Unrivaled, page 6
Grady exhaled loudly through his nose.
“You going to tell me I’m wrong?”
“No,” he said through aforementioned teeth.
Beaming, Max moved on to the next question. “Okay, essay portion. Hit me with your ideal first date. What are you, a coffee guy? Do you like to torture men by making them go on a run with you? I’m assuming hand jobs in an arena basement is not your go-to.”
Grady flopped backward on the bed.
Holy shit, had Max actually annoyed him to death? If so, talk about a plan backfiring.
“Uh. Grades?”
Grady mumbled something inaudible. Okay, good, he was still alive. Max wanted to have sex with him again someday and he wasn’t into necrophilia.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
A long, resigned sigh. Grady made no move to sit up. “I said I hate going on dates.”
Max blinked. “Okay, well, I think we pinpointed your problem.”
“It’s just—it’s so normal to go out to eat on a date. But I do that eighty-something times a year. I don’t want to eat any more restaurant food. But I don’t want to cook with a stranger in my house either.”
Huh. Max hadn’t expected to get an answer he related to, but he also got sick of catered and restaurant food. Things tasted better in his own kitchen. “I mean, I think that’s why people get coffee?” he said. “Also because if they suck, you can chug your drink and run away.”
Grady lifted his head. “Speaking from experience?”
Max quirked a smile—automatic, not even on purpose. Unlike some people, he didn’t mind laughing at himself. “I’m not telling you from which side.”
“Ugh.” Grady flopped back again. “Maybe I should become a hermit.”
“Which is different from now how, exactly?” The guy’s sister had set him up with a hookup app. That was telling. “Just say mini golf or something. Having something to do gives you something to talk about, you get to move around a little, and if they’re terrible, you can accidentally whack them in the shins.”
“You’re putting a lot of thought into this,” Grady said after a moment.
Yeah, thanks, Max had been trying not to notice. He was supposed to be laying the groundwork for his own sex life, not giving half-decent advice. “Don’t let it go to your head. It would be a shame if your dick went into early retirement. I’m only looking out for my community.”
“You’re all heart.”
That was the second time Grady had accused him of that. Sarcastically, but still. Max noticed. He felt weird about it, so he deflected with “And elbows.” He finished the questionnaire and scrolled back up to fill in Grady’s biography details with something approximating the truth. “Done. All you have to do now is set your geographical area and decide what you’re looking for in a man. Other than someone who doesn’t mind the occasional expedition to remove the stick from your ass, I mean.”
“I take back every nice thing I ever said about you.”
Max huffed. “404 error. File not found, buddy.” That all heart thing didn’t count. It might be true, but Grady didn’t mean it. He closed the app, but before he put the phone down, he navigated over to the contacts and added himself. Then he sent himself a text message. Now he could live rent-free in Grady’s head and his phone. “Well. This has been fun, but I’ll leave you to your inevitable crisis.” He handed the phone back. “Best of luck with dating. Hope you choke in the preseason.”
Grady’s expression went from annoyed to closed-off. “Yeah, go fuck yourself.”
“I meant on my dick,” Max said cheerfully. “But I can bring the tools for that too.” He heaved himself off the bed and shoved his shoes on. He’d spent way too long in Grady’s bed already. He was starting to get comfortable. “See you next week. Bring your A game.”
He was halfway to the elevator before he realized his shirt was still smeared with come.
First Period
MOST OF the time, Grady loved being right.
This was not one of those times.
“He’s going to be really good,” Coop said. The preseason would start tomorrow, and they were enjoying the mild September weather by sitting on his back step with his low-calorie beer.
“Yep,” Grady agreed.
“In, like, another season or two,” Coop finished.
“Yep.”
Management had been promising a goaltender upgrade for years. They’d finally gotten one in Colton Barnes, a twenty-year-old who’d just left college. But he’d just left college—hadn’t finished, just joined the show because he could. He was green. Grady thought he’d be a Vezina contender eventually, but by that time, Grady could be retired.
