Page 36

It was the night before Thanksgiving, the crowd was drunk and fired up, and the Boston Harriers were on a hot streak.

They’d gone on a short road trip, then returned home to another win. So maybe it was only a three-game winning streak but it felt good .

Coach Hoyt hadn’t had a whole lot to say about Jesse and Connor being together. He’d mostly warned Connor if he so much as thought about taking a stupid penalty for someone interfering with Jesse, he was going to get bag skated until he puked.

Connor had looked alarmed, and so far, had been on his best behavior. Jesse wasn’t sure how long that would last but he supposed they’d have to wait and see.

The team seemed completely oblivious that anything was going on between them.

At this point, it was honestly funny.

Jesse could feel the energy of the home crowd singing in his veins when he skated to the bench during a TV time-out in the third period. His skin buzzed with the electricity from the game, from the crowd, from his playing.

No win was inevitable, but Jesse could feel this one coming in his bones.

Some nights were like that, luck on their side, refs calls going their way. The puck had seemed magnetized to Connor’s stick, sliding into Buffalo’s net like it was finding its way home.

Their D-corps hadn’t made stupid mistakes, hadn’t turned over any easy pucks, hadn’t allowed many odd-man rushes.

The few shots Jesse hadn’t easily blocked had gone wide, or pinged off his posts. The one he’d let in earlier in the game had been a fluke and Boston had responded with two goals after.

Currently, they were up 4-1 against Buffalo.

There was still time for Buffalo to fight back, but they were playing sluggishly, on their heels, their defense collapsing.

As the ice crew scraped up some of the loose snow with their shovels and someone fixed a divot in the ice near Jesse’s net, the team looked loose and relaxed, milling around on the bench or in front of it, laughing.

Music thumped through the speakers, a poppy club song that had the crowd singing along and clapping.

Jesse bopped along to it, wiggling a little because it felt good to move. He spotted a couple of people sitting behind the bench nudge each other, pointing at him, so he held his stick out horizontally in front of him while he did hip circles, playing it up.

On the bench, Connor rolled his eyes, looking at Jesse fondly, so he hammed it up even more, making his movements more and more exaggerated.

They were winning and he was feeling good, so why the fuck not?

Jesse had done this all the time as a kid and all through Juniors. He’d dialed it back after he signed with Toronto, not wanting his coaches to think he wasn’t taking the game seriously. Gilly, in particular, had hated it.

But fuck it.

He’d gotten away with a bit of dancing here before, so why not go all in and see what happened?

Jesse nodded at Arkady, who was suited up as backup, then tossed him his blocker. Kady caught it and did a little shimmy on the bench like he was imitating Jesse.

Jesse kicked his feet out a little, throwing in some old-school dance moves as he moved a little farther away from the bench. He waved his arms, doing a little twirl, then shimmied forward and back a few times.

At one point, he backed his ass up in front of Tanner, twerking the best he could with all his gear on while Tanner got into it too.

The noise from the crowd rose, people cheering and clapping when they caught on to what Jesse was doing. Buoyed by the attention, he kept going, hamming it up more and more as he threw in a few current moves he’d seen on social media lately.

Coach Hoyt looked up from his conference with the other coaches, shook his head, then returned to his conversation.

Behind his mask, Jesse grinned. See . Everyone loved him.

The ice was nearly clear, the song coming to a close, so Jesse dropped into the splits, arms in the air for his grand finale. The crowd roared and Jesse hyped them up further, with a raise-the-roof gesture, urging them on until the noise reached a fever-pitch.

One of the officials was starting to shoot Jesse dirty looks though so he got to his feet, threw out a few kisses to the crowd, then skated toward the bench. He snagged his blocker from Kady, who thumped him on the helmet, grinning.

“We do dance-off some time,” he shouted.

Jesse cheered because fuck yes. That sounded like fun.

Feeling loose and happy, he skated back to his net, roughing up the ice in his crease, then clearing it away with his blocker. He tested it with a few side-to-side shuffles on his pads as they set up the faceoff, satisfied it was perfect.

Before the puck even dropped, Jesse was back to being all business.

But as the minutes in the period ticked down, Buffalo wasn’t looking any better. They’d only gotten a few shots on goal and Jesse wasn’t surprised when their coach pulled their goalie with three minutes left in the game.

Buffalo were desperate to have an extra skater on the ice, finally getting the spark of life they’d been missing all game.

They were clogging up Boston’s defensive zone, preventing anyone from Boston getting possession. From the blue line, Crawford cleared the puck, zinging it around the boards and behind Jesse’s net.

