Page 5

“Stay. Couch is comfortable,” Gavin said, before he could think better of it. For a split second, he almost considered saying, so is my bed . But that was insane . And Gavin had been working very diligently for the last four years to not be insane .

Zach would be leaving in the morning. He wasn’t going to maroon himself out here, not like Gavin. He had no reason to do it. But it was already too soon, and the morning felt safer, like he’d have adjusted to this new reality by then.

“Sure,” Zach said, like it was easy. Like it was nothing to stay on Gavin’s couch.

Like that wasn’t its own kind of insanity.

Maybe Jon would tell him he was losing it, finally. Or maybe Jon would tell him this was the sanest he’d been in awhile.

In four fucking years.

They watched one of Gavin’s stupid explosion movies. Then another. Gavin’s shoulder brushing up against Zach’s big one.

God, he had gotten big. And tall. Taller even than Gavin.

Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the darkness falling around them.

But it felt right to press his thigh against Zach’s and keep it there. To absorb all that warmth that he’d been living without forever.

When the credits of the movie rolled, Zach didn’t move and Gavin sure as fuck didn’t move. He was comfortable, lulled into a sense of total complacency by the beer and the food and the actual physical touch.

“Hey,” Zach said and turned his head. God, was he really that close to Gavin? He should really move back. Put another few inches between them.

But it was like the last four years hadn’t happened. None of the pain. None of the distance and the special agony that had brought Gavin, and he didn’t have the motivation to do it.

“Hmmm? ”

“I want you to see something,” Zach said.

“What is it?” Gavin felt so comfortable, so relaxed, he might just float away on a cloud of serotonin.

For the first time in what felt like hours, Zach tensed, and then it was like he forced himself to relax. “You haven’t been following hockey at all, have you?”

“No,” Gavin said. “I mean . . .I’ll occasionally, like . . .I don’t know. Fall down a rabbit hole. I know better, but it happens. And then after I . . .”

“What if I was here after?” Zach asked quietly. Somehow his hand—and God, his hands had gotten big, too, as big as the rest of him—was on Gavin’s knee, squeezing lightly.

It would not suck as much, that was for sure.

He’d have someone to pull him back out. And God , Gavin wanted it.

“I just want to show you something,” Zach said. Then suddenly he was gone, his warmth missing, and Gavin nearly complained about it.

But that would be weird. Even weirder than this was, anyway.

Thirty seconds later, Zach was back, and he was carrying a backpack. He pulled a laptop out of the bag and set it on the coffee table. “I’m not trying to convince you, I just . . .I just want you to see. Why I came here.”

“You came here to see if I actually put shells in my rifle,” Gavin said drowsily.

Zach chuckled, but when Gavin focused on the screen he could see that Zach was queuing up some game film .

Gavin would have to have buried himself out here for a lot longer than four years to not recognize the Evergreens’ green and white uniforms.

“This is from last year,” Zach said, gesturing at the screen. “Second to the last game of the year.”

There was a part of Gavin that really wanted to look away. That wanted to shut the laptop and tell Zach he didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to be convinced. But he couldn’t, because Zach cared enough about this to come out here.

There was a line change on the screen, and Gavin straightened, because the energy on the ice suddenly shifted. The team, while not sluggish before, began driving harder, faster towards the net, finding a new gear.

Pushing them was a smaller guy, the right winger, but the center and the left winger were right there with him. Gavin remembered, abruptly, why he didn’t let himself do this, because he was leaning forward, eyes glued to the screen, watching the play unfold.

Watching the three of them pass the puck like they were born to do it, and the right wing take a brilliant fucking shot, top shelf, the goalie not having a chance in hell of stopping it.

Gavin didn’t say anything, because he knew Zach was going to tell him what he wanted to know.

“That’s Elliott Jones,” Zach said. “He was eighteen there. Nineteen now. He spent the whole season on the second line, but the Evergreens were on a five-game losing streak, getting outscored and outplayed, so the coach changed the lines up.”

“He’s . . .” Well, Gavin didn’t even need to say it. Zach could see it. You could probably see it from the freaking moon. The kid was probably going to be a big star. Drafted-in-the-first-round big star.

“Here’s the thing,” Zach said. “He wasn’t that good on the second line.”

“What?”

“I mean, he wasn’t bad . He couldn’t ever be bad, probably. But he went from decent to extraordinary with those two.”

Gavin didn’t want to ask. He asked anyway. “Why?”

“See the left wing?”

Gavin nodded.

“That’s Malcolm McCoy. He’ll be a senior.

Drafted by the Leafs, but wanted to stay in school.

He’s solid, reliable, but when Jones gets out there?

He’s better, too. He turns from a guy barely hanging onto being drafted into Jack freaking Hughes.

Jones and McCoy only played on the same line for the last two games.

But in those two games? They had five goals and six assists. ”

“So you have two guys who make each other better. A lot better.” Gavin was turning this over in his head, even though he didn’t want to. He wanted this to be someone else’s problem.

“Funny though, when I met Mal for coffee a month ago, after they’d hired me, you know what the first thing he said was?” Zach chuckled dryly. “ Don’t you dare put me on the same fucking line as Jones. ”

“Huh. They don’t like each other?”

Zach sighed. “That’s the theory. I don’t know how to deal with this.

And we get any kind of coach in there who doesn’t get it, they’re gonna fuck this up.

