Page 19 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

“We—Gabriel and I—used to be teammates, actually. Back in Calgary. We got along fine then, I guess, but since we went our separate ways, we’ve had this beef on-ice.

He has a temper, and he doesn’t like my chirps and it kinda kept escalating.

And then I shot my mouth off about his father having a screw loose. ”

Everyone did wince at that.

Even Mickey knew Alain Theriault was dealing with dementia, likely caused by repeated head injuries. He and his son had done a whole public service campaign about it and Gabriel had been working with the biggest helmet manufacturer to improve the technology and raise awareness about CTE.

“Look, at the time I didn’t fuckin’ know it was literal ,” Crawford protested. “If I had, I wouldn’t have said that shit.”

“I’m not sure wording it that way actually makes it better,” Graham said drily.

“C’mon, you know what I mean. Like I thought the dude was a little fuckin’ nuts. I played with Alain too in Calgary. And he was always kinda … well, I just thought that’s how he was. You know, all the Quebecers are a little …” He made a vague motion near his head.

Graham sighed. “I swear to fucking God, you can’t help yourself, can you?”

“What?” Luke scowled.

“Have you ever apologized to Theriault for it?”

Crawford looked confused. “When would I see Alain?”

“No, Gabriel ,” Graham said.

“Oh yeah. Apologized to him after a game we played against Evanston. After the shit about his dad came out. He wasn’t like super gracious about it or anything but we shook hands and shit. Now we’re back to beefing on the ice.”

“You are unbelievable,” Graham said with a shake of his head.

“What?” Crawford looked confused again.

But the was a knock on the door and everyone turned to stare at it. No one moved to get up.

“It’s probably Jesse and Connor. Go get it,” Mickey said, poking at Tanner’s hip with his foot.

“Why don’t you get it?” Tanner grumbled.

“Because I’d have to climb over everyone!” Mickey pointed out. There were guys sprawled out everywhere and he was pretty much as far from the door as he could get.

Tanner made an unhappy noise, but he got off the bed and opened the door. A moment later, Jesse and Connor walked into the room carrying big paper bags with handles.

“Oh. Hey. You didn’t have to pause the movie for us,” Jesse said. He squinted at the TV screen. “Wait, did you even start ?”

“No.” Tanner said, grabbing for one of the bags. “What’s in here?”

Jesse pulled it away. “Why didn’t you start?”

“We got distracted. Crawford was telling us stories.”

“Aww fuck. You didn’t?” Connor said with a groan as he dumped the bags on the nearby table.

Crawford grinned. “You didn’t want them to know?”

“It doesn’t exactly look fuckin’ good to have your captain starting bar fights,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, but you were standing up for us!” Tanner said cheerfully. “Which is awesome .”

Connor sighed. “Well, if I’d known you were in here talking about that shit, I wouldn’t have bought dessert for you all. This is what I get for being nice to you delinquents.”

Graham looked offended, which was fair. He was nice and polite and never, ever got in trouble. Mickey liked him.

“Wait,” Jesse said slowly. “You got in a bar fight , Connor. Holy shit. How did I not know this about you?”

“Because it was stupid,” Connor said with a huff. “I should have used my words instead of my fists.”

“Okay, but this totally resets my world view,” Jesse said, his smile gleaming brightly. “I now have to reassess everything I know about you.”

“You’ve seen me get in on-ice fights,” Connor protested.

“Yeah, but that’s hockey .”

And Mickey got it. Because getting in a fight on the ice was very different than getting in one off-ice. On the ice, it was usually about protecting teammates or letting off steam so it didn’t boil over into something worse.

“Aww, lay off him,” Crawford drawled. “He was standing up for his brother and the other rainbow guys.”

Someone—maybe Tanner—snorted. “Rainbow guys?”

“What the fuck do you want me to call you?” He waved vaguely.

“I dunno. Gay?”

