Page 22 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

“So,” Mickey said a few weeks later after they settled the last box in Rafe’s new bedroom. The room right next to his, God help him. “You’re officially moved in. Lease signed and everything. How do you want to celebrate?”

Rafe shrugged. “We could just chill?”

Mickey smiled. “We could.”

“Why? Do you want to do something else?” Rafe asked.

“Well, I was thinking we could go out to dinner with Tanner, but he bailed.” Mickey made a face. Tanner invited Rafe to move in and then was nowhere to be found when it was time to actually move him in. Typical .

“We could go anyway,” Rafe said. “Just the two of us. Catch up on everything from bye week.”

Mickey swallowed hard. “Sure. Sounds good.”

And it did.

Too good, but that was for Mickey to deal with.

“Let’s shower and we can leave in half an hour?” Mickey said his brain stuttering when he realized he’d made it sound like they would be showering together.

If only . It was bad enough at the arena. In the privacy of Mickey’s bathroom, crowded up against Rafe …

“Perfect.” Rafe gave him a big smile. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Mickey said with a wink and then immediately regretted it because it was very much Relationship Mickey behavior.

But Rafe’s smile got wider, and he dragged off his damp T-shirt, tossing it toward the laundry basket on the far side of the room like they were in the locker room and not Rafe’s new bedroom. “Sounds good.”

Mickey fled before he did anything stupid. Like lick a stripe across Rafe’s sweaty neck, then bite down and suck a mark to show the world Rafe was his.

Since he was not, Mickey would have to make do with getting off in the shower like a civilized person.

An hour later, they were seated at a booth in a restaurant not far from the apartment building.

Their server arrived and they both ordered water—sparkling for Mickey—and let her know they’d need a few minutes before they decided on food.

The restaurant and bar had a vintage look and was located on the site of an old railway station. Mickey had learned that much when he’d made their reservation on the website earlier. He told Rafe about it, and he looked impressed.

“Cool. It’s nice.” Rafe glanced around. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“You haven’t seen much of Boston yet, have you?”

“No, not really,” Rafe admitted, frowning down at his menu.

“Well, the weather has been miserable here, and you’ve only been here a little over a month, right?” Mickey pointed out.

Rafe looked surprised at the reminder. “Huh, I guess that’s true. It seems like longer.”

“Yeah, January is always like that,” Mickey agreed. “It takes forever. And then you kinda speed through the rest of February and March and don’t know where they went.”

“Every year,” Rafe agreed. “Hey, so how was your trip?”

“Good. It was nice to be somewhere warm and relax. We slept in, swam, golfed, drank too much …” Mickey made a face because even he had made some bad decisions about alcohol while on vacation. Though fewer than Tanner and some of the other guys, so that was something.

Rafe laughed.

The server arrived with their waters, and they placed their orders for shrimp cocktail and short rib sliders to share as an appetizer.

Were short rib sliders on Mickey’s diet plan? No. But Rafe had looked at him with those big eyes and yeah. He was useless at resisting.

“How was Ontario?” Mickey asked when the server left.

“Well, the weather was about the same as it was here,” Rafe said with a laugh.

Mickey laughed too. They’d returned from bye week to find more snow had landed on the city. Mickey hadn’t minded but a lot of guys had been very unhappy.

Rafe smiled. “But it was good to see my family. I miss them during the season.”

“I bet,” Mickey said.

“That’s probably way harder on you though, right?” Rafe asked with a frown. “Since they’re all the way over in Germany?”

“Yeah.” Mickey had made time to do a video chat with his sisters while he was in Mexico, which had been nice until Tanner came over and started flirting with them.

Not in a gross way—they were still very young and Tanner wasn’t that kind of guy—but he’d been his usual friendly self.

They’d started giggling a lot, probably thinking he was cute and funny, and that was enough of that for Mickey.

He’d talked to both of his parents and his stepmom as well. He liked his stepmother but wasn’t incredibly close to her, so their conversation had been nice but not overly long or personal.

His father had commented on how well he was progressing with his hockey and he and Rafe seemed to be an ideal pairing. Mickey had agreed, his guts squirming a little at the reminder of how they could be even better .

Thankfully, his father hadn’t noticed his awkwardness. His mother, however, had picked up on the way he gushed about Rafe immediately.

Mickey had, reluctantly, admitted he had a bit of a crush on his new D-partner and she’d sympathized with him about how frustrating his situation was.

