Page 38 of Breaking the Ice

“Yeah, he is,” Zach agreed.

They showered and changed, this time Zach being smart enough to avert his eyes.

He didn’t need to fuel his fantasies with any more front row views of how absolutely rocking Gavin’s body still was.

He’d thought it, the moment he’d seen him at the cabin, and today had only confirmed that hypothesis.

“Do you want to be there?” Gavin asked later, when they were in his office, Zach trying to pull the game tape up on the big TV there.

“For?”

“When I talk to McCoy,” Gavin said, tapping his fingers on the desk. “It occurs to me that I’ve got a unique advantage. You’re more these guys’ age than I am. You could be like a transitional buffer.”

“You want me to be their friend?”

“Not in a behind their back kinda way,” Gavin clarified. “More like I think they could trust you a fraction more than they might ever trust me.”

Zach wanted to tell him that he was crazy—that part of Gavin’s coaching magic was gaining that trust in a seemingly effortless way. But he had a point.

“Um, yeah, I could do that. It wouldn’t be hard. But for McCoy . . .that’s the kind of thing a coach would tell him—not a friend.”

Gavin’s eyes lit. “Ah, I get it. You want me to be the coach, lay down the law, and then he can go bitch to you.”

Zach nodded.

“Okay, we can play it that way. How’s Jones gonna take it?”

“Like you just handed him the keys to everything he’s ever wanted. He’s not gonna be an issue.”

“I can see that.”

Zach didn’t want to bring up Hayes’ theory, but heshouldsay something. Maybe it wasn’t true, but Gavin should still know.

“Now, about Finn . . .” Zach trailed off.

“I’m gonna have to talk to Morgan.”

“Yeah.”

Gavin made a face. “I’ve been puttingit off.”

Zach just didn’t want to be the one to do it—he couldn’t say that Morgan Reynolds had ever been his favorite player, even considering how good he’d been in his heyday, but the way he’d fucked up Hayes had permanently cemented his opinion that Morgan was an asshole.

They needed someone who’d be nice and flatter Morgan’s not-insignificant ego. That wasnotgoing to be Zach.

“Well, I don’t want to do it,” Zach said bluntly.

Gavin raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“He’s not my favorite person,” Zach said. He hoped that Gavin didn’t ask why.

“Not mine either,” Gavin admitted. “But I know whyIdon’t like the guy. What’s your deal with him?”

“He . . .uh . . .” Zach paused. How could he say this and not be just as much of an asshole as Morgan? No matter what the guy had done to Hayes, he didn’t deserve to be outed. “He dated a friend of mine and it ended badly.”

“So not just ’cause he’s an egotistical jerk then?” Gavin chuckled.

“Well, that too.”