Page 80 of Back in the Game (Pride in the Game #1)

It wasn’t really about winning; it was the excitement of having their star player back to a level they were familiar with. Jett almost got a Hat Trick, and the only reason he didn’t get one was because he passed the puck to Cote so he could get the first of his NHL career.

Hat Tricks were hard to come by in today’s game with all the skilled players, and even more skilled goalies, so the fact that Jett did something like that for their rookie…

He wasn’t the only one impressed by Jett’s act because ever since the game ended, he had been dealing with calls and texts from everyone in their group. And Mari was obsessed with how the game went. The media had been trying to paint Jett as a fake golden boy, but it was impossible.

No one was saying a bad word about him now, and the usual culprits who had been doing so were now silent in fear of backlash from the public.

Harrison did not doubt that by the time they returned after Christmas break, the negativity toward Jett would be gone.

They’d decided to take a direct flight from Boston to Nova Scotia, skipping Toronto entirely. Harrison had already called a distant cousin to check on the house, but there was still plenty to do before they got there—picking up groceries, stopping for supplies, and buying gifts.

He had no idea what the hell to get Jett. An engagement ring? A kitten? A baby? All three seemed wildly inappropriate—or at least way too much. Socks were starting to look like the safest option. Maybe a nice scarf. Something he couldn’t mess up .

He was terrible at this. There was a reason he’d never been an official anything to anyone. Who would want to date a neurotic mess with emotional landmines, and the occasional need to disappear into the woods like a cryptid?

Jett, apparently. Thank God.

Harrison arranged for their rental to be waiting for them when they touched down at the Halifax Airport.

The weather in Nova Scotia had been snowier than usual, and his old car was put away for the winter, so they would be driving a Jeep during their stay.

He could pay someone to plow his driveway after a significant snowfall, but they didn’t want to get trapped and be late for Robert’s Christmas on the small chance it happened, so 4-wheel-drive it was.

Jett not only slept from the airport to the lake house, he’d also slept through Harrison stopping at the grocery store and the other place for an hour, and loading all the bags in the back of the Jeep.

Harrison was happy to let him nap. Jett had played an amazing game in Boston, and the sex before that had been…none too gentle, so he had to be exhausted.

He stopped to get himself a coffee, and Jett a candy cane hot chocolate. The server’s voice in the drive-thru was what finally woke Jett from his beauty sleep.

He blinked sleepily at Harrison when handed his drink, his expression pinched with confusion. “Where?”

“Fifteen minutes from the lake house,” said Harrison. “Drink your hot chocolate and give yourself time to wake up because we have lots to unpack.”

“We have two suitcases and two carry-on bags.” Jett blew through the vent of his cup to cool the liquid. “You make it sound like we brought hockey gear with us.”

“I got groceries, so—”

“ When ?”

Harrison smiled at the tone of disbelief in his boyfriend’s voice. “When we stopped at a grocery store and you napped while I filled a whole cart.”

“Fuck.” Jett brushed a hand through his curls. “What a hell of a power nap. ”

Jett spent the rest of the ride drinking and burning his tongue, and also fiddling with the radio station. He would find a song he liked and sing along with it for a few seconds before switching, searching for something else.

Harrison usually would have been annoyed by someone switching his station, but something was endearing about Jett’s level of ADHD that made it impossible.

“What are you smiling about?” Jett asked, golden-brown eyes narrowing on him.

“Nothing at all,” said Harrison. “Just thinking about all the decorating we have to do.”

“Decorating? You’re crazy.”

Harrison was joking. They didn’t have time to throw Christmas together this year, but next year, he would be making more of an effort. This year, he was fine with going to Robert’s house since they were on such a time crunch.

When they pulled to a stop at the front of his road, Harrison frowned at the sight of his security camera hanging off the tree by a wire. He hadn’t received an alert on his app, which made sense if it was suddenly damaged, but it annoyed the shit out of him.

“How did it break?” Jett asked, already noticing what Harrison was frowning at.

