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They’d been so good about this, for ages, for weeks , for more than a month now. A month and a half at least.

What he wanted was to lean in. To just take this time.

But he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, by all of Gavin’s stupid rules.

Zach steeled his brain. His heart. “Let’s not do this again if you’re not going to change your mind,” he said with as much cold certainty as he could find.

Gavin straightened and looked away, and Zach said, before Gavin could apologize, “I’d better go make sure Finn’s okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you should,” Gavin said.

And that was the end of it again.

If Zach had a stick in his hand to break, he’d have done it, right against the boards .

But he didn’t, so he took one breath and then another, until his heartbeat was almost steady, and went to look for Finn.

“Team’s looking great,” Sidney said, setting his fork against his plate, “but I worry about that second team power play.”

They’d exhausted polite small talk fairly quickly, and Sidney hadn’t wasted any time bringing up the team.

Gavin barely tolerated these weekly lunches with Sidney.

Zach had offered to come a bunch of times, but he never felt comfortable bringing him along, because this not only felt like Gavin’s responsibility but Zach had so much on his plate already.

He had classes and homework and also all the work he did with the team.

“Yeah, that’s a concern,” Gavin said as calmly as he could.

“Not that I imagine you aren’t doing everything you can,” Sidney said, patting him on the shoulder and sounding jovial and easy. “But what is the plan? Next year, you’re losing a bunch of players. Who in this young group is gonna step up?”

Gavin’s hand, resting on his lap, clenched into a fist until he forced it to relax, one fucking molecule at a time. He was probably frowning, but he wasn’t sure it was avoidable.

Sidney was annoying; there was only so much he could do about it.

“That’s a great question,” Gavin said. “We’re looking at this last stretch of regular season games closely.”

He knew it was a political, noncommittal answer. A fucking garbage answer, but the truth was he didn’t know .

Even if Brody played his senior year, like he’d committed to doing, before he went to med school, he was going to lose Ramsey. Mal and Ivan, for sure. There was almost no way whoever drafted Elliott would let him go back to college for another year. He was too good, too explosive.

They weren’t even done with this year yet, and already people wanted answers to questions he’d barely started asking. And it wasn’t just Sidney, though he was definitely the bluntest.

“I’m sure,” Sidney said.

“Jones was barely on anyone’s radar last year,” Gavin reminded him, probably not as gently as he could have.

He could hear the edge in his voice, and he already knew he’d be going to the gym after this to work out some of this frustration before practice.

He told himself it was just this interminable lunch, but he knew that wasn’t all of it.

It was Zach, so close to touch, and yet untouchable.

“Because Nichols was playing him wrong.”

“You’ve been talking to Zach, I see,” Gavin joked awkwardly.

Sidney shot him a look. “There’s a reason Nichols isn’t in your chair right now.”

Gavin decided this would be a terrible time to broach the idea he’d been toying with—moving Mal to the second power play team, even temporarily, hoping that his leadership and drive might give some of those guys a taste of where they needed to be. What they needed to be.

“Right,” Gavin said. He finished up the last of his steak and hoped that now that their food was gone, he could make an excuse to get out of here sooner rather than later .

He’d known who was going to freak out about this idea—Elliott, first off, and Malcolm second off and probably the whole team for good measure—but he hadn’t anticipated that Sidney would also lodge his own protest.

Fucking awesome.

“Any plans for the holidays?”

Gavin had been doing a shit job of pretending that Christmas wasn’t coming up in a few days. It was always one of the hardest times of the year—it had been Noelle’s favorite holiday—and when he’d been living at the cabin, it had been so easy to pretend it just wasn’t happening.

It wasn’t that easy now that he was back in the regular world, again.

“Uh, not really anything big,” Gavin said. “What about you?”

It really said everything about how much he didn’t want to talk about the second power play team—or next year’s team—that he plowed ahead and willingly embraced Sidney’s subject change.

“No family of your own to spend time with?”

“Uh, no,” Gavin said. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about this. “My parents are gone, and um, Noelle had a sister, but we’re not close, at least not anymore.”

Not since Noelle had died and he’d disappeared into the wilds of Michigan.

“I’m sure some of the team will be around,” Sidney said placatingly, patting him on the arm again.

