Page 53 of Drop the Gloves

Evan was acting weird.

It’d just hurt a little, seeing Evan jog off to spend time with Dalty.

* * *

Except the next evening as he got ready to play the Scorpions, he realized he was a little angry at Evan.

Frustrated, he corrected. I’m frustrated with him.

As he jumped onto the ice and did a lap around their zone more quickly than was advisable, he thought about why.

Things were going well, weren’t they? The sex was good.

They had fun. They’d gotten better chemistry on the ice.

It was greedy of him to want more from Evan.

Greedy and unnecessary. This was better than he’d hoped his move to Pittsburgh would be.

And yet...

He did three laps before it was too dangerous and he had to stop.

Too many people, too little space, too many pucks flying.

Fuck, he was keyed up. Not a good sign. Maybe he’d do some breathing exercises before the actual game, because he felt about ready to explode.

If he didn’t get a handle on this, he was going to be a disaster.

Hope the penalty box is comfy…

“Barzy.”

Riley snapped back to attention and had to look straight up to meet Evan’s eye. “Sup?” he asked.

“What’s the point of a mouthguard if it’s never in your mouth?”

It was a great opportunity for a dirty joke, but Riley couldn’t think of one.

He rolled his eyes—the only sass he could muster—and sucked it back into his mouth. So preferred to chew it than wear it. Sue him. “What’s up, Sasquatch?” he asked around the stupid piece of plastic.

“I’m feeling like we need some whacks to get us going,” Evan said with that adorably small smile that was mostly in his amber eyes. Riley would do a lot for that smile, including continuing this fake warm-up superstition. Whose bright idea was this, anyway?

“We ever pull the statistics on this?” Riley was nearly incomprehensible with the stupid mouthguard in properly, so he pushed it off with his tongue and settled it at the corner of his mouth. “How many wins to losses?”

Now it was Evan’s turn to look fondly exasperated. Evan Abernathy, fond of him? That’d be nice.

“Not enough data. Gotta go for a full season before we know for sure.” He started to turn around, but Riley tapped him with his stick.

“You go,” Riley said. It wasn’t a good idea for him to whack Evan right now.

If he went too hard, he didn’t want to wonder if it’d been on purpose.

So he turned around and let Evan hit him a few times with his stick.

The routine did help him calm down. Maybe that was why people had their superstitions.

It was going pretty well. There was more hockey than anger going through his head, which was always a good sign. That meant that when he ran his mouth, he was in control of what came out.

And then Travis motherfucking Walker decided to be an asshole.

Maybe Walker was bored. Or trying to make a name for himself on a new team.

Hey, maybe the guy didn’t like having all his teeth and thought Riley could help him out.

There was no way of knowing what went through Walker’s mind when he first crosschecked Riley, or even when he slashed him, but it didn’t matter.

Riley knew what kind of trajectory Walker was on, knew he had a short rein on his own temper, and so he’d looked the other way when Walker was being a classless dick.

Up until he blatantly tripped Evan.

All the fuck no’s on that one.

Riley got up to full speed before he charged into Walker, sending the larger player sprawling onto the ice. There were whistles and shouting, though Riley ignored it in favor of watching to see if Walker was going to come up fighting.

He did spring to his feet, red-faced and pissed, but he saw who it was who’d hit him and wisely chose not to drop his gloves.

“What the fuck, you piece of shit!?” he screamed at Barczyk.

“You’ve been acting like pond scum all period,” Riley drawled. They hated when he didn’t yell back. The calmer he was, the more worked up other people got. They didn’t need to know he was fucking seething under the surface. “It was only a matter of time until it came back to bite you on the ass.”

“Fucking rich, coming from a guy like you!” Walker seemed a lot braver now that the refs were here, yelling at them about penalties.

“You see me going after anyone that doesn’t deserve it? You want to stay on your feet, then make sure you let my boys stay on theirs.”

They were ushered to the penalty boxes—Walker with 2 minutes for tripping, Riley with 2 for charging—and Riley felt he’d made his point.

He was willing to leave things at that (like, mostly; he was still going to fuck with Walker at face-offs, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to hit the guy or anything), but the fucker just didn’t know when to accept the L.

“You talking about Abs?” Walkers yelled from the other penalty box. “You of all people do not get to give me shit about Abs.”

Riley had a lot to say about that, but he was acutely aware of how public this conversation was with the fans banging against the glass right behind him. So instead of engaging, he held up his hand in Walker’s direction and mimed him running his mouth.

Undeterred—there was no fixing stupid, after all—he kept talking.

“Don’t pretend like you’re some knight in shining armor,” Walker snapped. “You aren’t rescuing him from me. Just because they all seem to have forgotten what you did to Abs last season, doesn’t mean I have.”

The fuck?

Riley spared him a glance. “Did last season? You’re reaching, bro. Learn to play some hockey, fuckhead.”

It looked like Walker said more, but the arena erupted in cheers. Riley looked up to see a replay of the Scorpions scoring. Ugh. Riley hated when the other team scored during his penalties. Worse, it was four-on-four, so Riley still had to sit out the rest of his two minutes.

But the thing about being stuck in the box was he had a lot of time to think. So he thought about Walker sitting a few feet away, so confident that he was the good guy and Riley the bad guy. What was it he’d said?

What you did to Abs last season.

He’d never fought Evan before, that was for damn sure. Riley couldn’t remember ever doing anything to Evan in particular...but he didn’t exactly remember every hit he’d ever dealt. Was it possible there was some truth to what Walker had said?

And if so, why hadn’t Evan ever brought it up before if it was such a big deal?