There was a scramble in the corner, the puck shooting out toward the goal.

A quick sweep of the players on the ice showed Jesse his teammates were all occupied or too far away to do anything, so he carefully skated a few feet out, capturing the puck and settling it, fully intending to shoot it to Pennington who might be able to get a breakaway.

But Jesse had a clear view of the empty net and inspiration struck.

For a split second he debated if he should do it or not before he dropped to one knee and snapped the puck toward the other end of the ice.

He’d practiced his two-hundred-foot shot plenty of times and the lower angle had given him some power and lift. The puck sailed across the ice over the guys’ heads, crossing Buffalo’s blue line before landing and sliding toward their net. Jesse held his breath, not sure if the puck had enough steam to go in, or if his aim had been good enough, but it glided smoothly toward the net, crossing the goal line and bouncing off the twine in back then remaining inside the goal.

A Buffalo player who had chased the puck up the ice, too slow to stop it, batted it out of the net in frustration while the sound of the goal horn was still ringing through the air.

The crowd rose to their feet, screaming their appreciation and pounding on the glass. Elated, Jesse leaped in the air and flung his arms up, tossing his blocker away as he raced toward the guys who were coming straight for him to celebrate.

They collided on open ice and Crawford swept him up in a hug, shouting and thumping him on the shoulder. “You crazy bastard. I can’t fucking believe you did that, Webby!”

The other guys piled on too, screaming his name and various obscenities.

Connor, who had come over the boards, slammed into him, rasping, ‘Fuck I love you, you little chaos demon,” with his mouth pressed right up against the cage of Jesse’s mask.

Jesse couldn’t stop grinning as he skated to the bench to get his fist bumps.

“I catch you doing that in a game we’re losing, and your ass is toast,” Coach Hoyt shouted when Jesse flew by. He didn’t look mad though, his eyes twinkling a little as Jesse held out his fist for him to tap.

Kady looked out of his mind, pumping his fist in the air and tugging Jesse in, nearly dragging him over the boards as he yelled, “You crazy!”

There were only a handful of seconds left in the game and though they all went through the motions as the clock ticked down, the game ended with Jesse’s first NHL goal, netting them a 5-1 win.

Fuck yes .

It took forever for Connor to get through media that night.

Of course reporters wanted to interview Jesse. Between his dancing and his goal, they were frenzied to get some sound bites from him. But they wanted them from Connor too, asking how he felt about their goaltender taking risks like that.

“I trust him,” Connor said. His expression was probably too soft and fond for TV but he couldn’t stop smiling. Not when he thought about Jesse. “We were up three goals with less than three minutes left. He saw he had the shot and took it. It was a calculated risk and it paid off.”

“What did you think when you saw him drop to one knee and shoot?”

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Connor admitted with a laugh. “It was wild. I’ve watched replays of goalie goals of course, but I’ve never seen one live. It was incredible though. Such a great moment to be a part of.”

“And what about his dancing?”

“You know what?” Connor said with a shrug. “That’s our Webby. He’s fun and energetic and he really knows how to get the crowd and the team fired up. He knows when to be serious, when to focus, but I think it’s great he knows how to let loose too. I think I’ve learned a lot from him so far this season, actually.”

Several hours later, when they were at O’Neill’s celebrating, Liam shook his head as he pulled Connor’s pint. “Caught the game on the TV earlier. That’s quite the goalie you have there.”

Connor grinned, happy and relaxed from the win. “Don’t I know it?” He held up his pint glass in a toast and Liam nodded his head to acknowledge it.

Connor walked over to the table, unsurprised to see Jesse dancing to the music on the jukebox. Connor hummed along to it as he leaned against the wall, watching Jesse celebrate with the rest of their team.

This kinda felt like the perfect time to announce their relationship.

The guys didn’t seem to be catching on, no matter how long Connor let himself look at Jesse in the locker room.

It had been almost unbearable to watch Jesse strip down tonight, pink and sweaty from the game, smiling nonstop because of his goal. Connor had been tempted to follow him into the showers, press him up against the tiles, and kiss him senseless.

“To Jesse!” someone shouted and the guys raised their shot glasses.

Jesse had one in his hand and he hoisted it too, knocking it back, then slamming it down on the table. He let out a happy whoop and without consciously thinking about it, Connor set his pint glass down as well and walked over to join him.

“Dance with me?” Connor asked, refusing to second-guess this.

Jesse’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re amazing,” he whispered. “And later, I’m totally gonna blow you in the bathroom here in a little bit.”

