Page 18 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

At dinner, Rafe ended up sitting between Graham Pennington—the team’s alternate captain—and Connor O’Shea. He wasn’t quite sure how. He’d been angling for a spot next to Mickey, but he’d ended up a few chairs down somehow.

Whatever. It was fine.

Graham was nice too and asked Rafe some questions about his hockey career and told him about his own growing up in Pennsylvania. Connor spent a lot of time flirting with Jesse over the table and Rafe tried not to think about how that used to be him and Logan.

Or the fact it seemed like a terrible idea for the team captain and franchise goalie to be dating but what the fuck did he know?

Obviously, nothing.

So Rafe kept his mouth shut and ate his dinner. They were at a BBQ place of course. Because … Texas.

Rafe had been eyeing the ribs, but everyone had pressured him into getting the smoked brisket. It wasn’t bad but Rafe was more of a pulled pork with vinegary Eastern Carolina sauce kinda guy. Brisket always seemed, like too rich.

But when he said that to Ben Estrada on their way out of the restaurant, he looked scandalized. Rafe was pretty sure that was the right word for it anyway. Definitely not okay with the idea.

It turned out Ben was from Texas and his uncle owned the restaurant and that was why they’d gone there, and Rafe had accidentally insulted his family and his culture or something. Shit .

Sometimes Rafe thought someone should keep him from talking at all. He wasn’t sure who but it seemed like a good idea to let someone else be in charge.

So Rafe told Ben that even though he wasn’t a brisket guy, the pinto beans and coleslaw had been bomb, then made a hurried excuse about having to ask Mickey something and ran away.

Relieved, he found Mickey in the line of guys walking toward the bus that would take them back to the hotel and fell into step beside him.

Mickey gave him a small smile, then returned to doing something on his phone.

“Hey, Turtle. You gonna join us for a movie tonight?” Tanner asked, his expression hopeful.

“Hell yeah,” Rafe said, and Tanner let out a whoop and galloped away to rope more people in. Not like, literally though. He didn’t have a lasso. But it was Texas and Tanner so it wouldn’t have surprised Rafe at all if he did.

“You notice how he never asks me if I mind having half the team cram into our room,” Mickey said drily.

Rafe frowned. “You want me to tell him?—”

“No.” Mickey settled a hand on his arm. “No, I’m mostly kidding. But you’re sweet. Thank you.”

Feeling pleased Mickey wasn’t actually upset about it, Rafe jogged onto the bus and plopped into his seat, beaming when Mickey joined him a moment later.

Brisket or not, this was turning out to be a pretty great trip so far.

Back at the hotel, guys went to their rooms to change into sweats or pajamas before knocking on Mickey’s door.

Mickey, Tanner, and Rafe ended up piled on Mickey’s bed.

The room was actually quite large and Mickey would have happily sat on the floor, but he’d gotten flattened against the boards in their last game and ended up with a pretty nasty bruise along his hip and ass.

Sitting on the plane had sucked and being on the floor for a couple of hours would hurt like the devil, so Mickey sighed and resigned himself to a couple of hours of being crammed close to Rafe.

Jesse and Connor disappeared to call their girls for the usual nightly video chat but said they’d be back after. Anker Henriksen, Graham Pennington, Ben Estrada, and a handful of rookies and call-ups joined them and—to everyone’s surprise—Luke Crawford came too.

Everyone stared.

“What?” Crawford drawled after he’d commandeered the large, comfortable chair by the window by glaring at the rookies until they walked away and found a spot on the floor.

“You never do team shit like this at the hotel,” Tanner said, his tone accusing.

Crawford shrugged, draping one arm over the back of the chair, thighs spread wide as he got comfortable. “Well, Hoyt pulled me and a couple of other guys aside to tell me he didn’t want us to go out tonight. I had to do something other than jerk it.”

“Yeah, why is that?” Tanner asked with a frown.

“I mean, chafing really sucks?—”

Tanner snatched a pen off the table and fired it at Crawford’s head. “I don’t want to hear about your nasty-ass dick. I mean why did you guys have to stay in tonight?”

Crawford caught the pen midair and fired it back. Tanner ducked and it pinged off the wall before clattering back onto the table. Mickey was going to kill them both if he got charged for damages.

Crawford snickered. “ Riiight , you weren’t here for the whole thing last season.”

“Here for what whole thing?” Tanner asked.

“Oh, some of us went out last year when we were playing here,” Crawford said with a grin. “And some of us got in a bar fight.”

