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June

Zach was sweating. A lot.

He wiped a damp palm on his thigh, but the material of his shorts was slippery and it didn’t feel any drier after. Nothing felt drier. Sweat beaded at his hairline, under the brim of his hat, at the back of his neck, and under his arms.

It was the high eighties in Michigan, and humid as fuck, but that wasn’t why he was currently a soupy mess. He considered cranking up the air conditioning again, but he already knew that wouldn’t help.

“You can do this,” he said out loud to his reflection in the rearview mirror. But the pep talk didn’t do much to help. He still wanted to turn around and go back to Traverse City and, also, hit the accelerator and arrive at his destination in the next oh-point-five seconds.

Get it over with.

Zach turned down another road, this sign even more faded than the last. The gravel under his tires gave way to dirt ruts, and the rental car jolted over the dried lumps of mud.

He imagined in the winter this road was basically impassable.

In the fall or the spring, this road was probably impassable.

Zach tried to be grateful that it was June and he wasn’t going to get stuck all the way out here, but it was hard to be relieved when he was this fucking nervous.

Finally, his rental car jolted down the lane, passing one mile marker and then another until he made it to the one he was looking for.

Without it, he’d never have seen the turnoff. It was half-buried in the surrounding foliage, and Zach wasn’t stupid enough to think that wasn’t one-hundred-percent on purpose.

The person who lived down it didn’t want to be found.

But Zach had found him, anyway.

Hayes, his best friend, had told him that this was a fool’s errand. But because he was ride-or-die, loyal to the absolute core, he’d been the one to call in half a dozen favors to help Zach figure out exactly where he was going.

Zach tried to feel gratitude, but all he felt was a sick, nauseating lurch in the base of his stomach as the cabin came into view.

Despite the foliage surrounding it, the building was clearly well cared for. Windows glistened in the sunlight, and the screened porch running along the entrance side was neat, only a table and a single chair. There was one pair of boots with muddy soles by the front door.

Zach stopped the car and tried to unclench his white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel.

“You can do this,” he repeated to himself, and it worked a little better the second time, because he actually got his seat belt undone and the door open .

He was halfway out the car when the front screen door swung open.

Zach stared down the barrel of a shotgun and sweat slipped down his spine, dampening his T-shirt even further. Holding up his hands, he said in a shaky voice he barely recognized as his own, “Hey, it’s just me. Uh . . .Zach. Zach Wheeler.”

The shotgun barrel wavered and then lowered, giving Zach his first glimpse of Gavin Blackburn in four years.

Dark scruff covered his jaw, the same mahogany as the too-long wavy hair on his head, sprinkled at the temples with gray that hadn’t been there the last time they’d met.

His dark stare was flat, equally dark circles under his eyes, and he shaded them with a hand.

He wore a ratty T-shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and even rattier basketball shorts, exposing still-muscled legs.

Zach couldn’t say he looked bad exactly, but then Gavin Blackburn would have to be halfway into a grave for him to ever think that.

“Zach?” His voice sounded rough with disuse, and more than a little shocked. “Is that you?”

Zach risked another step closer. “Yeah, it’s me. Zach.” His hand twitched at his side, tempted to wave hello like a complete fucking idiot.

You’re not handling this , the Hayes-voice inside him said bluntly.

Zach told the Hayes in his head to fuck off and cleared his throat. “Can we talk?”

Four years ago Coach would’ve smiled and gestured Zach inside.

Now, he just shot him a hard look. “What are you doing here?”

“I just want to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.” Gavin didn’t need to add to you but Zach heard it anyway.

It shouldn’t have hurt. Dozens of people hadn’t even made it this far.

Hayes had told him that the last scout who’d come out here, the one he’d gotten the directions from, hadn’t even gotten ten words out of Blackburn.

He’d only gotten the shotgun barrel and a hissed warning to get the fuck off his property.

“Well, I’ve got something to say,” Zach said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Half-expecting the shotgun to rise again. “You gonna let me say it?”

He—and the athletic director at Portland University—were both counting on his ex-coach having a tender spot for one of his ex-players.

Coach— Gavin , Zach told himself, he was Gavin now, because they weren’t anything, and Coach hadn’t been his Coach in a long fucking time—shot him an unimpressed look.

“You wanna say it out here?” Gavin asked.

He didn’t. Not really. But Hayes had told him that nobody had ever made it onto the porch, even.

