Last Defense, page 2
Still, it didn’t matter. This was the Railers, the biggest rainbow-flag-flying team in the history of the NHL, I wasn’t one to go around flirting with strangers in front of people who might see me. I had a reputation as a hard guy to uphold, and flirting was a hundred kinds of soft and sexy and hot.
“A word?” Coach Madsen asked as he stepped out from the shadows. As if he’d been waiting for me.
“I’m not late,” I said, and looked at my watch just to check. As soon as I saw I was in fact at least an hour early, I felt a familiar dread seep into me and I had to stop myself from pressing a hand to my head.
No one knows. No one will ever know.
Coach Madsen, or Mads as we called him on the team, frowned at my exaggerated reaction. “No, jeez, cool your jets—I’m not a school principal, and you’re not late. I just wanted to go over some video with you from Saturday’s game.”
Relief flooded into me as quickly as dread had, and yet again I was in the position of having to look as if nothing in the world worried me at all. I wouldn’t have to lie for very much longer; this was my last year in hockey. I knew it, Coach Madsen knew it; hell, the entire NHL was painfully and vocally aware this defenseman, over thirty now, was on his last hurrah on an expansion team.
Never mind the Railers had made it to the first round of the Stanley Cup, the gleaming goal for any hockey player, I was still a man on his way out on a team that still hadn’t shown exactly how far they could go in the standings. Last year they’d made it this far and been knocked out. This year they had me.
Oh, and wonder boy Ten, also Toly, Dieter, and poor Arvy at home with a fucked knee, and Stan in goal, and…yeah, it wasn’t just me, but anyone who looked at my record would be able to see I could make a difference.
If I don’t collapse and die on the ice first.
Way to be melodramatic.
“Okay, Coach, we can do that. You want to do it after practice?”
“It was just one thing—come in now,” Mads said, and began walking toward the office he shared with the goalie coach. He expected me to follow, and I did. I respected the hell out of Jared Madsen. A solid defenseman, he would have gone all the way on a team that loved him if it hadn’t been for a heart issue. He’d chosen to stop then, wanting more from life than the rush of playing. But then he’d found Ten, so he was okay, living his dream vicariously through his lover and being the best D-coach I’d ever had the fortune to play for.
Why would I want to give up skating, even with my issues? I had no one to replenish the gap that skating filled. I had glory and success in my future, and nothing was getting in my way.
Although I wouldn’t mind the odd pit-stop with a strong, sexy, cute, dog-owning man who’d caught my eye.
Mads sat at his desk and swung his chair around, pressing a button to start the VT.
“This,” he said, and pointed at the screen.
It was another Flyers game. All we’d done was watch game tapes over the last few weeks since we’d captured our place in the finals. We’d drawn the Philly team as our opponent and needed to get as much information as we could to make our game plans. Coach Benton was all about the process, about playing the game and not worrying about tricks from the other team. His mantra was that we played right and we’d have a greater chance to win.
But we all wanted that edge; that one small thing that could light the lamp.
“See?” Mads gestured with a laser pointer. “See how they lose control on the rebound here? If you could get in, you could collect that and shuttle it up without losing sight of Ten.”
“Play it again.” I sat on the corner of his desk, making sure not to put my entire weight there in case the damn thing collapsed. I wasn’t one of those D-men who were light on their feet and all about finessing the puck off the other team’s offense. I was the grinder, the heavyweight who wasn’t afraid to take punches and give them straight back. I was an instigator, a defender, the man who could take a lagging game and give the team the impetus to fight back. A throwback to the old and bad days of hockey, and every team needed someone like me when they had generational phenoms like Ten on their team.
I was good at what I did, and the problem there is that when you're really good at what you do as a D-man, you get sent out against the opponents' most skilled scorers. Damn, it’s hard to keep up with some of them. Like Ten for instance, although luckily for me I was on his team now.
The coaches put me with Ten, I had his back, and for that I knew Jared respected me.
