Page 24 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

Rafe followed Mickey through the grocery store, not quite sure why they were here. Maybe we’re low on food? Rafe thought as he grabbed a carton of milk. Rafe should be used to the cartons by now but his family had always bought bagged milk.

He’d been so confused when he moved to North Carolina and no one there had even heard of it.

Some convenience stores in Minnesota had carried it, which had been nice. It wasn’t looking good for Boston though.

Rafe was surprised when Mickey stopped in the aisle with coffee and tea, until Mickey gestured to the hot cocoa. “Do you drink hot cocoa or hot chocolate?”

Rafe frowned. “There’s a difference?”

“Hot cocoa is this.” Mickey picked up a box and shook it. “The powdered stuff you mix in milk. In Germany, it’s mostly for kids.”

“So what’s hot chocolate then?” Rafe had always thought they were the same thing.

“Melted bars of chocolate in milk.”

“Oh. Uhh, I’m fine with either.” Rafe shrugged.

“Make a choice,” Mickey said sternly but he was smiling.

“Which do you like?” Rafe asked, unable to stop himself from smiling back. Something about Mickey made him happy.

“Hot chocolate,” Mickey said without hesitation. “It’s less sweet.”

“Then hot chocolate.”

Mickey shot Rafe a look he couldn’t read before he turned to marshmallows. “These or whipped cream?”

“You like whipped cream best?” Rafe asked. It wasn’t usually as sweet so it seemed like a safe guess.

Mickey nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Then that.”

“Chocolate syrup or caramel?”

“Umm.” Tough choice. Because he wanted Mickey to have what he liked but Rafe really did love caramel …

Mickey plucked both from the shelf and placed them in the basket.

“Okay then,” Rafe said happily.

Twenty minutes later, they stood in the kitchen while Rafe watched as Mickey chopped chocolate into little chunks with a big knife. His hands moved fast, and he was so neat about it and it kinda reminded Rafe of what he was like on the ice.

Silky smooth hands and a fast mind, like Mickey was always a couple of plays ahead of the rest of them.

The chocolate looked good though, dark and rich, and Rafe reached out to snag a little piece of it. Mickey smacked his hand.

“No. You’ll get your fingers cut.” His voice was stern, and so was his jaw, so Rafe pulled back.

“Sorry.” He tucked his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t do it again.

“No. I am sorry,” Mickey said. He took a deep breath but didn’t look at Rafe or even stop chopping. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, it’s fine. You’re right. You’re chopping fast and if I got too close that could have ended with me having to go get stitches or something, right?” Rafe asked. That was the last thing the team needed.

“Yes, but …” Mickey closed his eyes, and he looked upset about something . Rafe still wasn’t sure why though. “I need to stop.”

“Stop doing what?” Rafe asked.

“Telling you what to do.”

“But I told you yesterday, I like it when you do.”

“That’s the damn problem,” Mickey said under his breath.

“What?” Rafe asked, confused.

“Nothing. This is my problem. Not yours.”

That made even less sense though. Rafe was about to ask him to explain when Mickey finished chopping, turning to dump the pieces of chocolate into a pan, where he’d already added cocoa powder and sugar.

Which was apparently different than cocoa mix or something?

Rafe had gotten lost when Mickey started talking about baking cocoa. And then he added a pinch of salt, which Rafe didn’t understand either until he thought about salted caramel, which he loved.

So maybe the salt made the chocolate better?

Who knew? Apparently, Mickey.

It was a good thing he knew what he was doing though, because when he added the milk and stirred with a whisk, it looked sort of gross and lumpy and brown. Rafe would have given up then but the more Mickey stirred, the better it looked.

The whipped cream he’d made before he started on the chocolate looked totally bomb.

Rafe had been so confused when Mickey poured cream and a little sugar in a bowl and whisked it by hand . But it had turned out exactly like the stuff that came out of a can. Except, better. He’d stolen a swipe of it when Mickey wasn’t looking.

“Did you know the name for a whisk in German translates to snow broom?” Mickey asked after a minute, finally sounding like himself again.

“I definitely didn’t,” Rafe said, leaning a hip against the counter. “But that’s cool.”

Mickey offered him a small smile. “I thought it was funny too.”

He turned up the heat a little, still stirring, and Rafe watched as everything slowly melted together and the room started to smell like chocolate. Oh yeah, Mickey definitely knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

Score one for Rafe. He had awesome roommates and one of them made shit like this .

“Get two mugs please,” Mickey said.

Rafe had put his own mugs away in the cupboards earlier, so he knew exactly where to go.