“Dude, no way,” Ben Estrada said. He’d piled onto the other bed with Anker and Graham. “What bar?”

Crawford shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“So what happened?” Tanner asked. He was stretched out on his stomach at the foot of the bed Rafe and Mickey were on, chin in hand, legs bent and feet wiggling in the air. He looked like a little kid waiting for story time.

“Well.” Crawford leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “It was definitely a country place if you know what I mean.”

Ben and Tanner and a couple of guys nodded but several, Mickey included, looked at him blankly.

“You know, like with the old wooden floor and the line dancing and shit. Six kinds of beer on tap—all of them shitty—and you can still smell the cigarette smoke, even though it’s been years since anyone was allowed to light one up in public.”

Everyone nodded.

“A bunch of us were playing pool. The captain and I were playing against these locals, and they knew who we were but weren’t making a big deal about it, so it was fine. And then they started talking about the league and like, how stuff was changing …”

Mickey grimaced.

“So like, I can see the captain getting tenser and tenser next to me. He’s got that scowl, you know? But this one dude was not reading the room. He starts spouting off about he can’t believe they’re letting, uh, these f-words play and …”

Mickey frowned. Fuckers ? It didn’t seem like the sort of word Crawford of all people would censor himself about … Oh. Oh . The other f-word. Yeah, even Crawford didn’t touch that one.

Or, at least not anymore.

Rumor had it he’d thrown it around before guys started coming out but had cleaned up his act since. Whether it was genuine or because he didn’t want to deal with getting fined, Mickey wasn’t sure.

“So Connor goes all quiet but pissed and says, ‘you don’t fuckin’ talk about my brother like that’, and pulls back to punch the guy in the face.

I shoved the captain out of the way in time and laid one on the guy myself.

No fuckin’ point in our best goal scorer being out with cracked knuckles, you know? ”

Crawford clenched his fist like he could feel the ache of a similar injury. “Besides, I can hit harder.” He bared his teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile, but he had his fake tooth out and looked menacing.

Mickey certainly wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.

“So what happened after?” Tanner said, sounding almost breathless.

Mickey would give Crawford credit. He could certainly tell a story.

“The place goes absolutely apeshit. Fists flying, beer bottles getting smashed, sticks being broken. Mayhem .” His eyes gleamed like he’d loved every second of it.

“Did you get arrested?” Anker asked.

“Naw.” Crawford settled back in his chair. “Turns out this guy’s mommy’s a lawyer or something.”

He jerked his thumb toward Graham, who shrugged.

“She’s a prosecutor, yeah.”

“But he knew all her tricks and got us sprung.”

“Wait, you guys actually went to jail though?” Tanner asked, sounding impressed.

Mickey stifled the urge to roll his eyes.

“No,” Graham said, doing just that and saving Mickey the trouble.

“We were detained at the bar and questioned. I explained the situation to the Texas Ranger and suggested he might prefer to not make a big deal out of it and wind up making an international news incident of it. Thankfully, he was reasonable enough to agree.”

“Not all Texans are bigoted,” Ben said earnestly. “Like, I’m totally cool with playing with those guys. I’d have thrown a punch too.”

After, the conversation kinda devolved from there, with guys chiming in to say they would have stood up for their teammates too. It was funny, it was like they’d forgotten Mickey, Rafe, and Tanner were some of the teammates in question and were right there.

Mickey hadn’t been involved with anyone seriously enough to bring them around the team and Rafe was apparently new enough they’d forgotten he was gay but how had they forgotten Tanner ?

He literally flirted with everyone without a single ounce of shame about who on the team he did it around.

Hell, he’d been flirting with the waiter at the barbecue place tonight.

How had the guys forgotten?

Or, maybe they hadn’t, Mickey realized. Maybe they were doing this on purpose so everyone here would know they were allies?

It was almost touching, Mickey thought. They were all ridiculous but he still felt a surge of affection for them.

“Hey, so is that when you lost your tooth?” Tanner asked over the noise.

“Uhh, no.” Crawford dragged a hand through his limp hair. It always looked a little greasy and lank, hanging into his eyes.

“I thought it happened in an off-ice fight?” Tanner asked, frowning.

“It did ,” Crawford said. “But that was in Toronto. With Theriault.”

Several guys hissed under their breaths. Mickey wasn’t quite sure why.

“Yeah.” Crawford let out a humorless laugh. “Wasn’t my best fucking moment.”

“What happened?” Mickey asked, because he couldn’t help himself.