And the two of them—the three of them out there, really, ’cause Ivan’s a big part of it, too, keeps them focused and centered, honestly—could be something special out there. ”

Gavin knew it. He’d seen it, too, immediately.

“I saw it,” Zach continued, “and I knew you could handle it.”

Gavin swallowed hard. He didn’t want to be Zach’s savior. But there was no question this was an intriguing problem.

“What about the rest of the team?”

“Solid defense. Two guys who will definitely end up in the pros. Brody’s really a pure defenseman, one of the best I’ve seen. Give him five years, and he’s Jaccob Slavin.”

“And the other guy?”

“Ramsey Andresen. He’s like a freaking chess master out there. When the five of them are on the ice, it’s pure fucking magic.”

“Goalie?” Gavin told himself to stop asking. He didn’t want to know how good this team could be. How good they could be if they had a coach who understood, who knew how to bring disparate parts together into one well-oiled machine.

“And that’s where things get really interesting.”

Gavin’s jaw dropped. “They weren’t interesting before?”

“I know,” Zach said, laughing. “We just got a new transfer. Finn Reynolds.”

Even buried in the wilds of Michigan for four years, Gavin knew that name. “He’s not. No .”

“Yeah, Finn’s Morgan Reynolds’ son.”

“Shit.”

“What I’m trying to tell you is that we need a coach who’s gonna be willing to be .

. .well, unorthodox? Who’s willing to work with these kids and make them better.

Help them live up to their potential.” Zach didn’t need to add, like you helped me live up to my potential , but Gavin knew they were both thinking it.

Gavin had never wanted to be a different person, with different baggage, more than he did in this moment.

He could see it now. Putting that logo back on his chest. Coaching these guys to the one thing he’d never won before—a national championship.

Taking one deep breath and another, Gavin scrubbed a hand across his face. “Why didn’t you lead with this?”

Zach shut the laptop and turned to him, and suddenly he was just as close as he’d been before. Maybe even closer. His thigh pressed hot and inevitable against Gavin’s.

Gavin could pick out the individual cerulean and green flecks in his blue eyes. He seemed flushed too, skin warm and golden, lighting him up inside.

It was that he was so familiar and so strange, too—creating a weird mix churning inside him. Making him unsettled. Making him temporarily lose his mind.

“I . . .I didn’t think I’d even make it to the porch,” Zach confessed softly. “And then I did and you . . .and I . . .”

Gavin thought he understood. This whole evening had taken him by surprise. Maybe Zach had known some of it, because he’d been the one to come here, but clearly he hadn’t expected to end up here.

“Yeah,” Gavin said, barely getting the word out, his throat suddenly thick .

The air was sluggish, hot even, and hotter between them. Zach leaned in another half an inch and if he did it again, well . . .Gavin wasn’t going to think about that.

He couldn’t .

No matter how good it felt, to be this close to someone else again, to someone he knew and liked— though Gavin could at least acknowledge the affection hadn’t felt like this before, tinged with heat—he should move away. He should move away, because it felt so goddamn good.

Because it hadn’t ever felt like this before. Zach had been a player of his, and he’d loved him in that way, exclusively. Gangly, self-effacing, well-meaning Zach, who looked out for everyone and just wanted someone to do the same for him.

Back then, he’d even considered himself a pseudo-father figure.

Well, the fucking joke was on him now, because four years later, the rumblings in the base of his stomach felt anything but fatherly.

Shit.

That was the thought that propelled him backward. Away from temptation.

Did Gavin see disappointment flash across Zach’s face? If he did, he pretended he didn’t.

Pretended his heart wasn’t beating double-time.

“Well, uh, it’s late,” Gavin said awkwardly.

Zach nodded. Like he didn’t trust his voice.

Well, Gavin didn’t trust his whole fucking body now, because it hadn’t been Zach leaning in, gobbling up the space between them. Gavin had been right there, not even caring that it was insane to be doing this.

That it wasn’t a betrayal of everything he . . .that he . . . Gavin shut that thought off with a relentless thud.

Never to be examined again.

“Let me get you some blankets,” Gavin said, lifting himself off the couch.

“Not sure I’m gonna need them. It’s . . .uh . . .a warm night.”

Gavin flushed, glad he’d already turned away so Zach wouldn’t see. He was hot too, sweaty palms, moisture trickling down his back, just from sitting too close on a couch.

“It can get cold at night.” He crossed over to the chest, pulled out two blankets that he often used deep in the winter when he cuddled up alone on the couch and didn’t feel like dragging himself all the way to the bedroom.

He set them on the far end of the couch—as far away from Zach as he could manage.

“There’s a bathroom, through. Spare toothbrush, in the drawer,” Gavin said, gesturing towards the bathroom door. He could hear the fear, the panic in his voice. “If you need anything . . .” Don’t need anything. Don’t come to my bed. Please God, no.

But Zach only nodded slowly. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he said.

There was no other word for it. He couldn’t even pretend it wasn’t something it absolutely fucking was. Gavin escaped , closing the bedroom door behind him. Leaning against it, breathing heavily.

What the fuck had just happened? What had he nearly done?

And now Zach would be there in the morning, sleepy and warm, on Gavin’s couch.

Gavin nearly groaned .

It had to be better in the morning. With the bright sunlight exposing everything, making it impossible for him to feel that way again.

He’d get up early. Set an alarm. Make breakfast. Keep the counter between them. Feed Zach and then send him on his merry way with a firm no.