“Are any of these yours?” he asked, scanning the shelves. The ones that weren’t his were all either Harriers’ mugs or plain white.

“No. Tanner bought a basic set when he moved in, and we both got some from the team.”

Rafe wondered why he hadn’t gotten any team mugs. Maybe he should ask someone, like the social media dude, Thad, who was always talking about subtle ways to work the team branding into their posts.

Rafe should totally start posting shirtless morning coffee pics again now that he was settled in. He got so many likes when he did. He could switch up his favorite mugs for the team ones though, if that was good for branding or whatever.

Rafe glanced over at Mickey. “My family, we each had our own favorite mugs,” he explained. “Mine was the one with a snowman on it.”

“I had favorites growing up too.” Mickey smiled. “I didn’t ship mine over though.”

“Then we need to find you a new favorite one,” Rafe said with a smile.

Mickey nodded, pouring the hot chocolate into the Harriers’ one Rafe had gotten down for him.

But when Rafe held out his own mug, Mickey shook his head. “I need to add more sugar for you. You wouldn’t like the way I made mine.”

“Wanna bet?” Rafe asked, crossing his arms.

Mickey snorted quietly. “Be my guest. Try it.”

Rafe tried to hide his wince when he took a sip, but it was way too hot and, oww . He’d definitely burned his tongue. Plus, yeah, it was gross. All bitter and shit.

“Told you,” Mickey said smugly.

“Yeah, yeah, you know best,” Rafe teased, bumping shoulders with Mickey, not even mad he’d been proven wrong. “That’s why you’ve gotta tell me what to do.”

Mickey shot him a look that made his cheeks feel warm but then Mickey turned away and added more sugar to the pan, stirring it quickly.

After it was ready, he poured into Rafe’s mug, then topped both with the whipped cream. He drizzled a little bit of chocolate on his, added caramel sauce to Rafe’s, and then added a sprinkle of sea salt to both.

“I’m gonna get in so much trouble for this with the dieticians,” Rafe said with a sigh as he reached for his mug, his mouth watering.

“Tell me about it. But maybe it can be our little secret,” Mickey said with a wink. “We’ll run longer tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Rafe smiled happily and held the mug out in toast. “To our secret.”

Smiling back, Mickey tapped their mugs gently together.

Rafe took a sip. It was still hot, but thankfully his poor sore tongue didn’t get burned again.

And it was so good. “Oh my God,” he muttered, lowering his mug and licking his lips. “That’s …”

He didn’t have a single word for how good that was so he sort of made a moaning noise. He thought maybe Mickey understood though because he took a sip too and made his own noise.

Only his sounded a little bit like he was dying.

“It’s killer, right?” Rafe asked, licking a bit of stray whipped cream from his upper lip.

Mickey blinked at him a moment. “Um, you have a little …” His voice still sounded super tight.

“A little what?” There wasn’t much about Rafe that could be called little and he didn’t think Mickey was the type to make a dumb dick joke. Tanner? Yes. Mickey? Not so much.

“Whipped cream.” Mickey lifted his hand, swiping his thumb across Rafe’s upper lip as Rafe tried to lick it away.

He’d been aiming for the whipped cream, not Mickey’s thumb. But he ended up licking Mickey’s thumb.

“Sorry,” he said when Mickey jerked his hand away.

“No. I’m …” He blinked rapidly. “It’s fine.”

He licked his own thumb, gaze on Rafe’s, and Rafe felt a sudden warmth spread through him at the sight of Mickey’s tongue flicking at the whipped cream.

Oh , Rafe thought. Ohhh . Oh no.

“You wanna watch something while we drink this?” Rafe asked quickly.

Because nope. He wasn’t … he wasn’t going there. He liked Mickey but just because he liked him and okay, maybe he was slowly starting to develop feelings for him, that didn’t mean he had to do anything about it, right?

“Sure. What do you want to watch?” Mickey asked.

“I dunno. Maybe more of the show we’ve been watching?” Rafe took another sip of hot chocolate.

“Sounds good. You get it set up while I?—”

“You losers are fucking home!” Tanner said from the hallway, his voice accusatory.

Rafe jumped because he hadn’t even heard the front door open.

“Where did you think we were?” Mickey asked, setting down his mug.

Tanner’s jaw dropped as he stepped closer. “And you’re drinking hot chocolate without me .”

“You like hot chocolate?” Rafe asked, happy to hear it. Tanner shouldn’t miss out. “Because Mickey made the best?—”

“There was only enough for two,” Mickey said tightly, opening the dishwasher and dumping the empty pan in.