I thrived on that, on respect, being the hero, hearing the roar of the crowd and knowing they loved what I was doing for their team.
Christ knew what I would do when this was over. I couldn’t be a coach, not like Mads. I’d want to be on the ice all the time, muscling my way through another game.
“So, what do you think?” Mads asked as he played it for the third time. I could see what he was showing me, and I needed to get my head out of thinking about the next part of my sorry life and focus on the here and now. Here was the arena; now was our upcoming first game against the Flyers.
“I think they should tone down the orange,” I quipped, in reference to the brightness of the Flyers’ gear.
“About the—”
“I know what you mean, I can see it, I’ll work on it.” And then because this was Ten I would be looking out for, I added what I knew Mads wanted to hear. “I’ll get to the puck but I won't let them get to Ten.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” he lied to my face.
“Of course not,” I lied back.
That was how we rolled.
When I left the small office, heading for the locker rooms, I came face to face with Stan on his hands and knees, in his full goalie kit, ass in the air, fussing over the dog Ben had brought in with him. No sign of Ben at the moment.
Stan spoke Russian to the dog, who had rolled on its back, exposing its belly for a rub. I made out one word, the name Noah, then a lot more curiously shaped vowels and consonants that meant nothing to me.
I’d played with a hundred Russians in my time, and they all had a place in my heart, these big strong guys with the weird language that made no sense to me at all.
“You like?” Stan asked, and I realized he was looking up at me, the big goofy idiot.
“Dogs?” I asked, and crouched down to fuss over Bucky as I’d overheard Ben call him. He was soft, and warm, and reminded me of this mutt we had when I was a kid, a collie lab mix who had never left my side. I’m not ashamed to admit when Scooter died at eleven, I cried for days. I was already in the draft, called up for the AHL team attached to the Hawks, but I cried like a baby for the dog who had been mine.
“I love dogs,” I said, simple and to the point.
“I’m steal him,” Stan joked. “Not tell Erik.”
I stood up and smiled down at the Russian and the dog he wanted to steal. "Think Ben might have something to say to that."
Talk of the devil and there he was, with Layton Foxx at his side. Truth, I’d never seen such a fine-looking pair of men standing together.
I really need to find someone to scratch this itch. I need to get laid soon, before I spontaneously combust.
“There he is,” Ben said, and reached for the leash. “I take my eye off him for one minute…”
Stan looked so disappointed Ben was there taking the dog it was comical. I didn’t want to laugh but it just happened.
Stan huffed and stalked away, and that left me with Ben, Layton, and the dog in the lonely corridor.
“We meet again,” I said to Ben, then groaned inwardly. Lame. My game was so not on point.
I eased past Ben, which was a tight fit, and sue me if I didn’t press a little more that I needed to on his arm. He stepped back, nearly falling over Bucky, and I gripped him to stop him from barreling into Layton. Call it a hockey instinct, or just a need to get my hands on him. Who knows, but I was there, and I held him until he shrugged me off. He glared at me, then pointedly turned his back to me.
“So, this would be all the team for the calendar, or can I pick who I want?” he said to Layton, as they walked away talking. I heard my name, and a chuckle from Layton, before they headed out to the kitchen.
“Heads up,” someone shouted, and I only just ducked in time to avoid getting a soccer ball to my head. I retrieved the ball and threw it back to Westy and Mac.
“Stupid rookies,” I muttered, and muscled my way through, ignoring their laughter as much as I’d ignored Ben and Layton’s.
No one laughed at the big bad defender.
And when I took both rookies to the floor at the beginning of practice, I felt vindicated when I saw in their eyes that it was a lesson from me.
If only I could get Ben on the floor under me, all wriggling and cursing at me.
Now that would be a Very Good Thing.
Practice was hard. Our first game in the finals was on the Flyers’ home ice, which meant a plane, and hotels, and messing with the rhythms of our day. We’d deal with all that; at the end of the day, it was all about the hockey.
