Page 7

Chapter 7

“I can’t believe I got a babysitter for this,” Bryan said, the teasing glint in his eyes making it clear that he was totally giving Jacob shit.

“It’s good for you to have a night off.” From the start, Jacob had pretended that this was for Bryan— a fun evening out, he’d referred to it when texting his brother earlier in the day. But the truth was, they were here for Jacob and they both knew it.

“But at a hockey game? A college hockey game? In Salem?”

“The Evergreens are good this year,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, that’s why we’re here. Because the Evergreens are good this year,” Bryan deadpanned. He glanced over at Finn, standing in the goal. “So, how’s he doing?”

Finn already had his helmet on, his literal game face on, and Jacob couldn’t see his face, his eyes. Root out how he was feeling. He’d texted him earlier today, and Finn had just sent a thumbs-up.

“We’ve been working on fundamentals, which he’s pretty good at already,” Jacob said. “Honestly, his only really bad habit is doubting himself.”

“Ah,” Bryan said knowingly.

Jacob had attended the one practice this week, and all things considered, it had gone well. Afterwards, he’d considered offering for Finn to come back to the house later in the week, but he’d chickened out at the last moment, deleting the text invite letter by letter, like it had never existed at all. Next week he’d already booked ice for the two of them, mid-morning, when Finn wasn’t in class.

That felt reasonably safer than his own basement gym, where nobody might ever see what happened there but the two of them.

Still he’d spent days pretending like he wasn’t watching his phone, gazing at the empty screen like a lovesick teenager with his first fucking crush. He’d told himself the whole time he had this handled, but considering he’d driven an hour south to see Finn play in an away game and dragged his brother along, Jacob was beginning to think he was full of shit.

This morning, Bryan had seemed like a good safety net. Surely his older brother would call him out, delivering a much-needed lecture about why this whole thing was a terrible fucking idea.

But with every knowing look Bryan shot in his direction, it seemed more likely that Bryan would invoke some medical professional bullshit and tell him he needed to get laid.

“Does he know you showed up tonight?” Bryan asked after the puck dropped.

Jacob tore his gaze away from the action on the ice as the line changed.

“No, I didn’t tell him.” He wasn’t going to tell Bryan how long he stared at his phone this afternoon, thinking about how he’d phrase it, and what Finn might say back. I want to see you, even if it’s only on the ice had seemed like a monumentally bad choice, but he’d been tempted to send it anyway.

He’d punished himself for it by blocking two hundred shots and then sweating out all his bad impulses in the sauna after.

Bryan raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell him.”

“I didn’t want to . . .it was easier . . .” Jacob cleared his throat. “Better this way.”

“Easier, huh? So you didn’t chicken out?”

“No. No .” Jacob’s attention snapped back to the ice as the Phantoms charged towards the goal Finn guarded.

He could read Finn’s mind in every twitch of his body. Every blink Jacob couldn’t see but could only sense.

Jacob tensed as Finn blocked one shot, then another, then finally smothered the puck by falling on it.

“That was good, yeah?” Bryan asked, patting Jacob’s arm.

“You know shit about hockey, but yeah. Pretty good. He controlled the execution and then the recovery, so he could block the rebound shots.”

“And here I was thinking it was just about you throwing your big hulking body around,” Bryan teased, even though thanks to Jacob, he’d been around hockey for twenty-plus years now.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s fun to get a rise out of you. About hockey or about . . .” Bryan trailed off, gaze skimming across the ice and resting on Finn.

“Don’t start.”

“I’ve never seen you like this, all tense and shaky over a hockey game. Which means it’s not just a hockey game—”

“Maybe I just want him to play well so I don’t have to keep coaching him,” Jacob snapped.

He took a breath and opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could, he realized Bryan was actually laughing.

“You don’t actually believe that,” Bryan said between chuckles. “No—you don’t. Which is why you brought me. As what?”

“Sanity. Logic. A voice of reason.” Jacob didn’t want to admit it, but maybe if Bryan knew, he might err on the side of those things, instead of telling him he needed to get laid.

“Ah.”

On the ice, one of Finn’s teammates—Jacob was pretty sure it was one of the first line forwards, the smaller, quicker one; sue him, he may have studied the lineup on the Portland U website—darted in and drilled an absolute beaut of a shot right past the opposing goalie’s skate.