“You suck .” Tanner pouted. His face brightened when he peered into the bowl. “Ooh, but there’s whipped cream. Tell me I can have that.”

“Fine.” Mickey sighed. “Have at it. But if you leave it on the counter when you’re done, instead of putting it here in the dishwasher, I will straight up murder you.”

“ Harsh ,” Tanner said, but he was already clutching the bowl to his chest and swiping his finger through the whipped cream. “But deal.”

“I get the whisk!” Rafe said, grabbing it from the cutting board before Tanner could argue.

“That’s not fair! You got a whole-ass mug of cocoa!” Tanner protested.

“Shows what you know,” Rafe said, feeling very smart for once. “Hot cocoa and hot chocolate aren’t the same.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Tanner said. “And fuck you both for not checking your phones all night. You invited me to dinner and then fucking didn’t tell me where .”

“Whoops.” Rafe reached for his phone, realized he didn’t have a free hand, then looked at Mickey.

Mickey sighed and held out a hand.

Rafe passed over his mug of hot chocolate, then fished out his phone. “Oooh yeah that was a lot of texts,” he said when he realized how many there were. “Sorry. We were talking about what we did over bye week and then we went for a walk and made cocoa. It was really fun.”

“Yeah, rub in how cute your little date was,” Tanner grumbled.

It had been fun, Rafe thought, absently licking the whisk. Kind of the perfect night, honestly. The sort of night he’d spent with Logan … and then Tanner’s words hit and he stiffened.

Ahh fuck . Rafe glanced over at Mickey who was staring at him with a red face. Had they gone on a date tonight?

Like … accidentally?

“It wasn’t a date ,” Mickey snapped. “I invited you to it, Tanner. Trust me, if I was going to date Rafe, you wouldn’t be there.”

“Harsh,” Tanner said with a sigh. “Totally harsh.”

Relieved, Rafe licked the beater again, trying to get his tongue in between the spokes. Or whatever the fuck the metal pieces were called.

Mickey let out a strangled noise, thumped Rafe’s mug down on the counter, then stalked toward his bedroom without another word.

Rafe lifted his head. “Hey, where are you going? We were going to watch?—”

The sound of Mickey’s door slamming shut was the only answer he got.

“Dude,” Rafe said, deflating.

“Sorry.” Tanner’s look was apologetic. “I didn’t mean to like, ruin your night or whatever.”

“It’s okay,” Rafe said automatically although it kinda wasn’t.

“So like you two really aren’t …?” Tanner lifted his eyebrows.

Rafe stared at him.

“Fucking? Dating? Screwing around?” Tanner continued.

Rafe wasn’t sure how fucking and screwing around were different, but he and Mickey weren’t doing any of those things, so …

“No,” he said. “We’re not.”

“Huh. But you want to?”

Rafe shrugged, then shook his head. “We’re friends.”

“No shit. So are Mickey and me, but there’s zero sexual tension there and there definitely is between you two.”

“You think so?” Rafe asked, annoyed when he realized he sounded kinda hopeful.

Damn it, that wasn’t supposed to be something he wanted. He hadn’t even realized he was starting to have feelings for Mickey.

“Oh yeah. Mickey totally wants to dick you down,” Tanner said with a nod. “Or like, get dicked down by you. Or both. I dunno what he’s into. But he’s German so it’s probably weird and kinky.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

“Umm,” Rafe said, not sure he wanted to think about that too closely. Also, he was pretty sure even if Mickey was super weird and kinky in the bedroom, not every German person was. “Honestly, I like getting dicked down but?—”

“Hell yeah,” Tanner said, holding out a hand for a high five. “We love a big dude who likes to bottom.”

Rafe smacked his palm against Tanner’s.

“So why are you drinking hot chocolate instead of getting railed, my man?” Tanner asked.

“Because we’re not dating.”

Tanner snorted. “I’m not dating every person I screw either. Doesn’t stop me.”

“I’m demi ,” Rafe explained.

“Ohh, sick, dude. So you need the connection, or whatever, right? No random hookups.”

“I mean, I can do random hookups,” Rafe said. He’d done it before but that didn’t mean he was a fan. “But they suck. So …”

“Got it. So why aren’t you, like, dating Mickey and waiting for the sex to happen when you’re ready or whatever?”

“I don’t date teammates,” Rafe said.

Tanner gave him a funny look. “I thought your breakup with your teammate was why you were traded here?”

“ Anymore ,” Rafe explained. Because … yeah.

“Ohhh. Got it. Well, that sucks, dude.”

Rafe sighed. “Tell me about it.”