Unrivaled, page 7
Which wasn’t to say that Grady didn’t have battle wounds. He’d made and taken his share of checks, and his body was pleasantly warm with it. Two of the goals were his, which meant even the resentful dicks on Grady’s team were passing to him in front of the net to get him the hatty, and every guy on Max’s team was up his ass.
That meant Grady was doing his job, so he let it slide off him and kept his head in the game. He had another first date tomorrow, this time with an architect named Chris.
After the last disaster, he’d taken Max’s advice and decided on mini golf.
Speak of the devil—
“Fuck!” Grady’s shoulder crunched against the boards as a familiar body rammed into his side. Served him right for letting himself think about Max for even a second.
“Aw, baby, did you miss me?” He didn’t stop to bat his eyelashes, just gave Grady’s ankles a tap with his stick and left with the puck before Grady could get his feet back under him.
Did Grady miss him? How could he? He wouldn’t leave Grady the fuck alone.
Grady took off after him down the ice.
He never did finish the hat trick, and the game ended in a tie. Grady did his cooldown and put in an obligatory word with the limited media who cared about a preseason match, then showered and put his headphones in and took his spot on the team bus. There was no point flying to Newark, even in the regular season. It was an hour by bus. They never even stayed overnight.
Coop tapped his thigh when he sat down, and Grady paused his music.
“You all right?” Coop asked. “You checked out in the third.”
Grady bristled with the need to defend himself, but it was true. He hadn’t gone after that hat trick like he could have. “Fine.”
“Mad Max was riding you pretty hard.”
By this point in their friendship, Grady knew that Coop knew exactly how that sounded, and he wasn’t going to rise to the bait. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Uh-huh,” Coop said. “You guys beef at World Cup or what?”
Grady turned to him in disbelief. “Did we beef?” he repeated. “When have we not ‘beefed’?”
Coop raised his hands. “It just seemed intense for a preseason game, that’s all. Like it was personal.”
“It’s always personal with him,” Grady muttered. Which wasn’t fair or true. Max hadn’t said anything particularly personal, apart from that whole baby thing. Grady wasn’t and would never be his baby.
“Okay,” Coop said, backing off. “Sorry if I touched a nerve.”
Sighing, Grady leaned back in his seat. He knew he was being a dick, but he felt unsettled and it made him prickly. “Not your fault. It’s not even about this. It’s just some… stuff. I’m dealing with it.”
Mercifully, Coop let him get away with it.
But his comment brought up a point. What if it was personal? Was Max pissed Grady wasn’t meeting him for sex? How was he supposed to do that? He’d had to get on a bus less than an hour after the game.
And it wasn’t like they’d made each other any promises. Even if they had, Grady would expect Max to break them, just to mess with him.
Maybe that was what Max thought Grady had done.
And okay, that didn’t feel great. Grady’s team could beat Max’s without sex mind games. They hadn’t done it tonight, but that didn’t mean anything. Grady wasn’t interested in victories obtained through anything but pure hockey skill. It felt like cheating.
He was interested in having sex with Max again, though. Unfortunately.
Grady was debating whether to offer a rain check as a peace offering—they had another preseason game in Philadelphia next week—when his phone buzzed.
Grady unlocked it to a message from Shithead. Max had entered his contact as MAXIMUM ORGASM followed by multiple eggplant emojis, so Grady didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt renaming it.
But he did feel a jolt of lust when he opened it, because Max had sent him a picture of his come-covered abs.
A second rush went through him when he realized it wasn’t a picture but a video, only about three seconds long, but he could make out the heaving of Max’s stomach and the splatter of the last few drops of come. His dick wasn’t in the shot, but that almost made it filthier.
Jesus. Grady turned his phone screen off and pushed it facedown against his thigh, suddenly furiously hard. Fortunately Coop was ignoring him, probably texting his wife. Fuck.
Grady bit his lip and chanced another look at his phone when it vibrated again, keeping the screen tilted carefully away from anyone else.