Jacob shot to his feet, yelling his approval at the gorgeous fucking goal the Evergreens had just scored.

Finn added his own approval, tapping his stick on the ice.

“You were right, they are good,” Bryan said, when the crowd calmed down. Even though they were at Salem University’s rink, the Evergreens clearly traveled well, because it felt like half the fans were wearing their signature forest green.

“Told you the babysitter would be worth it,” Jacob said smugly.

But the Phantoms’ winger won the face-off and immediately made a hard push into the Evergreens’ defensive zone, swarming across the ice.

Jacob froze, watching intently as Finn moved, shifting into his stance just a second too late. Ramsey surged over, flicking a shot away, but the Phantoms’ center grabbed the puck.

Finn barely pushed it away, Brody catching it and passing it back over to one of their forwards.

“Shit,” Jacob muttered under his breath, hoping that Finn might have at least a moment of reprieve to reset, physically and emotionally, before he had to defend the goal again.

He leaned forward, fingers digging into his knee, breath in his throat as Finn popped up and Jacob thought, he’s not going to make it, he can’t make it . . . but before he could think the rest, the horn sounded. The period was over.

“He’s good, right?” Bryan asked, then glanced over. “Better question: are you okay?”

Jacob didn’t know. He’d been worrying about going to the game because of his own shit, but just sitting here, only waiting and watching, was the most excruciating experience he could imagine.

Bryan reached over and put a hand on his. Which was still shaking. “Come on. Go talk to him. You can do that right?”

Jacob didn’t know that either. He wanted to, he knew that much.

Would Gavin turn him away if he went down to the tunnel, asked to be let into the locker room? He could probably make it that far, on his face alone, though he hated to trade on it like that.

But would he do it to talk to Finn, to reassure him? To reassure himself ?

Jacob shot to his feet.

“Good,” Bryan said, nodding with approval.

“And here I brought you to talk me out of stupid ideas,” Jacob muttered under his breath as he got to the aisle and headed down the stairs, dodging people as he jogged, trying to meet Finn at the barrier before he went into the tunnel and the locker room for the intermission.

He reached the wall just as Finn trudged by.

“Hey,” he said, and Finn glanced up. He’d pushed his helmet back, curls slicked with sweat, eyes wide and surprised as he realized who was standing in front of him.

“You’re here.” Finn stopped.

“Yeah,” Jacob said.

You fucking came all the way down here to talk to him. So talk to him.

“Uh,” he continued, forcing the words out. Far too aware of the people around them, listening in.

Finn’s lips quirked up. He motioned to the security by the door. “Come on,” he said to Jacob.

The security guard looked dubious.

“Don’t you know who this is?” Finn asked, conversationally. “This is Jacob Braun. He won the Cup and the Vezina twice.”

The guy gave a nod and opened the door.

Jacob slipped through the door, carefully walking across the ice to the tunnel where Finn was waiting for him, and to his surprise, the assistant coach was, too. He wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure, but Jacob thought his name was Zach.

“You should’ve told Coach you’d be here,” Zach offered.

“You should’ve told me you’d be here,” Finn said, lifting his chin and meeting Jacob’s gaze straight on, heat meeting heat.

Jacob flushed. Felt caught out, like a guy with a crush who’d just been discovered.

You’re allowed to be here.

Well. Sort of.

“It was a last-minute thing,” Jacob said.

Finn didn’t look convinced.

Zach gave him a look. “I’ll let Coach know you’ll be a minute.” Then he walked on, leaving the two of them alone in the tunnel.

“That last bit was rough,” Jacob said.

“Yeah.”

He hadn’t meant to lead with a criticism. Or for that to sound like a criticism. Get your fucking shit together, Braun .

“But you got through it,” Jacob said, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. Touching anyone else didn’t feel like navigating a minefield, but it did when he touched Finn.

Like he might want to keep touching. Might want to strip off all these stupid pads, the jersey, and all those layers beneath.

Until he could feel the skin underneath.

“Thanks,” Finn said. “Any more backhanded compliments in your arsenal?”

Jacob let out an unsteady breath. “I told you, I’m not good at this. I want to be good at it, though, for you, to help you, to make this easier. Better. Less . . .”

Finn turned to him, his hazel eyes glowing green against his flushed cheeks. “Then just fucking do it, man.”

It was the same kind of blunt advice Jacob might’ve given Finn, but instead he’d turned the tables on him.

