Page 81 of Heartbreak Hockey

“What are you watching?” I freeze when I see what it is. It’s the game. Not my game, Rhett’s game: New York vs. Buffalo.

“Ah, this okay?” Damien asks.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?” I sink into the plush neutral-toned couch, star-gazing Rhett. He’s beautiful on the ice. Like a boulder with a hockey stick and yet he somehow manages the grace of a swan when he skates.

He scores his third goal of the game—the ol’ hat trick—and the crowd goes ballistic. He blows a kiss to the cameras. I know it’s for me.

The TV turns off.

“Hey!” Damien says.

Nicholas stands with the remote in his hand. “He’s getting that fucking look again. No. We shouldn’t be watching him anyway.”

“I’m not a baby, Niko.”

“Dad is going to have a fit,” he counters. Instinctively, I know he means the captain.

“Dads are making a baby in the entryway,” I say.

“Who’s making a baby?” Dad says, ducking before entering the living room. They didn’t build this house. Some of the entryways are too low for Dad’s tall form. The captain has dared to suggest that they knock out some walls and build taller doorways for him, but Dad won’t have it. It’s a heritage home and he wants to preserve as much of its original architecture as he safely can. Some of it can’t be changed according to city bylaws anyway.

The captain follows behind him.

“You two.”

“Sorry, honey. We’ve had an empty nest for the past few months.”

Oh God and they’ve really been making use of it if the look they exchange is anything to go by. “Anyway, I’m home so can we keep it PG?”

“Good Lord, Jack. Someday you’ll have someone to be gross in front of your children with and you’ll see it was no big deal.”

Joke’s on him. I’ll never have that. I’m wrestling with going on a date with my hockey coach and getting some kind of look on my face that makes my brother feel the need to protect me when my ex blows me a kiss. Love’s too messy.

“We could talk about the guy I saw you kissing by the truck,” the captain says, his gravel tone scraping over his words.

My stomach plunges. Shit. No one was supposed to know about Mercy. Yet. “I kiss a lot of dudes, Dad. You’re gonna have to be specific.”

Dad smirks. He’s got me and he’s not letting it go. “Pretty sure it was your hockey coach. You got something to tell us?”

God. Oh, God. My skin prickles and heats at the same time. I cover my face with one of the large couch pillows. “No. Let’s move on from this topic, please.”

“Okay, but you’ve got four interested parties here for you when the time is right,” he clarifies as if I needed it.

“Yep. Got it.”

He chuckles and I pull the pillow away from my face in time to see Dad lean against him. Okay, I’ll admit that I’m a lucky bastard to have parents who are crazy about each other.

The rest of the evening is spent playing catch-up and feuding over a game of Monopoly.

* * *

The captain gives me until after breakfast the next morning and then he asks me to go for a walk with him around the neighborhood. It’s November so there’s bite to the air, especially down by the water. It’s not raining yet, but from the look of those ominous black clouds in the sky that could change at any second. We stop and sip the coffee Dad packed for us in travel mugs as a horde of Canada geese crosses the walkway in front of us, honking and flapping their feathers.

The captain isn’t smiling as wide. He’s tense. I think for once, he wants to have this conversation about as much as I do. It’s my turn to initiate.

“I know why you wanted to lug me out into the cold,” I say.

He sighs. “I thought we should follow up—”