Wish u were here, Max had sent, followed by an angel emoji.
Grady wanted to throw himself out the bus window. He really needed his date tomorrow to go well. He had to be hard up for regular sex if he was fantasizing about running his fingers through the mess on Max’s belly and using it to open him up for Grady’s cock.
He took a deep breath through his nose, released it slowly, and counted to three.
Fuck it.
Rain check for next week?
If his date went well, he could always cancel.
MAX WAS aware that sending the video was not a great look for him. He tried to tell himself he didn’t actually want on Grady’s dick that bad, but lying to himself wasn’t one of his strengths.
Besides, it worked, so Grady either didn’t notice that it reeked of desperation or didn’t care.
Grady didn’t sext, which was criminal, because Max knew he had an absolutely filthy mind hidden behind those intense frowny eyebrows.
But two days after Max sent the video, Grady sent something almost as interesting.
Did you sabotage my dating profile?
Not, like, actively. It was possible Max had exaggerated some of Grady’s characteristics or the things he’d look for in a partner, and maybe he’d steered him toward a disaster or two, but he had faith in Grady’s ability to fail at dating all by himself. Either way, this was going to be good. Max pulled his feet up on the couch. Only by being funnier than u could be irl.
For a few minutes, he was afraid Grady wasn’t going to elaborate. The three little dots flashed at him for ages.
Then Grady said, Do you actually take guys mini golfing?
Fuck, did Grady fuck up a slam-dunk date like mini golf? Max couldn’t wait to find out how. Ya what’s not to love? Nice walk, lots of bending over. Great for setting the mood.
Another pause. Then, And you don’t, like… piss them off?
An array of witty comebacks cycled through Max’s brain. Aww, babe, no, that’s our special thing, for example. But if he said something like that he ran the risk of, well, pissing Grady off, and then Grady might not tell him how he fucked up mini golf.
How would I piss them off, he sent.
Apparently I’m “too competitive” and it “isn’t fun.”
Max put the phone down on the table, pressed his face into a throw pillow, and howled with laughter. Fuck, he could imagine Grady’s wet-cat face. Had he lost at mini golf? Did he get cranky about it? Or was his date the one who couldn’t handle Grady beating him, and got progressively colder as the gap increased, while Grady struggled to figure out what he was doing wrong?
He couldn’t decide which was funnier.
Gru thought it was pretty funny too—or that was what Max gathered from his dog’s reaction to Max’s laughter. He yipped and wagged his stub of a tail and licked Max’s ear, which tickled and only made Max laugh harder. Apparently Gru didn’t want to be left out. Max let go of the pillow and tickled the dog instead, and Gru flopped over on his back and writhed in ecstasy while Max provided belly rubs.
Did u not tell him ur a professional athlete? he asked when he had custody of his thumbs again. Like, what did the guy expect? People like Max and Grady weren’t programmed to be gracious losers.
The whole thing was hilarious. Even if he now kind of wanted to throw down with Grady over mini golf.
Sadly, Grady remembered who he was talking to and stopped giving Max chirp material. But that was okay. He didn’t need it. The point of setting up Grady’s online dating account wasn’t for Grady to whine to Max about bad dates so Max could make fun of him, it was to get him frustrated with dating so he’d sleep with Max.
They’d already arranged their next meeting, so maybe the internet dating was redundant, but it wasn’t like Max could tell him to cut it out because it served its purpose. Just because he actually was that thirsty didn’t mean he had to admit it.
He spent the days before the next Firebirds game in his usual preseason routine, drawing in for enough games to get his body conditioned the way he liked it. When he wasn’t playing, he was eating, sleeping, working out, or doing yoga with El and suggesting silly nursery themes. So far she’d nixed Jurassic Park and Jumanji, because she had no vision. Max thought a giant T. rex would be a great addition to any baby’s room.
“It would scare away the monsters under the bed,” he argued.
El threw a pillow at him. Gru barked at it, wagged his tail like he’d done a great job, and then made an appeal for more belly rubs.