“Depends,” said Harrison. “It could have been a storm, or sometimes kids fuck with them because they’re shitheads with nothing else better to do.”

He pulled the Jeep onto the dirt road and was immediately grateful for choosing this vehicle with the amount of snow. It didn’t struggle in the deep snow, and there were no fallen trees, so it was smooth sailing until the halfway point.

Harrison brought the Jeep to a stop when he saw another one of his road cams smashed and dangling.

“Goddamn kids,” Harrison grumbled. “Those fucking things are expensive, and everything is about to be closed for the holidays.”

“Damn kids, get off my lawn!” Jett mocked, and Harrison smacked his arm.

He had to gun the accelerator to get it moving in the snow again, and he laughed when Jett screeched and attached himself to the handle to keep from being brained against the door.

“You’re such a dick, Killinger.”

“Can’t handle a bit of turbulence, city boy?”

“At this point, I’d feel safer in a plane than in a car with you.”

Harrison hit the gas as the Jeep plowed its way into the clearing in front of the house. He winked at Jett before turning the wheel, spinning the vehicle until it lost momentum and came to a jarring stop.

Seeing Jett’s face had him laughing until his stomach ached, but he pulled himself together and ruffled his boyfriend’s hair. “And it’s a fucking Jeep, Fraser, not a car.”

He got out before Jett could regain his senses enough to hit him and took a quick survey of his property. There were no tracks in the knee-deep snow, which meant nothing had been in the area recently, but he was unsurprised to see his last camera missing from its spot.

“Wow,” said Jett as he got out and bundled his jacket tightly around himself. “This is like a paranoid person’s worst nightmare. You gonna be okay, buddy?”

Harrison scoffed at his shitty joke. “I don’t give a fuck as long as they didn’t touch the expensive equipment in my gym or my house.”

The outside of the house looked untouched, but they could have broken in through the back door or tampered with a window.

Harrison stepped through the snow up the porch steps, being careful in case ice was hidden underneath. He had a shovel next to the door that he used to remove the snow drift blocking the entryway before he tried the door.

Stopping inside, he saw that nothing had been touched. None of his things were disturbed, and there were no broken windows.

So just kids being fucking kids then.

The squeak of Jett’s boots slipping on the deck behind him let him know he was there. Jett popped his head inside timidly, like he was worried he might see roadkill dangling from the ceiling in some abandoned ritual.

“Anything?”

Harrison shook his head. “You start bringing things in, and I’ll get the fire going. It’s freezing in here.”

“Yeah,” said Jett. “That’s because we’re in the middle of the fucking woods with no power.”

“I have to flip a switch in the basement.” Harrison kept his boots on so he could do that. “And then baby will get his power back so he can charge his phone and talk to his friends.”

Jett laughed but still flipped him off, stepping back outside to get their things.

Once the lights were on, the pipes were checked, and the fire was started, Harrison helped Jett put the food away and unpack. Jett tried to get cheeky and put his stuff in the spare room, but he didn’t make it to the door before Harrison was dragging him away.

“Don’t want to roleplay our first week living together with added sex parts?” Jett asked, grinning.

“In the words of your father, does a bear shit in the woods ?”

Harrison handed Jett the remote to distract him while he started dinner, telling him to find something for them to watch later. That lasted all of ten minutes before Jett got bored and wandered into the kitchen, poking at him like an impatient cat.

“Out,” Harrison said, grabbing a coat and tossing it at him. “Get dressed.”

Minutes later, Jett was blinking in the cold, shovel in hand.

“Clear a path to the woodpile,” Harrison told him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “The less snow I have to walk through, the less my leg will hate me.”

“Oh, now he uses the sore leg excuse,” Jett muttered, but he left without further protest.

Harrison smiled faintly and turned back to the kitchen.

He was making pizza tonight—Luca’s favourite Christmas meal.

The thought tugged something in his chest. It hurt, sure, but this was part of the process.

He wanted to start sharing the little things, the memories that still ached, with Jett.