Resolve solidified deep down.

Bryan’s voice echoed inside him, reminding him why he’d gone to all this trouble to come down here. Not to criticize. Not to give Finn an awkward pat on the back and some meaningless rah-rah speech.

He’d come here for a purpose—and it wasn’t any of that shit.

“Hey,” Jacob said and gently pushed him back against the wall of the tunnel, gear and all, “ hey, look at me.”

Finn did, the heat in his eyes still searing Jacob raw.

“I came down here to ask if you’re okay.”

Finn opened his mouth and Jacob was ninety-nine point-nine-percent sure that he was about to give him a flippant, non-serious answer. But then Finn paused. Hesitated. Considered it. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

“And I came down here to tell you that, no matter what you think, that yes , you’re okay,” Jacob said. “You’re okay. You handled that. Not everything has to be perfect to be handled. You don’t have to be perfect to be okay.”

Finn moistened his lips, and Jacob’s eyes were drawn to them, helplessly.

Not here, not now.

Jacob mentally rephrased: Actually, not at all.

“I don’t,” he said, and it was half a question, half a statement.

“You don’t. You got this,” Jacob said and patted him on the shoulder pad, his touch lingering this time.

“And here I thought you weren’t going to bother with meaningless platitudes,” Finn said.

Jacob laughed. Tightened his grip on Finn’s shoulder. “Who says it’s meaningless?”

“I—”

“No,” Jacob said earnestly. “I mean it. You got this. You can handle these guys. But more importantly, I know you can handle yourself.”

“You believe that.” Finn had the nerve to sound surprised.

“I sure fucking do. That’s what I really came down here to say.”

Finn’s chin lifted and his eyes flashed with something else now. Not the heat of a challenge, but a warm affection, and an understanding.

And that scared the shit out of Jacob, even more than the desire to touch and to feel Finn’s bare skin against his.

“Thanks,” Finn said.

“Good luck out there.” Jacob patted him one last time.

“You’re not coming into the locker room?”

Jacob shook his head. “Not today. But maybe someday.”

“Alright,” Finn said, and there was that understanding in his eyes again.

Like he understood that Jacob wasn’t ready for that, yet.

He wasn’t wrong.

There was still a part of Jacob that longed to be the one on the bench, sweat slicking his skin, checking every piece of his gear and getting mentally ready for another period.

He didn’t need that desire to grow claws and rake at him, relentlessly, even more than it already was.

Though funny enough, as Jacob retraced his steps, coming down here had helped. He felt more settled already, like a piece of him that he’d been missing forever had finally locked into place again.

Happy, he realized as he headed back towards where Bryan was sitting, he was happy again. He hadn’t thought he’d like coaching. But maybe it wasn’t off the menu, forever.

“So, how was it?” Bryan asked him when he got back to their seats.

Bryan had taken the opportunity to go grab drinks and a pretzel nearly the size of his head.

“I thought doctors were against salt,” Jacob said, because it was so much easier to talk about Bryan’s eating habits than to tell him the truth about how that had just gone.

Pretty good. And a total fucking disaster.

Bryan smacked him on the back of his head. “Don’t change the subject. Besides, this is my night out, and if I can’t get laid, and they don’t even have beer here, I’m going to eat this fucking pretzel.”

“Fair,” Jacob said. “Don’t—”

“You mean, don’t mention that you could get laid, because you could, you absolutely could.”

“You didn’t even see us together,” Jacob protested.

“Yeah, didn’t need to. You wouldn’t be so torn up about this if it was just you. You’d slink off and lick your wounds. You wouldn’t be sitting here, looking torn, like you’re only five seconds away from listening to the devil on your shoulder.”

“I am not,” Jacob said. But for someone who’d always had ironclad self-control, he wasn’t doing a very good job of exercising it right now.

“What does Moira think?”

“Ugh,” Jacob said, really not wanting to tell him.

Bryan took a big bite of pretzel. Offered it up to Jacob. He tore off a piece, but didn’t pop it in his mouth, instead rolling it between his fingers, like it might solve all the mysteries of the universe.

Or maybe just this mystery.

“You do realize, Morgan hates me. He thinks I’m personally responsible for denying him the record he really wanted. If he caught me—caught us— ” Jacob hesitated. “He’d flip his shit. Not just on me, but on Finn, and he doesn’t need more of that crap from his dad.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” Bryan said.