Connor took a happy, laughing Jesse into his arms and swayed with him, pressing their lips together in a kiss. He was vaguely aware of the bar going quiet around them except for the music.

When Connor finally pulled away—mostly because he needed oxygen—he glanced around to see the team frozen, drinks halfway to mouths.

“Umm, are we finally talking about this now?” Tanner asked after a moment.

Connor glanced over at Jesse, who looked as baffled as he was.

Crawford rose to his feet with a grunt, making a ‘c’mon’ gesture with his hand. “Okay, everybody pay up now!” he called out.

With groans and grumbles, guys began pulling their wallets out and slapping money into his hand. Crawford counted it, before handing it over to Graham Pennington, who grinned and tucked the wad of cash into his own wallet.

“What?” Connor sputtered.

Graham didn’t answer, just walked off toward the bar, whistling.

“The fuck ?” Connor said.

He still had his arm around Jesse, who shot him a bewildered look.

“Dude,” Crawford said. “You didn’t really think you were hiding anything, did you?”

“Uhh. Kind of?” Connor admitted.

“We’ve known since like, the beginning of the season,” Tanner said with relish. “Took you guys long enough.”

Jesse made a sputtering noise. “But we—but what was the bet?”

“When you’d admit you were dating, obviously,” Crawford said like they were idiots. And okay, maybe they kinda were.

“Graham guessed right?” Connor asked.

“Yeah. It’s weird, he said it would take a goalie goal to get you idiots to fess up.”

“No way!” Jesse protested.

Crawford shrugged. “I dunno either. How he guessed is beyond me, but that’s what he said.”

Connor spent the rest of the evening in a daze as guys congratulated them, bought them drinks, and chirped them mercilessly for either not being subtle at all, or for picking the wrong time to come out.

The holidays had apparently been big. Tanner had put his money on Halloween, Anker Henriksen had picked Christmas, and Kady and Mouse had both gone for New Years.

But it wasn’t until Jesse slid into a booth next to Connor a while later that they had a moment to talk privately about it.

“What is even going on?” Connor asked quietly.

Jesse laughed. “I think you came out to the team, dude. And we announced our relationship.”

“Right, I knew that part,” Connor said. “But, uh, everyone’s okay with it?”

“Seems to be.” Jesse glanced around, smiling happily.

Connor had been the most concerned about Crawford and Tucker, but they’d both offered up their congratulations so either they truly didn’t care or were faking it for the sake of the team.

Honestly, Connor wasn’t sure if he cared either way.

The team seemed happy and relaxed together, rookies mingling with vets, and really, that—and the fact they weren’t having a total wash of a season—was all that mattered.

Like Connor’s conversation with Viv, it wasn’t perfect, but it was a place to build from.

Half an hour later, Jesse was well on his way to drunk when he found some of the guys clustered around Arkady, passing his phone around.

“What are you guys doing?” Jesse asked.

Tanner gave him a happy—if not very focused—smile. “We’re helping Kady set up a dating profile.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jesse said. “I don’t trust any of you.”

He reached for the phone just as Arkady grabbed it from Tanner’s hand. For a moment, they stared each other down, eyes narrowed. In the background, someone whistled a tune that sounded like an old west gunslinger showdown.

“I’m helping!” Jesse protested. “I don’t trust these idiots.”

Kady gave him a confused look. “But you sleep with men? Is this help?”

“I sleep with everyone , dude. Well, I used to. Now I just sleep with Connor.”

“Ummm. I want girlfriend?” Kady said. “Boys are most disgusting.”

He wasn’t wrong. But Jesse kinda liked them anyway. He shrugged. “Cool. I can make that happen.”

Kady passed the phone over with a wary look. “Okay, but you do right. No prank.”

“No prank,” Jesse assured him.

A moment later, Connor slid into the booth beside him. “What are you doing?”

“Finding Kady a girlfriend on a dating app,” Jesse explained. He deleted the phrase “big goalie pads, even bigger dick” that someone had added earlier.

Really ?

That might work on dudes on a hookup app or maybe women looking for a night of fun but it wasn’t gonna cut if he wanted an actual girlfriend. Ooh, “big goalie pads, even bigger heart” would work though.

“Let me see,” Connor said, peering at the screen.

Kady narrowed his eyes, reaching across the table to hold Connor back. “But you marry college girlfriend and divorce and now with Jesse? Is this help?”

Connor gave him a long look before he nodded, holding up his hands. “Yeah, no. Good point. Don't be me.”

He sat back and Jesse happily hummed to himself as he worked his magic.

Honestly though, what were they even talking about? Connor was lucky to be with him.