El fell for it. She was no more immune than Max was.
Time seemed to pass slowly, like the last drops of maple syrup clinging stubbornly to the bottom of the bottle. Max worked out, he practiced, he walked Gru, and he waited. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this pumped to play a preseason game.
So it really sucked when Coach told him the morning of the game that they were going to take another look at Jenssen, one of the rookies, so there was no reason for Max to make the trip to Philly.
He could go anyway and sit in the press box, but that would look suspicious. Most guys weren’t eager to travel with the team before they had to, especially during the preseason.
If he drove himself, he wouldn’t have to sit in the press box, and he wouldn’t have to figure out a way to get home. Grady’s dick was probably worth an hour of driving each way, though there was no way to know for sure without taking it for a test ride. It was probably even worth the chirping Grady’d give him for going so far out of his way to get it.
But something held him back. Hell, maybe he was still salty and wanted a way to inflict his own disappointment on Grady. Either way, he didn’t examine it, just pulled out his phone and texted, So, bad news.
You’re not playing tonight, Grady guessed.
Ur smarter than u look, Max replied. Then, Sorry.
Guess I can’t complain.
Max sighed and flopped back against the couch.
Gru looked up from the floor, one ear standing straight up, the other flopped over. He tilted his head to the side.
“Yeah, a walk’s a good idea,” Max agreed. “Come on.”
He ended up following the game on Twitter that night, sprawled out on his couch with Gru on his legs because he believed with his entire fifty-pound being that he was a lapdog. It was the opposite of their previous game, tied at nothing until Grady buried what turned out to be the only goal of the game five minutes from the final buzzer.
Max dropped his phone in disgust and ruffled Gru’s ears. “He probably would’ve been a beast tonight,” he said mournfully.
Gru licked his fingers and wagged his tail against Max’s knees.
“Not exactly the kind of action I was looking for,” Max told him. “I bet you’re a better cuddler, though.”
Gru rolled over for belly rubs and elbowed Max in the nuts.
“Or not,” Max wheezed.
BY THE third first date, Grady was convinced he had missed a class at school or something. Maybe he’d been a terrible person in a previous life and this was his cosmic payback. Maybe the price for being really fucking good at hockey was his deplorable lack of social skills.
It was October now. Time was ticking down on his deadline to make holiday plans and make sure Jess got her girls’ trip. Two days after the last preseason game of the year, and Grady was sitting at a beer garden downtown, wishing he’d ordered a single pint so he could down it and leave. Instead, he had a whole flight of tiny glasses. He could knock back six miniature beers in a row, but that would make it obvious that he was ditching, and they were in public, so someone would make a dumb internet post about it.
Grady had been a meme once. Someone had tried to pass through his legs while he was skating through the neutral zone, and he’d stepped on the puck and face-planted. He would prefer to avoid a repeat.
His date this afternoon was Tony, twenty-five, which Grady had decided was the lower limit for “you must be at least this old to ride.” Tony was beautiful, Grady would give him that. He had smooth skin and lean muscles and thick, dark eyelashes. He had smolder.
He wore a black sleeveless shirt that showed off the curve of his biceps and, when he moved right, a flash of nipple. It also drew plenty of attention to the big red heart-shaped tattoo on his forearm, which had the word Mom written in it, in scrolling font.
Grady didn’t want to ask about it, exactly. He figured if someone got a heart tattoo with Mom in it, they’d probably been through some shit. Maybe the guy’s mom had had breast cancer or something. Grady knew about that kind of trauma, and it wasn’t a first-date topic. So he didn’t ask.
But he must’ve kept looking at it, because about five minutes into their date, Tony noticed him looking and beamed. “Cool, isn’t it?”
Caught off guard, Grady stammered, “Uh, yeah, it’s really… interesting.”
“I know, right?” Tony flexed his forearm. “I saw it in the artist’s flash book and I just had to have it.”
“O-oh?” Grady asked. “I thought maybe you were really close to your mom or….” Or maybe we had something in common.