“He could surprise us,” Coop offered.
“Stranger things have happened.” Like Grady hooking up with Max at the World Cup.
Twice.
Barny wasn’t going to surprise them.
Grady glanced at his phone for what felt like the third time in ten minutes, and Coop laughed. “Am I boring you? Or do you have something you want to share with the class?”
For a second, Grady debated whether a confession about his love life would be more painful than contemplating their team’s chances this year.
Sadly, it wouldn’t.
“I had a date yesterday.”
Coop snorted beer up his nose. Grady glowered at him for the unnecessary drama while he cleared his nostrils. “Sorry, uh, you were saying. A date?”
At least he didn’t say what he was obviously thinking, which was God, why?
Yeah…. Grady had been open with him about how much he hated dating, if not the actual reason why. He’d had more than his share of heartache. The more people he let get close to him, the greater the chances he’d get hurt.
He might as well answer the unspoken question. Coop would find out sooner or later. “It was Jess’s idea.”
“Uh-huh,” Coop said, kind of faintly, like he didn’t quite believe what he’d heard or had somehow missed that Jess could talk Grady into anything.
Grady grimaced. “She wants to ditch me for the holidays to spend time with her girlfriends and won’t go if she thinks I’ll get lonely.”
“Will you?” Coop asked mildly.
“I don’t spend enough time alone to be lonely.” If he wasn’t practicing, playing a game, working out, or eating with the team, he was probably asleep or close to it. He could definitely handle three days of R & R at Christmas.
When Grady didn’t elaborate, Coop said, “Why’d you go along with it, then?”
That was harder to explain. It wasn’t as simple as I like sex. If he wanted sex, he could find someone willing. Now that he had a little experience with Grindr, it’d be laughably easy. How hard could it be to take a decent dick pic? Max could do it.
Grady tried not to think about the fact that he hadn’t deleted that photo.
“Jess won’t go on her trip if I don’t.”
“Okay. So you went on a date. And?”
“Well,” Grady said dryly, “no one died.”
This time Coop had paused before taking another sip of his beer, so he didn’t spray hops everywhere when he snorted. “What happened?”
“It started out okay. He was nice to chat with. It seemed like we might have some stuff in common. He played baseball in college, so he had some understanding of the kind of discipline and time commitment it takes to play a sport professionally. And he was cute. Nice. Decent sense of humor.” Didn’t send a single unsolicited dick pick. “He wanted to go out for ice cream. Apparently there’s this local place he wanted to introduce me to. I thought, okay, it’s still the preseason, I can have ice cream.” A little extra fat and sugar wouldn’t kill him.
Coop’s impassive mask was slipping, which told Grady that he should’ve nixed the date, or done more research or something, because it seemed obvious to Coop how this could go wrong, and Grady hadn’t even told him anything. “And?”
“And it wasn’t even ice cream. There was palm oil in the ingredients. It tasted awful.” If Grady was going to go off his meal plan, it wasn’t going to be for fake ice cream that wasn’t even made out of dairy. Cream was literally in the name. “So I had a few bites and then I threw it in the garbage.”
“And?”
Damn it. “And I figured that would be the end of it, but this guy—Brian—he would not let it go. Like, ‘Oh, did you get brain freeze, were you not as hungry as you thought, do you want to try another flavor?’” He let out a noise of frustration. “He was taking it really personally that I didn’t want any more shitty ice cream. So finally I snapped that the ice cream sucked and I wasn’t going to waste my sugar allowance on food with a mouth feel like motor oil.”
Coop didn’t bother trying to cover his laugh. “Okay. Not the most polite, but he had it coming, if he was pushing.”
“Yeah.” Grady sighed. “Except it turns out the place is his family business, and it’s dairy-free because they’re all lactose intolerant.”
“Oh, buddy. I don’t think he’s gonna call you.”
