Page 45 of Drop the Gloves

Each step felt like lead. He barely recognized a bunch of his teammates in the hotel bar across the lobby, singing off-key to a song he didn’t know.

When he squinted over, he thought he saw Riley in the middle of them like a band conductor.

Evan smiled and took a few steps to the bar, but the room swayed and his stomach gurgled in warning.

Instead, he made a beeline to the elevator on unsteady feet.

The dull mechanical hum of the elevator almost put him to sleep, but the ping and lurch when he arrived on his floor woke him up long enough to stagger to his room.

After two tries to make his key work, he was inside.

He kicked off one shoe, made it as far as the bed, and collapsed face first.

He’d planned on finding Riley to hang out, but his brain was sluggish and his body wasn’t cooperating much, either. Maybe if he took a little nap, he’d sober up enough to invite Riley over.

Mmm, Riley…

He woke with a jolt, unsure of where he was or the time.

He had to piss, though, so he wandered to the bathroom, ended up in a closet instead, and had to turn around to try again.

He drank a glass of faintly metallic tap water, then another, and the last responsible decision he made before passing out was setting an alarm on his phone.

There were some notifications begging for his attention, but his blurred vision couldn’t make them out. He ignored them all, wiggled halfway under the covers, and decided that whatever it was, it could wait until morning.

* * *

Evan wasn’t much of a drinker. He didn’t remember how much he’d had with Amy at the restaurant bar after dinner, but it was well past his comfort level.

It’d been too much fun, relaxing and forgetting all his worries while playing stupid games like Rock Paper Scissors and a very drunken version of I Spy.

A lot of it came back to him when he woke up with a headache. Some of it went away when he figured out how to turn off his alarm, but not enough. It was rough, making himself presentable enough to wander down for breakfast, and his stomach rebelled at the thought of eating.

“You look like ass, bro,” Dalton said as he sat down next to him with a plate piled with three waffles covered in eggs and syrup. Evan closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth so his stomach could settle. “Late night with your girl?”

“Amy’s just a friend,” he grumbled. He’d been over this with Dalton last season, but he didn’t have the energy to put up much of a fight.

“I know. I’m just giving you shit. Looks like you overdid it, though.”

“I did.” Evan listened to the sound of Dalton chewing until he could hazard a bite of his plain toast. “Remind me to never drink again.”

“Abs, if we win the Cup, I’ll be pouring you that first beer myself. You want a mimosa or something? Hair of the Dog or whatever?”

“Ugh.” His stomach threatened to violently expel his toast. “Absolutely not.”

Dalton shrugged. He’d almost finished his breakfast platter. “Suit yourself.”

Evan had managed a whole quarter of toast when Riley showed up wearing sunglasses and a wrinkled shirt, clean-shaven for the first time in months. He sat down with nothing but a huge mug of coffee and proceeded to dump five packets of sugar into it without saying a word to Dalton or Evan.

“You gonna drink your breakfast?” Dalton asked. “They’ve got actual food.”

Riley gave him the finger and added more sugar.

Evan frowned. Everyone was prone to being surly in the morning, especially hockey players who’d spent the night drinking, but Riley wasn’t usually grumpy after.

He might be tired and yawn more than usual, but there wasn’t much that could keep him quiet.

Riley sitting there, dark shades obscuring his eyes, and silently giving attitude was weird.

“You all right?” Evan asked, and Dalton laughed.

“What?” Riley said, glaring at Dalton.

“Abs looks like he had to crawl out of bed this morning, and he’s asking you if you’re all right.

” Dalton ran a finger through the syrup on his plate and sucked it off.

“Funny, because you probably outdrank Abs by like ten beers, and he’s the one who looks green.

” He stood up and took his plate. “You just look like a douche,” Dalton said and walked off.

“Ten beers?” When Riley didn’t argue, Evan asked, “Why’d you drink so much?”

He shrugged. “Bored, I guess. You?”

“I didn’t have ten beers—” Riley tilted his head enough to glare at Evan over his sunglasses, this tiny peek at hazel enough to stop him short. “I was being dumb, I guess.” He gulped. “Maybe next time we can be smart and entertain each other.”

Riley’s lips quirked in an almost smile, but then he rubbed his eyes under the sunglasses and any trace of amusement was gone.

“We’ll see.” He reached over and took a slice of toast from Evan’s plate and took a huge bite of it.

With his mouth full, he asked, “You don’t have any family or friends waiting to steal you in Quebec, do you? ”

Evan watched Riley’s mouth longer than he should’ve. He shook his head and said, “Je ne francais.”

Riley snorted, sending crumbs flying. This time his smile didn’t disappear. “Even I know that was crap. I thought you were Canadian.”

“I am,” Evan said. “Not French-Canadian. That’s completely different.”

“Uh huh. Sounds like an excuse to me.” Riley wiped the back of his mouth, sipped his coffee, and asked, “You have fun with your friend?”

“Yeah. She’s one of the few people who don’t make me talk about hockey. Get to be Evan and not Abs for a bit.”

Riley was quiet. Evan wished he would take off the stupid sunglasses. He didn’t like that his misery was obvious, but he couldn’t tell what was going through Riley’s head. Not that he could do that anyway, but he liked having a fighting chance.

Abruptly, Riley pushed away from the table. “For the record,” he said, “you can be Evan any time you want with me.”

And then he walked away, leaving his coffee and Evan behind like he didn’t care about either.