“I know, it’s none of his business—”

“No,” Bryan interrupted. “Why he hates you. You were just one goalie he played against. How is it your fault he didn’t get the record he wanted?”

“We were in the same division, so we did play pretty often against each other,” Jacob offered.

Bryan smacked him again. “You’re smarter than to parrot his stupid ass reasons back at me.”

“Thanks,” Jacob said dryly.

“I mean, it’s not your fault. He knows it’s not your fault. You’re just a convenient external excuse. If he blames you, he can’t blame himself.”

That truth settled hard and inescapable inside Jacob’s gut.

Morgan would blame himself, if given half a moment. Jacob had told Finn the truth: Morgan might be hard on everyone around him, but he’d always been twice as hard on himself.

“Maybe,” Bryan added, “it was even self-preservation to hate you.”

“Let’s not go that far,” Jacob muttered.

“I’m just saying, you two should clear the air.”

“And then, what, he’s going to be perfectly alright with me fucking his son? I don’t think so.”

Bryan laughed. “There’s a lot of room between hating you and applauding whatever you and Finn get up to together.”

Jacob shoved the mashed-up pretzel into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “You’re incredibly annoying.”

“And incredibly right,” Bryan said smugly. “Just think about it.”

Like Jacob was going to be doing anything else.

Every time Finn took the ice, he was focused.

It was too much of a habit to not be focused. An instinct by now to pull his mind in, to set it at its primary task for the next twenty minutes of play.

But now felt slightly different. Better .

Just like Jacob had said. I want to help you. Make it better. Easier.

And he’d done it.

There was a voice in Finn’s head that always wanted him to be perfect, that had trouble sloughing off less-than-perfect defense. But now he reminded himself, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be okay and that was more freeing than he’d imagined it might be.

Malcolm won the puck in the starting face-off, and it was clear, from what he’d heard in the locker room and now by Mal and Elliott and Ivan’s behavior, they felt like they’d been sitting back too much.

They were pushing now, aggressively, and that was Elliott’s favorite way to play, so he was flying across the ice, pestering the Phantom’s defenders, skating circles around them, Mal swarming with him, the three of them working in tandem to keep the puck on that side of the ice.

But Finn didn’t relax. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t .

His eyes followed the puck, watching it across the ice as he kept his body both relaxed and primed, ready to make his first move if that was required.

But it wasn’t. Not now.

Especially not when Mal slipped between two defenders, and lightning quick got a shot off just above the goalie’s right shoulder.

Elliott’s scream of victory was louder than if he’d scored himself, and he jumped into Mal’s arms as he pumped his fist in the air.

But even though the Evergreens’ second goal gave him a little extra breathing room, Finn stayed ready.

As expected, the puck eventually came back over the line, their second defensive line trying to steal it away, trying to interfere with the play setup.

Finn tracked the puck with his eyes, breath quickening. Trying to predict when and how it would be shot so he could get half a second of extra jump on his reaction.

Luckily for him, their left winger hadn’t learned yet just how much he was telegraphing his actions, and Finn shot to the side of the goal, controlled and in control, and shot a leg out, stopping the first shot, then was able to recover without a single millisecond hesitation to take on the rebound.

The puck drifted into the paint, and Finn reached out, smothering it with his glove.

Coach B took advantage of the momentum and swapped lines, and Finn held on to the puck a second longer, before using his stick to bat it towards Ramsey, who passed it onto their third line center.

With their offense’s intent to be aggressive, Finn knew sometimes the puck could get away, but not this time. This time, the Evergreens ended the period with twice as many shots on goal as the Phantoms.

And this time, Finn told himself he wasn’t disappointed when Jacob didn’t jog down the stairs to the ice, to meet him in the tunnel—even as he reminded himself that he’d gotten what he’d needed out of him, anyway.

Even though he didn’t need him, he found he wanted him anyway. Still, he settled for Zach kneeling in front of him in the locker room, parsing out the defensive scheme and making sure that Finn hadn’t noticed any holes.

It shouldn’t have felt like settling for Zach to pat him on the knee, telling him that he was killing it tonight, that he’d never looked so dominant in the net, but it did, anyway.

But a surprisingly loud part of him wanted to know not what Zach or even Coach B thought of his performance, but what Jacob thought.

It was annoying and a little frustrating, but Finn was able to bat it away, and re-focus on what mattered now: getting through the last period of the game.