Maybe if he let someone else hold them too, they wouldn’t feel quite so heavy.

The house was so quiet, Harrison thought he heard the faint click of the back door. He paused, listening carefully, and half-expecting Jett to sneak up on him, but then a curse rang out from the front of the house .

Jett was still out there, shovelling snow. Harrison exhaled and shook his head, brushing the sound off. Probably just a snap from the logs settling in the fireplace.

Jett didn’t finish his chore until the pizza was in the oven and the house smelled like baking peppers and onions. He came inside, shaking snow out of his hair, and let out an exhausted sigh.

“A path from the gym to the front of the wood storage is clear. Nothing has been touched in the gym, so I think we’re good on the vandalism front.” He paused and looked around. “What smells so good? Holy .”

“Pizza,” said Harrison. He went to Jett and helped him out of his jacket so he could hang it up to dry. “Shower and warm up. It will be done by the time you get out.”

Arms grabbed him before he could walk away, and he grunted as Jett jumped onto his back and clung to him like a koala.

“I could think of other ways to warm up.”

Funny, because now Harrison was sweating in the still chilly room.

“I don’t want the pizza to burn,” Harrison insisted, but he knew he would never win this particular argument against Jett.

“We don’t have to fuck for hours,” said Jett, nipping his ear. “I only need a hand if you know what I mean.”

Harrison sighed and marched them to the shower. He had ten minutes before he would be forced to start a new batch of pizzas to replace the burnt ones.

Jett slid off his back when they got to the bathroom, and Harrison didn’t pause when he saw the shower, but he came close.

“See, this is why we’re doing this now,” Jett said, gently pushing him further into the bathroom. “This place needs good memories to replace the bad ones.”

Bad memories like lying on the shower floor with the cold water running, so he could bring himself back to the rainy night of the car crash.

He hadn’t done something like that since Jett stopped him that time, but the urge lingered, even on good days.

He couldn’t break a five-year habit out of the blue. It was going to take time .

He stood and watched Jett undress and turn the hot water on, returning to help Harrison out of his clothes once the temperature was right.

“How much hot water do you think we have?”

Harrison focused on the question to help ground him.

“The tank has been running for an hour, but we should be quick just in case.”

Jett held his face, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones affectionately before he drew him into a kiss. Harrison’s hands fell to Jett’s hips, fingers pressing into soft, golden skin.

The sound of Jett’s moan had his brain fully rebooting online. He gripped the back of his neck and turned the kisses from chaste to open-mouthed, backing Jett into the walk-in shower and pinning him to the wall.

Jett hissed because the tiles were cold, but he seemed determined to leave them both with bruised lips as he continued to kiss and nibble the swollen skin, making Harrison groan happily.

They were on a time crunch, so Harrison let Jett focus on kissing while he took their cocks into his hand, stroking them together to create the perfect amount of friction.

It was dirty and quick. There was no finesse to what they were doing, only the drive to bring them to a quick release.

“Fuck—Harrison.”

Jett gave up on kissing when he could no longer find enough air to breathe.

Harrison moved his mouth to Jett’s neck, leaving bruises higher than he typically did because they had a few days to heal before the next game. Jett’s breathing signalled that he was close, and Harrison was there with him.

Jett gasped and dug his nails into his shoulders, spilling hot cum over Harrison’s hand and cock. The bite of pain mixed with Jett’s breathy sounds had him quickly following, and Harrison stroked them until he and Jett were both spent and panting.

“See?” Jett said breathlessly. “Making good memories is fun.”

Harrison shrugged and stuck his finger into his mouth, sucking the bitter cum off them. He held Jett’s wide-eyed gaze, trying not to laugh when his mouth slowly fell open .

“Dude, the water is literally running right now.”

Harrison shrugged again because he knew it would irritate him. “I like how we taste.”

He knew he had five seconds to escape before Jett started begging him for sex, so Harrison rinsed off and ducked out of the shower, chuckling when Jett grumbled.

“That pizza better fucking be worth it.”