Grady didn’t think so either. Clearly he could not date someone who thought palm oil was an acceptable ingredient in ice cream.
But he hadn’t meant to offend the guy. It was hard not to see this as a test that he’d failed. Even if he was only looking for someone to spend the holiday with for Jess’s sake and not a lifelong love connection.
“Cheer up.” Coop nudged him with his foot. “There’ll be other dates.”
For some reason, that didn’t make Grady feel better.
BECAUSE MAX was borderline codependent, he lived next door to his best friend and teammate, Jack Hedgewood, and his other best friend, Hedgie’s wife, El. On game days at home, they carpooled because Max’s nagging was the only way Hedgie got anywhere on time. El said she was happy to be a housewife, but she wasn’t going to be his mother.
Max wasn’t going to be Hedgie’s mother either, but he didn’t mind playing sheepdog.
“Hey, El,” he said cheerfully when she opened the door. “How far behind are we running?”
“I’m just getting in the shower!” Hedgie yelled from upstairs.
El stepped back with a knowing look and gestured Max inside. She had her long dark hair up in a ponytail, and she was wearing her yoga gear. “Right on time.”
With a snicker, Max followed her to the back of the house and into the sunroom that she used as a yoga studio. He didn’t do a ton of warming up with her—it was too long before the game—but it was a good way to kill time while he waited for Hedgie, and it gave him an excuse to hang out with his favorite Hedgewood.
Besides, he liked yoga. It kept him limber for non-hockey activities—a fact he’d mentioned to El more than once, and now she looked at him speculatively as he started in on his hip-flexor stretches. “Big plans after the game?”
“If I’m lucky.” They were playing Grady’s team, the Firebirds, a big rivalry game to open the preseason. The Monsters were based in Newark, and Philly was only an hour’s drive away, so the teams played each other frequently in the preseason. But Max was still waiting for Grady to text him back about hooking up after. So far Grady had left Max on read, which was rude but not unexpected.
“You ever going to tell me who gave you the souvenirs in Toronto?”
“No can do. You know the drill.” El was his go-to confessor for steamy sex stories, but if he hooked up with another player, he never gave her names. It would be just his luck that Hedgie would get traded to their team one day, or one of them would end up on Max’s team, and El would know a little too much about them.
Max didn’t need a reputation for being indiscreet.
He hoped no one had gotten a picture of him leaving Grady’s hotel room in Toronto.
“Boo.” But she grinned as she settled into lotus position and straightened her back and shoulders.
Max put his right leg out in front of him and pushed his face down toward his knee, but he kept his eyes on El. “Did you get a new bra? Your tits look amazing lately.”
She laughed out loud. “God, you’re so lucky you can pull that off without coming across as skeezy.”
“It’s a gift.” It probably had more to do with the solid friendship they’d built—and the fact that Max was generally more into men than women. “Seriously. You’re all….” He didn’t have words, so he sat up and made an hourglass with his hands.
El’s gaze went to the staircase to the second floor. The shower was still running.
Did Hedgie not know about the bra or something?
She cleared her throat. Her cheeks were pink. “It’s not a bra.”
Okay, so, what, did she get a boob job? Max didn’t think the change was dramatic enough to be the result of surgery, and anyway he’d have known about it, so—
It dawned on him right as El said, around a small, secret smile, “The titty fairy came early.”
“Holy shit!” Max said. El shushed him, and he lowered his voice. “How far along are you? Does Hedgie know?”
“Like six weeks, no he doesn’t, and don’t tell him.”
Hedgie was going to flip his shit. Max grinned. “This is so exciting. When are you going to tell him?” He paused. “Also, how did he not notice?” He held his hands to his chest. “Like…. El. Seriously.”
“I don’t know! He’s a straight guy, boobs are boobs. They’re inherently wonderful.”
“Well, I’m judging him on your behalf.” Obviously Hedgie was not paying enough attention.
Damn. They were going to be such great parents. Max couldn’t wait to see it.
