Page 149 of Breakaway Goals

“You feel good about it?”

Hayes wiggled closer, nearly giggling, and said, “What doyouthink?”

“Pretty damn good,” Morgan said, laughing too now.

He was half-expecting Hayes to crawl down into his lap and do something about his half-hard cock, but instead, Hayes went limp in his arms. Just breathed in and out and in and out again.

“Did you mean it?” Hayes murmured into his neck.

“Did I mean what?” He’d said a lot of shit, so much lovestruck earnestness, over the last two months, and he’d meant every word.

“When you said you’d be around, no matter what. No matter what team I ended up on.”

Morgan pulled back, needing Hayes to see his face when he reassured him. “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m here for you, always. No matter what.”

“When the hockey stuff gets too hard?” Hayes questioned.

It would. They both knew it would. It always did.

Morgan considered how he’d been feeling, right before Hayes showed up. What Hayes himself had told him six years ago.

“Yeah, of course. Of course for the hockey stuff. But also to remind you that hockey isn’t all that matters.”

Hayes stared at him. Tongue flicked out, licked at his bottom lip.

“I’m never going to stop reminding you,telling you, that you can put it down, sometimes. Just like you did for me.”

Hayes squeezed his eyes shut. “God, you can’t keep saying shit like that.”

“I mean it,” Morgan said. “I always mean it—”

“I know,I know, which is why I just . . .ugh. You love me.” Hayes didn’t say it as a question. Just a statement of fact, which it was.

Morgan Reynolds loved Hayes Montgomery.

“Yeah,” he said. “I love you. Always.”

Epilogue

Eighteen months later

It made a weird, twisted sort of sense that when Hayes won his second Cup and Finn won his first, the only person Morgan got to hug and scream incoherently about it with was Jacob Braun.

He never really regretted retiring when he did. Except this one time. Not because he wanted to be the one lifting the Cup—he’d won his own, and he’d never been prouder that Finn and Hayes had just won their first together—but because he was stuck up in here in this stupid suite instead of down on the ice. Couldn’t press his mouth to Hayes’ sweaty neck and taste the salt water of the tears that streaked down his cheeks. Had only Jacob to hang on to. Jacob, who was still on the floor, where he’d fallen to his knees, five minutes earlier as Hayes had scored the winning overtime goal.

“Get up,” Morgan said, dragging him to his feet, laughing. “Come on, we’re gonna have to go down there.”

He and Hayes had talked about this—Hayes squirming the whole time, because he hadn’t wanted to jinx the Sentinelsby assuming they’d win—but he’d needed to know what Hayes wanted. Not just what the general expectations were. Neither he nor Jacob were traditional WAGs. They were both ex-players, and them being down there on the ice, after the trophy presentation, might not be what the team wanted. Might not be what Hayes or Finn wanted.

The last thing Morgan was looking to be was a distraction when the focus should be on the Sentinels.

But Hayes had looked at him like he was crazy for asking. “Of course I want you there,” he’d said. “And I can’t imagine Finnnotwanting Jacob there, either.”

“What?” Jacob looked at him. His eyes were red, but he was smiling. Maybe even bigger and wider than he had when he’d won his own championships. Morgan understood that because he was pretty sure he was happier now than when he’d last lifted the Cup, seven years ago.

“We gotta go, man,” Morgan said, pushing him out of the suite. “Finn’s gonna want you down there.”

“What?” Jacob repeated.