In the end, she’d reminded him he should focus on the positive, namely that Rafe was a good friend and teammate. It had been solid advice and in his hotel room in Playa del Carmen, it had seemed like an achievable goal.

Now that Rafe was living with him and Tanner and sitting across the table from him looking absurdly handsome in a shirt unbuttoned low enough to show a little bit of chest, Mickey wasn’t so sure.

“Where did you go for bye week last year?” Rafe asked after their appetizers arrived and they ordered salads and entrees.

Mickey shrugged. “Nowhere. This is my first year in the NHL.”

“True.” Rafe laughed. “Duh. Did you have a mid-season break there?”

“No. It’s a shorter season,” he explained. “Fifty-two games instead of eighty-two.”

“Oh wow. Is it a hard adjustment?” Rafe asked, licking the mustard sauce from the sliders off his fingers.

“Mmm,” Mickey said, forcing himself to look away from the very tempting sight. “I don’t know. Ask me when we get into the end of March or early April when I start pushing my limits.”

“You played on a bigger rink there though, right?”

Mickey nodded. It varied a bit by country and even by team, but most rinks in the European Union were bigger, to fit with Olympic standards.

“Is that why you’re so fast?” Rafe asked, swiping his tongue across his lower lip and leaving it shiny.

Mickey laughed. “That and a lot of training. My father was a stickler.”

While they ate, they talked about the training they’d done growing up.

Mickey tried to focus on the conversation but it wasn’t the easiest when Rafe seemed determined to drive him crazy by licking his fingers and biting down on the shrimp to pull the meat from the tail of the shell.

Mickey had never found food or eating particularly arousing but as he tried to subtly shift in the booth so his hardening cock lay at a less obvious and uncomfortable angle, he decided wryly there was a first time for everything.

Their server arrived after their appetizers were done, breathlessly apologetic about how long she’d made them wait. Mickey assured her it was fine.

After they got their salads, they returned to training conversations.

“How are you liking the Pilates work?” Mickey asked.

“I like it!” Rafe said. “And the yoga is helping my back.”

Mickey frowned. “You have back issues?”

“Ehh.” Rafe waggled his hands. “Nothing like the shit some guys go through, but I do have a lot of tightness. Dakota’s helped me stretch. I think some of the problems I’ve had in the past are because I’m so long, I haven’t been able to find the right stretches or whatever. He’s been a big help.”

“Oh good. I’ve found his suggestions very helpful too,” Mickey said. He rapped his knuckles against the wooden tabletop as he added, “in general, injuries seem pretty low this year. I mean, there’s always something, but strains and sprains seem to be down.”

He’d kept an eye on the team after they’d drafted him and last season, injuries had been a huge problem.

“You track that?” Rafe looked surprised.

“Not officially,” Mickey said with a shrug. “I’m sure Gavin and now Finn have it under control. It’s just something I noticed.”

So far, Gavin had been right. Little had changed for the team overall with Finn taking over half of the duties.

Their conversation about that and how the team was doing carried them through salads and their entrees.

“You know, I kinda wish I had gone with you guys to Mexico,” Rafe finally said with a little frown as their meal wrapped up, picking at some of the sweet potato fries on his plate.

He’d devoured his salmon burger in record time, but the mound of fries had been so big they’d actually slowed him down.

Mickey poked at the remnants of his seafood paella as he thought about Rafe’s words. The paella had been good—not as good as the ones he’d had in Spain, which he belatedly realized sounded pretentious—but good.

The food wasn’t the problem though. It was how to word his answer. Because as much as he would have loved for Rafe to join them on vacation, it would have been torture.

Rafe would’ve been wandering around wearing nothing but swim shorts, getting all bronzed and wet and needing someone to rub sunscreen on him and …

Mickey cleared his throat. “There’s always next year.”

“True.” Rafe still had a smear of fry sauce on his lower lip.

“You’ve got a little—” Mickey gestured vaguely to his own mouth.

“Oh thanks.” Rafe licked his lips.

Mickey shifted in his seat at the thought of Rafe licking up his cum as it dripped from his lips.

Rafe continued, “So, I know I keep thanking you?—”

“And I keep telling you that you don’t have to,” Mickey fired back, distracted and horny and desperate feeling.

“But thank you. For like … being a really good friend to me.” That earnest look was back in Rafe’s eyes and Mickey was doomed.

Mickey hid a wince. He wanted to say he’d be that kind of friend to anyone but it wasn’t entirely true, was it?