But it also felt bittersweet. It was all well and good for Max to tag along with them once in a while now, when it was the two of them. But they would need time to spend as a family with their new baby, without him. And if El had a difficult pregnancy, he’d have to find alternative arrangements for Gru when he was out of town with the team. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but Gru and El would miss each other.
He let the thought fade. He’d still be Hedgie’s best friend and El’s partner in crime, and now he’d get to be their kid’s Uncle Max too. They’d still have plenty of shared meals together, between Hedgie’s grilling, Max’s cooking, and El’s baking.
Heh. Usually it was cookies and brownies and pie, but now she had a bun in the oven.
Upstairs, the bathroom door closed, and El cleared her throat. “So. No hints about tonight’s plans? Really?”
If Max gave her anything, she’d figure out who he was planning to see. “No! Stop fishing or I won’t give you all the dirty details.”
“Ugh, fine.” She shook her head. “You’ll have to let me know how it stacks up to Mr. Toronto.”
“Deal.” Fuck, Max was probably going to slip up somehow and let on that they were the same person, and then El would figure the whole thing out.
The alarm on Max’s phone went off then, prompting him into motion. He got off the floor and shouted up the stairs, “Ten-minute warning, Hedgie!”
“Fuck! Okay!”
“Dry-cleaning’s in the guest bedroom closet,” El said wryly.
Max smacked a kiss on her cheek. “You’re the best.”
He put on his suit, made sure his lucky cuff links were securely fastened, and tucked his yoga gear into the bag he kept in the back seat of his car. He was just zipping it up when his phone buzzed.
Finally. Part of him had expected Grady to leave him hanging indefinitely.
He opened the message.
Can’t tonight.
That was it. No apology, no explanation.
Not that Max expected one, but he shoved down his disappointment. It didn’t matter. He could find someone else to fuck. Or he could go home alone and jerk off to the memory of Grady sinking his teeth into the inside of his thigh.
He shoved the phone into his pocket without replying, but when he turned to leave the room, El was leaning on the doorframe. She had her arms crossed—the pose did even more for her boobs; Hedgie was a lucky guy—and tilted her head.
Max should probably start closing doors when he got changed in their house, but he’d been a hockey player for too long. Body shyness was a thing that happened to other people.
“You’re making a face,” she accused. “And you’re giving off, like, weird vibes. What’s up?”
“Weird vibes?” Max said incredulously. He had no defense for his face; it only did what he told it when he was smirking.
“If you can make deductions based on my boobs, I can do it with your vibes.”
It would’ve been easier if he could tell her. El was a good friend and Max couldn’t trust his own head, because his dick was involved and it wasn’t exactly impartial. But he couldn’t ask her opinion without revealing who he was conflicted about, and worst of all he’d have to admit, out loud, that he was upset Grady Armstrong didn’t want to sleep with him.
Max hadn’t had a complete personality transplant in the last week, so that wasn’t happening. In another few days, maybe he could admit it to himself without wanting to take a header into the boards.
“Sorry,” he said, off her raised eyebrow. “I think you’re going to have to remain in suspense.”
He really was sorry, was the worst part.
El’s eyes went wide and round, and he knew she was about to question him further, but for once in his life, Hedgie appeared at exactly the right moment, bounding to the bottom of the stairs and sweeping her into a kiss.
“Sorry, sorry, I swear I’m ready now,” he said when he pulled away.
El met Max’s eyes. He shook his head. “Wish us luck.”
CONSIDERING THE long history of bad blood between their two teams, Grady went into the match expecting a shitshow.
The match delivered in the best worst way possible. Neither team had iced their first-string goaltender—the Firebirds were trying out their college boy, and the Monsters put in their minor-league guy—and by the end of the second, the score was 5–5. Miraculously, the refs hadn’t called any penalties, mostly because even a rivalry this deep didn’t warrant bloody sacrifice in the preseason.