Zach’s competitive streak, the one he’d thought was long-dead, killed by the grind of the NHL, flared to life.

“No,” Zach said.

Gavin’s dark eyes flashed a warning, and it occurred to Zach that he looked more alive now than he’d looked in the last five minutes. Pissed off, sure, but pissed off was better than that dead-eyed look he’d been wearing before .

“You should get back in your car and turn around. Get out of here.” Gavin’s voice was gruff.

“No,” Zach repeated.

Gavin tilted his head, appraising him. He was quiet for so long that Zach was afraid he might get shot, and no matter what he’d discussed with Sidney Swift, the Portland U athletic director, this was not worth a hole in his chest. He had the assistant coaching job, no matter what. Swift had promised him that.

“You grew up,” Gavin said flatly.

How long had he waited for Gavin to say that to him? A whole fucking long time. But then Zach had always imagined that it would occur under a lot different circumstances—if it ever happened at all.

For one, he’d hoped Gavin would utter it in a dreamy, mesmerized voice, rough around the edges with awe, not rough with disuse and annoyance.

Nevermind that he’d imagined it would be offered as invitation, not a way to slam the door shut between them.

“It’s been years,” Zach said, shrugging, burying his disappointment deep down, in the same place he’d always shoved his inconvenient and never-to-be-returned feelings.

It was true. The last time he’d seen Gavin had been four years ago, when his NHL team, the Los Angeles Mavericks, had played Gavin’s team, the Seattle Sea Monsters.

They’d greeted each other with a warm hug and a few words pre-game and a few more after the game. It had felt like every other chance meeting between an ex-coach and his old player .

Six weeks later, Gavin’s wife was dead and he’d disappeared. Zach had kept waiting for Gavin to rejoin the land of the living, but he never had.

“Has it really?” Gavin scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “I guess so.”

Zach had known this was a fool’s errand. If he hadn’t known it himself, Hayes’ frank assessment of his chances would’ve convinced him. But he was here, anyway, wasn’t he? He’d come regardless, and he wasn’t going to let his offer stay unsaid.

“I just want to talk.”

“You know I’m going to say no,” Gavin said bluntly.

“Probably, yeah, but I told Swift I’d say it anyway.

” But he wasn’t going to make the offer because Sidney Swift wanted him to.

He was going to make it because he wanted to.

Because Gavin deserved more than to bury himself in the middle of nowhere, where he probably couldn’t even leave October through April.

And that, more than anything, was fucked up.

“Swift?”

Shit . He hadn’t meant to give that away. Not yet. Not until he made it onto the actual porch. More sweat slipped down Zach’s spine. The cotton of his T-shirt was probably glued to his back by now.

He was sure Gavin would really tell him to fuck off now. Lift the shotgun again, maybe. Threaten him the way he’d threatened so many representatives who’d actually made it all the way out here.

But Gavin only sighed, like it was inevitable, and gestured towards the door. “Come on,” he said .

Zach could barely believe his luck. He wondered if he could take a picture of the porch. Prove to Hayes—and everyone who’d doubted him—that he was here .

But he dismissed the tempting possibility. This wasn’t about winning , though that was great too. It was about having the opportunity to make his pitch.

Nobody else had ever done that either.

Gavin had never let them.

He didn’t move towards the door to the cabin, only leaned against one of the columns on the screen porch and waved at the single chair. “Sit,” he said.

Zach didn’t want to sit. He felt shaky with adrenaline and success—and well, something else he didn’t want to look at too closely.

He’d told Hayes he was over his crush, had been over it for a long, long time, but that wasn’t quite true, was it?

He’d just not had anything to feed it for so long it had atrophied, and now there was blood pumping, hard and strong, into it, and it was roaring back to life like it had never been dead at all.

“So?” Gavin said after Zach had reluctantly taken the chair.

He crossed his arms over his chest, that threadbare T-shirt barely hanging on for dear life, and even though he was buried out here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, his body was impossibly hotter than it had been seven years ago, when it had starred pretty exclusively in all of Zach’s late-night jerkoff sessions.

“So?” Zach swallowed hard. He needed to fucking focus.

“So why are you fucking here?” Gavin asked.

Suddenly, Zach was reminded of why he’d initially been so nervous. The pitch .

“I’m the assistant coach at Portland now—”

“What?” Gavin interrupted, looking shocked. “You’re not playing?”