset. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Dawg repeated. The maturity that had settled into his expression a moment before evaporated. “So, like… are we good?”
Were they good? Grady didn’t know if he’d go that far. But they were going to be teammates for the foreseeable future, and he didn’t want any drama. “Try not to punch my boyfriend in the face again. At least not without provocation.”
Dawg smiled and held out his hand to shake on it. “Deal.”
“Deal.” Grady glanced back at the table. Mitch and Farouk both quickly turned away and pretended they hadn’t been watching. Idiots. Grady sighed inwardly. In for a penny. “Do you want to join us for lunch? Fair warning, I invited them here to get relationship advice.”
Dawg’s shoulders straightened again. Grady was starting to think of it as his Captain Posture. “I can handle it.”
They might as well test that somewhere he couldn’t punch Max in the face, so Grady gestured him toward the table.
Their server ambled by when she noticed Dawg had joined them, and they all ordered another round and some burgers.
Then Grady figured it was time to get down to business. “So. You may be wondering why I asked you here.”
Mitch and Farouk exchanged looks.
“It’s Max.”
“Told you,” Farouk said, holding out his hand. Mitch pulled out his wallet and slapped a twenty into his palm. “But bro, it’s too soon to be talking marriage.”
Not according to Max’s nephew. Grady shook his head. “It’s not about that. More like… it’s been a long time since I had a season as good as this one, and it got fucked up at the end, and that sucks. But I need to get over myself—”
“This is way above our pay grade.”
Maybe Grady should get a new new set of friends. He glowered at them. “—and do something nice for my boyfriend. He lost his lucky cuff links. And it turns out I actually might want him to, you know….” Win the Cup.
It was too embarrassing—and unlucky—to say out loud.
Mitch and Farouk stared at him in horror.
But Dawg, though he wrinkled his nose in distaste, nodded. “That makes sense. I mean, you’re not going to do it, so you might as well be happy for him.”
Now Mitch and Farouk turned their stares on him. Dawg turned red. “What? Look, last year we went all the way to the Cup Final and lost and then my sister had a baby while everyone else was out of town.”
Grady couldn’t figure out how this story was relevant. A glance at Mitch and Farouk showed that they were similarly at sea. “And?”
“And babies are fragile and they cry a lot, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had to take care of someone who just gave birth, but, like, I’ve seen some gross hockey injuries. This was not like that.” His tone made it clear which one was worse. “But it was also kind of nice. I couldn’t help my team win the Cup, but I could make dinner and run the dishwasher and change a diaper, you know? And meeting my niece for the first time was awesome. I couldn’t spoil that for my sister by sulking about the playoffs.”
Damn it. That was actually insightful.
Then Dawg ruined it by patting Grady on the shoulder and intoning, “I’m just saying. I’m proud of you for being so mature.”
Mitch and Farouk fell over each other laughing.
Grady groaned but accepted his lumps. “All right, let’s try to leave my reputation as a sore loser in the past.”
Fortunately, Mitch and Farouk were too invested in taking apart Dawg’s analogy to make fun of Grady.
“So, wait,” Farouk said, “is Max the baby in this scenario?”
“No, the Cup is the baby. Max is the sister.”
Fortunately their lunch and drinks arrived, so Grady only had to listen with half an ear as Farouk and Mitch debated what it would be like to give birth to the Stanley Cup. Grady was replacing them both with Dawg.
“Okay, new subject,” he interrupted when things got a little too graphic. They all turned to look at him. No point beating around the bush. He was going to get shit for this either way. “I need a shopping recommendation. Specifically jewelry.”
“GRADES?” MAX looked into the closet and cursed his own lack of foresight. None of his nice shirts’ sleeves had buttons. He’d always worn his lucky cuff links.
“Yeah?”
Max hated to ask, but unless he wanted to show up looking like a slob, he didn’t have much of a choice. “Can I borrow a shirt?”
After a moment, Grady poked his head into the bedroom. “Do you actually not have any shirts with button cuffs?”
“Not ones that are nice enough to wear with a suit.” At least not during playoffs. He had another set of cuff links, but they didn’t feel lucky. Maybe one of Grady’s shirts would.
Grady opened the other closet. “Yeah, I might have something.”
“Oh, you might have something,” Max joked. “In your designer closet full of designer dress shirts—”
When Grady turned around holding a small velvet jewelry box, Max’s words died in his throat and morphed into a strangled, “You’re not gonna tell me there’s a shirt in there.”
Grady must’ve caught Max’s runaway train of thought, because he gave a wry smile. “Breathe, Max. I am not a good enough loser to be proposing to you right now.”
The nervous tension in Max’s belly broke into a laugh. At least Grady could own up to it. “Thank God. I thought maybe you were concussed.”
“No concussion.” Grady rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling faintly, his cheeks tinged with red, like he was nervous or embarrassed. Maybe both. “Stockholm Syndrome, maybe.”
What an asshole. Max grinned and made grabby hands for the box. “So what did you bring me?”
Wordlessly, Grady opened it and held it out.
On the left side of the box sparkled a tiny lobster studded with red and blue gems. On the right, a rose-gold fish with shiny dark turquoise scales bared sharp white mother-of-pearl teeth. Max swallowed. “You romantic motherfucker.”
“I know they can’t replace the ones you lost.” Grady took a deep breath. Was he nervous? Why? Max was on the brink of tears over here. “But I thought maybe these could be lucky too—”
Max cut him off with a kiss. The box dropped to the bed as Grady wrapped both arms around him.
Finally. Grady hadn’t touched Max like this since before the Condors’ last game. Max had been starting to despair. He fell into the kiss.
“I love them,” he said when the kiss broke. He waggled his eyebrows. “And they’re definitely lucky.”
Grady snorted at the joke. “I’m glad you think so.”
Max thumbed the side of his mouth. His own emotions were doing an impression of a microwaved marshmallow, warm and sticky-sweet and exploding all over everything. “Do you think piranhas eat lobsters in the wild?”
“I don’t think they meet in the wild. Piranhas are freshwater fish.”
Of course he knew that, thereby spoiling Max’s innuendo. He went in another direction with it instead. “Well, this fish wants to get fresh with you. And after tonight’s game, we’ve got two days off before the next one.”
Grady’s hands drifted down to Max’s ass. “Is that so?”
“It is,” Max chirped. “And personally I think that if these cuff links turn out to be lucky, we should get lucky too.”
“I do owe you for what you did to my suit.” Grady kissed him briefly and then pulled back. “Can I pick the shirt?”