Ten cornered me, as much as you can corner someone on an oval piece of ice.
“Did Mads show you the—”
“Yes.”
“And did you—”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.”
We fist-bumped, because we just got each other. I’ve seen a lot of kids come up and be labelled the next great one when they were still wet behind the ears, but Ten here, he had hockey smarts, and speed, and everyone genuinely liked him.
Well, except for the section of the Railers’ fans that felt Ten was defined by what he did with his dick. Morons.
I’d already heard some of the chirping he got from certain skaters on opposing teams, just enough to inform me which assholes I was taking off their skates into the boards. No one said things loud enough to get caught, no one spoke clearly, but nevertheless it was an easy go-to thing to comment on a man’s sexuality.
I preferred using my brawn over my brain when it came to getting things done.
Didn’t mean I was short of a brain, though.
Just that my brain had this thing in it, and it wasn’t good, and I didn’t even want to think about it.
“Again,” Mads said, and had me and James “Westy” Sato-West, a newbie up from the minors, going two-on-one with Ten. Little shit still got past the both of us, a slap shot to the net, and not even Stan could stop that one.
Ten crowed a little—he’d earned that—and then he snowed to a stop right next to me.
“Better luck next time,” he said with a grin.
“Little shit,” I cursed, but I was smiling, because fuck I felt alive out here.
We finished with what I affectionately called circle time, all of us around the inner Railers’ logo on the ice, all taking a knee and listening to assessments and timetables.
We were flying out the day after tomorrow. Flight left at five p.m. Hotel was assigned. Optional practice in the Flyers’ place the morning of the game. We were told to skip the ice tomorrow, spend our time in the gym, work with the therapists on any lingering issues, and then be ready to fly out.
Some of the guys were beaten and bruised after the end of a heavy season; we all needed some TLC, but I wished we could have got the skate time tomorrow, early, when the ice was new and maybe I was the only one out on it.
Just me, the ice, and the echoing ghosts of the cheers from the last game.
I was the last off the ice. It was kind of a thing I had going on at all my teams; it didn’t bother me when I got on the ice and in what order, there was no superstition there, but leaving the ice at practice? That was all me being last.
God knows why. Maybe it was that part of me that said if I wore the same shirt on game day, or a particular tie to a game against LA, then we would win. Hockey superstition is a weird thing.
I saw him before he saw me, or at least, he was staring off in the other direction, making shapes with his hands as he talked to Layton, who was grinning at him as if Ben was telling him the best joke ever.
I wanted to walk over and see if they were still laughing about me, but I didn’t.
Not at first, anyway. Only when Layton answered his cell and that left Ben on his own did I think about culling him from the herd.
I used all my best moves, coming up on his blind side, nearly tripping over the dog, and sliding effortlessly between Ben and Layton, who took his call a little farther away.
Me and Ben. Alone. Finally.
“We should get coffee. Or beer. Or a hotel room,” I announced, because hell, life was too short to mess around. Ben could say yes or punch me in the face, and either I could handle.
“You just don’t take a hint, do you?” he said, and wrapped Bucky’s leash around his hand, ready to move off.
“You know you find me hot.”
“Jesus, you’re an arrogant ass—”
I leaned in to him. “I don’t mess about. You’re fucking gorgeous and I want to fuck you into tomorrow.”
“What if I want to be the one doing the fucking?” he snapped, then blanched when he realized what he’d said.
God, I was so hard my cup was cutting off circulation. The idea of this man getting it on and taking charge was exactly my kind of thing.
“I can go for that,” I whispered.
“Why are you messing with me like this?” he asked, horrified, and looked around him. “Is this some kind of sick joke? A game?”
“No joke, and Ben, I don’t play games,” I said.
Something in that must have resonated with him because he stopped in his tracks and there was something in his expression—a hope, a need—and it was the same as mine.
“Max—”
“I’ll be at Blue. It’s a bar on—”
“I know where it is.”
“I’ll be there at eight. Your choice.”