“Nah.” Tony flashed some expensive veneers. “I mean, my mom’s great. But I thought this was such an original piece, you know?”
With some alarm, Grady realized that he had no idea if Tony was fucking with him. He could’ve understood if Tony had gotten it to be ironic. And if he’d liked the design, sure, it was his skin, and he could do what he wanted with it. Grady made a living out of the slow destruction of his body. He couldn’t fault anyone for decorating theirs.
But there were Looney Tunes episodes that involved a tattoo like that, for fuck’s sake. Original? Was he living in the Twilight Zone?
Worse, was he too young to remember those cartoons?
Grady hated dating.
Weren’t there professionals he could pay to screen his dates for him? Some kind of matchmaking service?
Ugh, no, that made him look desperate.
Tony was still talking about the tattoo. “… been thinking about what I want for my next one. I think it’d be cool to get a Chinese character, you know? Something that means, like, ‘strength’ or something.”
Grady was pretty sure he knew the answer to this question, but something compelled him to ask anyway. “Do you speak any Chinese?”
“No,” Tony answered easily. “But it looks cool, right?”
Fuck it. Grady finished the first beer in his flight and picked up the second. “If you can’t read it, how will you know the artist didn’t write ‘fuckface’?”
Tony shrugged. “I won’t, I guess. But, like, no one else is going to be able to read it either.”
Grady downed the second beer. Was he going to do this?
He was going to do this.
He picked up the third glass. “Pretty sure a lot of people can read Chinese.” He was dimly aware that there was more than one Chinese language, but he doubted Tony could grasp the concept and he didn’t remember enough details to fake confidence in the knowledge. “Like Chinese people, for example. More people speak Chinese than English.”
Snorting, Tony reached for his own beer. “Yeah, okay, but not here.”
Jesus Christ. Grady took a deep breath and then a deep sip, because if he didn’t, he was going to throw the beer in Tony’s dumb face. That would definitely be a meme.
Then he set the glass back on the pretentious wooden serving board. “Tony, I’d like to tell you it’s been nice getting to know you, but you’re a racist asshole and your tattoo is basic.” He tilted his head toward the remaining drinks. “I’ll settle the tab on my way out.”
He called a cab and spent the ride back to his place stewing.
All that negative energy needed an outlet or it was going to build up inside him and give him indigestion, so he started a text to Coop. I’m starting to think celibacy is underrated.
He was expecting sympathy, or maybe a tiny violin, or a question about what fresh dating hell Grady had discovered, but the message that pinged back fell firmly in the category of none of the above.
Am i supposed to take that personally? i think i take that personally.
Grady blinked, then groaned. He’d selected the most recent text thread, which was Max’s, not Coop’s. Take it however you want.
Not ten seconds later, he got a reply. Now theres an invitation !!
Despite his sour mood, Grady snorted. It wasn’t like he didn’t know Max was easy for it.
but srsly did u fuck up another date? I need the deets. Spill the tea
Grady felt a very inconvenient need to defend himself. This one wasn’t my fault. The guy had a heart tattoo with “Mom” on it because it was “original.”
ok ill give u that 1
Grady rolled his eyes. Thanks.
But like how r u striking out this bad all over. I dont get it. do the guys in philly just suck
Oh my god that’s it isn’t it
Its not u. its philly
Sorry bud
Bristling on Philadelphia’s behalf, Grady gritted his teeth and responded. Don’t blame this on Philly. Then, a minute later, And don’t call me bud.
Tell u what tho, Max went on, ignoring Grady’s messages, its such a shame for ur dick to go to waste. So ill make u a deal.
There was a 100 percent chance Grady was going to regret this, but apparently he was a glutton for punishment. What kind of deal?
I will go on a practice date with u & tell u how ur fucking it up.
Grady frowned. What do you get out of it?
I pick the date. U pay. Then, a moment later, also u have 2 tell me all about all ur other shitty dates so I can laugh at u.