“But aren’t you …”

“Pansexual, yeah,” Tanner said.

“And some of you are bi or whatever. What the fuck do I say when it’s all of you together?”

“LGBTQ+?” Tanner said with an unspoken but obvious duh on the end.

“Yeah, that fuckin’ rolls off the tongue. Anyway, what’s wrong with rainbow? I don’t mean it in a bad way or anything. It’s just you’re all into colorful shit.”

“Uhh, nothing, I guess?” Tanner said with a shrug. “I mean, it doesn’t bother me but I dunno how everyone else feels about it.”

Everyone else kinda shrugged too, including Mickey. He wasn’t actually into the “colorful shit” as Crawford had called it but it didn’t bother him to be called a rainbow guy either.

“There are worse things you could call us,” Jesse said with a laugh.

Privately, Mickey agreed. He could never quite get a read on Crawford. Though, in this case, he suspected this was actually Crawford trying to be halfway decent and coming across as kind of an asshole because he was an abrasive person with no couth.

“Are we gonna eat some fuckin’ dessert and watch a goddamn movie or are we going to debate what some of us want to be called?” Connor groused.

“Dessert!” several guys shouted.

It was a loud, mad scramble after, with guys standing up to dig through the bags and argue about which dessert they wanted. Apparently, Jesse and Connor had arranged for a delivery from the barbecue place they’d gone to earlier.

Mickey ended up with banana pudding and Rafe got a mini pecan pie. Mickey took two bites of the pudding and set it down.

“You don’t like it?” Rafe asked with a frown.

“I don’t think it’s for me,” he said, trying to be polite.

“Want some of my pecan pie?” Rafe held it out.

“No, that’s okay. I’ve had that before and it’s very sweet. I just don’t have very sweet teeth,” Mickey said.

Rafe looked confused for a moment. “Oh, a sweet tooth? I think it’s only one tooth. Not all of them.”

“Yes,” Mickey said. “Sweet tooth.”

Although, privately he thought multiple tooths— teeth —made more sense. People didn’t eat with one tooth. Unless they were Crawford.

“There aren’t any desserts you like?” Rafe seemed almost horrified by this.

“I like my grandma’s Zwetschgenkuchen,” Mickey said with a shrug.

“Her what now?”

Mickey repeated it more slowly.

Rafe’s face went blank for a moment before he tried it. It came out garbled, but he was clearly trying so Mickey said it again. And again.

“Zuh-vech-guhn-koo-hen?” Rafe finally said.

“Pretty close,” Mickey said with a smile.

“Cool. Neat name.” Rafe smiled back. “What is it?”

“Oh. Plum cake. It’s a very simple cake with fresh plums on top.”

Mickey wasn’t about to get into the whole debate of yeasted dough versus a shortcrust pastry versus cake batter for the base and whether or not it was best with streusel on top or no.

Mickey was firmly in the yeasted dough and no streusel topping camp, because that was the way his grandmother had made it, but these debates could get rather heated.

“That sounds nice,” Rafe said.

“It is.”

The cake wasn’t overly sweet, and Mickey remembered being very young and going to his grandmother’s house after hockey practice, his stomach gnawing a hole at his insides, and opening the door to the smell of the cake.

Vanilla and fruit and a little bit of cinnamon.

She’d fed him coarse rye bread, cold cuts or sausage, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and cut-up vegetables first, and it had all tasted delicious, but he’d always hurried through it, eager to get to the cake.

“You sure you don’t want any pie now?” Rafe asked and he looked so hopeful Mickey couldn’t tell him no.

He took a bite of the pie—yes, still much too sweet—and thanked him. Rafe polished off the rest of the small tin, then got to work on Mickey’s pudding.

Tanner had gone for the peach cobbler, which had also looked like it might be too sweet, but Mickey was somewhat regretting he hadn’t tried it.

After everyone finished their desserts, they settled down and finally turned on the movie. Anker Henriksen and Ben Estrada got up so Connor and Jesse—along with Graham—could take the other bed.