“I’m planning on catching up on work,” Gavin said. “Prepping for the final push at the end of the season.” He’d drown himself in game tape, instead of stupid action movies, like he’d always done at the cabin.

Maybe if he didn’t leave his house, where it didn’t feel like Christmas, it wouldn’t feel like Christmas.

“Oh, but you need to take some time,” Sidney said earnestly.

“I’m sure I will,” Gavin said. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’d better be going. Thanks again for lunch.”

“Of course,” Sidney said, patting him on the back as they rose from the table. “Good luck this weekend.”

“Thanks,” Gavin said and escaped before Sidney could think of any more advice he wanted to impart.

His phone buzzed in his pocket on the way to the gym and when he pulled it out he wasn’t surprised to see it was a text from Zach.

How was lunch?

Gavin wanted to pretend he didn’t know why Zach had his schedule memorized as well as his own, but he knew.

Terrible. I’m going to the gym.

Zach sent him a thumbs-up and Gavin wasn’t all that surprised when he was in the locker room changing into his workout clothes to see him walk in, too.

“That bad, huh?” Zach joked lightly as he sat down opposite him, his duffel dropping to the floor in front of him.

Gavin made a face. “It’s not bad , he just doesn’t quit pushing, even when we’re winning. Even when we’re leading the conference.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s already asking questions about next year. And of course, he brought up the second power play team. ”

Zach grunted as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. Gavin wasn’t looking. He wasn’t .

He didn’t need any more jerkoff material. His mind was already overflowing with it.

“They’re gonna get better,” Zach said and it was clear how much he was trying to be optimistic.

He glanced up and God , regretted that so much.

Zach was golden and muscled all over. His body was a work of art and Gavin wanted Zach to pin him to the nearest surface and gently demand Gavin worship him the way he deserved. Make him work for it.

Gavin cleared his throat. His mouth was so dry, the same kind of Sahara as his sex life.

“Yeah,” Gavin agreed helplessly, though he didn’t really feel the second team would get better, not unless he staged some kind of intervention.

“What else did you guys talk about?” Zach asked.

“Ugh, Christmas plans,” Gavin said. “Which was somehow way better than discussing the power play.”

Zach chuckled darkly. “I’ve noticed you haven’t really talked about the break coming up.”

“It’s only a couple of days,” Gavin said. He should ask Zach what he was doing. Not because he’d invite him to his own non-celebration if he was at a loose end. Zach had friends. A lot of friends, actually.

It shouldn’t be going to Gavin’s head or his heart or dick that Zach often picked him over all those friends, these days. He should gently push him away, but he was using up all his fucking self-control to not just cross the line and anything else was impossible.

“So you’re going to work through it?” Zach asked.

Gavin leaned over to pull on his sneakers. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t want to explain why and he hoped Zach might understand without him going into it.

Nodding, Zach turned, and Gavin got a brief glimpse of broad shoulders, muscles rippling.

Life was fucking unfair, that was the truth.

“You know I’m not going anywhere either,” Zach said casually. But Gavin knew that it wasn’t. He knew all of Zach’s tones and all of his expressions by now, and he was trying too hard to act like it was no big deal.

“Not going home?”

“I’ve got a paper due, and then there’s the team,” Zach said.

Gavin wanted to tell him that the team would be fine.

That he’d be working his way through everything they needed to do.

He should tell him that. But he opened his mouth and something else came out.

“You should come over,” he said, failing just about as epically as Zach had at being casual, “watch some game tape with me. Eat pizza. Drink a few beers.”

“That sounds great.” Zach’s bright smile, lighting up the whole fucking room—and Gavin’s heart, too—told him it was a mistake.

But he didn’t take it back. Because he didn’t want to.

Gavin kept telling himself it was no big deal .

It was just a massive fucking holiday and he’d invited Zach over because he could deal with being alone for it—he’d managed alright the last few years, anyway—but Zach didn’t deserve that.

He’d tidied up the living room. Ordered pizza, which he was keeping warm in the oven, and even added cheesy breadsticks, because he knew Zach loved them and it was Christmas.

There were four games cued up on his tablet, which he’d already hooked to his TV. His laptop was charged, ready to make notes or to look up various players or stats.

Gavin wiped his damp palms on his jeans and considered ducking into the bathroom again to check his hair, which was stupid.

This was not a date. It was a work meeting .