I didn’t give him any time to discuss or argue. The offer was there—we met at Blue, we had a drink, we talked, maybe we had sex up against a wall. Either way, I’d found the way in to this beautiful man’s mind. A simple promise I didn’t play games.
“Wait,” he called after me as I headed for the lockers. I didn’t stop. I’d laid it out there, and now it was on him what happened next.
Chapter Three
Ben
Longest. Day. Ever.
I’d spent hours debating and whining, bouncing back and forth over whether I should meet Max or not. It had taken me until four o’clock to slap myself and make the call. Yes. Drinks with the big man who looked at me as if I was filet mignon. Why? Because there was a current, sharp and hot, and it had been years since I’d felt that kind of spark.
Getting out of the office at six—an hour past my “official” quitting time, which I never actually saw because shelter manager—added another sixty minutes to the torture.
“What do I say to him when I show up?”
You say you want to fuck him until he passes out. Then fuck him—or have him fuck you—until you or he passes out. Simpleton.
“That really wasn’t a question I needed answered, brain.” Bucky glanced over at me as we made our way to Allison Hill and the red brick row houses me and my two great-aunts called home. “Talking to myself. Go back to what you were doing.”
The malamute gave me a knowing look and returned to his previous entertainment, which was riding along with his snout out the six-inch dog-nose-sized gap in the window, slobber flying off him on occasion to coat said window and speckle my arm.
Pulling up to a red light, I glanced at the clock on the stereo. Quarter after six. Why was I so obsessed with time today?
You know why.
“Okay, seriously, I will shut your shit down, brain!” Bucky rolled those blue eyes toward me, the whiskers over his eyes twitching in what seemed to be amusement. “It’s not funny.”
No, it was not funny. Not at all. I’d made an ass of myself over a man. That hadn’t happened since…forever. Since Liam.
“Right, so what we’re going to do is just meet for drinks. No fucking.”
Bucky woofed out the window.
“No, see, fucking is for the nameless men. Max has a name. Well, okay, yeah, the other men did too, but they didn’t make me feel as if I’d swallowed live goldfish when I thought about them.”
The light turned green just as I cranked up the volume on some slow stuff from Lionel Ritchie. We drove as I talked. When I came out of the conversational fog, we were about four blocks from my street. I shook off the spike of fear I’d felt after realizing I’d driven for ten minutes and not once noted my surroundings. I’d get myself killed over a man with whiskey-colored eyes and a voice like a chainsaw on idle.
Allison Hill was a rough neighborhood or had been. It still was in pockets, but there were now areas that had been gentrified. And then, on the south side of Allison Hill, there were abandoned houses filled with squatters, many with addicts who slept on beds of empty syringes and shattered dreams.
The bad side of the city was why I’d moved up after I’d gotten that spiffy major in business administration with a minor in animal science. My two great-aunts on my father’s side had lived there all their lives. When crime had started taking over their neighborhood, instead of moving down to D.C. with my parents as they’d been begged to do, they’d simply dug in like ticks and begun speaking out for the people of the area. That had brought them a lot of trouble from criminal elements who didn’t want the streets cleaned up. Enter Benton Worthington, nephew extraordinaire and bail-payer for two wild women who should be home knitting and baking cookies instead of playing social justice warriors in their late seventies and early eighties.
The job offer from Crossroads had come before I’d even fully moved in, which had been a miracle, but one didn’t question blessings. They just thanked God for them.
And I had every day for the past several years. My job, Liam, good health, and a full life had been in my grasp. Life had been good. So good that I’d been rapidly promoted. Only two years after I’d become shelter manager, the owner, who had been aged and sickly, had offered Liam and me the shelter. We’d talked, plotted, begged, borrowed, and came close to stealing to raise the down payment. Legally, all had been settled after the transfer of ownership had taken place. Our wills had both stated that should one of us die before the other, the shelter went to the surviving spouse. Little had we suspected that one of us would be gone within a few years.