Captain’s prerogative, Mickey guessed.

Connor settled against the headboard and Jesse looked faintly amused but didn’t argue, just shifting onto his side and curling up with his head on Connor’s shoulder while Graham stretched out beside them.

But then Anker settled in on the far side of Rafe and there were four people in their bed. It was a big bed but with Mickey, Tanner, Rafe, and now Anker, there wasn’t a lot of room.

Rafe made himself comfy—which apparently meant sprawling against the pile of pillows at the headboard and letting his shoulder and knee fully encroach into Mickey’s space.

Every time Mickey thought about shifting away, Rafe turned to look at him, smiling happily, and Mickey couldn’t do it.

So Mickey sat there with Rafe’s shoulder pressed to his and his knee leaning against his thigh and dug his fingers into his palms as he tried to pretend like he was actually watching whatever idiotic comedy Tanner had put on.

When someone clicked off the lamp beside the bed, that only made it worse. It made Mickey even more aware of the soft sounds of Rafe’s breathing beside him and the warm brush of his body whenever he shifted.

Rafe had changed into sweatpants and a black T-shirt, and both were tight enough to be distracting. He smelled good too, all woodsy like the forests in Germany where Mickey often went hiking with his previous teammates in the off-season.

So Mickey sat there in his private hell and wondered what he was going to do about this problem.

Not the ‘a person has given me an inconvenient erection’ problem. He’d been dealing with those just fine since he was a teenager. He could even handle sharing the room with Tanner and wouldn’t be alone long enough to do anything about it. That was what showers were for.

But this larger problem … this Rafe problem …

Which wasn’t even really Rafe’s fault. It was quite obvious Rafe wasn’t doing any of this intentionally. He was large and handsome and a little bit oblivious but very sweet and he liked being helpful and being told what to do.

It wasn’t his fault those were also things Mickey liked in a man and that he kept getting hard about it.

At inopportune times.

Like in the elevator . God, the elevator.

Rafe standing so close with his good smelling cologne and his big body and his dick right the fuck there .

Mickey’s knuckles had grazed Rafe’s thigh, and he’d thought about … reaching out and gently cupping the soft bulge above.

Mickey hadn’t. Of course he hadn’t. That was so incredibly wrong, and Mickey would never do that without clear permission, but he’d thought about it and that was horrifying enough.

Especially since Rafe was unlikely to stop being large and handsome and a little bit oblivious but very sweet. He probably wasn’t going to stop being helpful and enjoying being told what to do either.

So Mickey was going to have to figure out how to deal with his shit.

This wasn’t Rafe’s problem. It was Mickey’s. And something had to be done about it.

The movie simultaneously seemed to take forever and be over very quickly. Mickey was confused when it ended because he had no idea what it was about, but everyone was shifting and getting up to stretch.

Guys were yawning and stumbling out, muttering ‘good night’ and ‘thank you’ to their captain and his boyfriend for dessert.

Connor and Jesse got up too, wishing everyone a good night.

And then it was just Mickey, Rafe, and Tanner in the room. After the loud mob of guys was gone, the hotel room seemed extra quiet.

Tanner yawned and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “That was fun.”

“It was,” Rafe said. “Great movie. Did you like it, Mickey?”

“It was good,” Mickey lied. He’d have to read about it online in case anyone wanted to talk about it at breakfast tomorrow.

Tanner bounced up, full of energy despite his earlier yawn. “God, I still can’t believe our Captain got in a bar fight. It was, like, for a good reason and stuff but still .”

He sounded scandalized but also impressed.

He pulled out his phone and did something on it for a moment before he disappeared into the bathroom.

Mickey wondered if Rafe was ever going to shift away from him, but he made no move to, just kept staring down at something on his own phone screen intently.

No, why would he move away when he could try to occupy the same space as Mickey instead?