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THREE

Fifteen Years Ago

NOVEMBER

From the threadbare sofa, Jethro Hale watches the new guy pace between their kitchen stove and their small living room. Not that it’s a long walk—just a few steps, really.

Clay Powers is a handsome dude, all flashing blue eyes and good muscle definition. He’s older than Jethro by two years, but they’re both newcomers to professional hockey, because Clay finished his degree at a fancy private university before suiting up to play for the Busker Brutes, their new minor league team.

Hale didn’t get to finish his degree, and he’s still bitter.

Jethro would have thought that being a rich college graduate would relax a guy, but Clay (“it’s short for Clayton”) Powers hasn’t sat down for longer than thirty seconds since he moved in three days ago. He’s wound up so tightly that Jethro feels tired just watching him.

“You want some pasta, right?” Clay says, grabbing a frying pan out of the cabinet and inspecting it. He makes a face like he finds it lacking. “I’m cooking.”

“Uh, sure. Thanks,” Jethro says uneasily. Truthfully, he would rather live alone. Except he’s broke, so now he’s sharing a small one-bedroom with a stranger. And it’s tricky to find housing in the small city of Busker, New York, just outside of Utica.

The team’s owner—a slumlord who also owns car dealerships—solves this problem by renting divey apartments to his players for cheap. The complex is called Double Oaks, and it’s pretty run down.

Jethro and Clay are sharing a bedroom so small that their two double beds take up almost the entire floor space. Their bathroom is similarly claustrophobic. Jethro has bruises on both elbows from bumping his long arms into the walls of the narrow shower stall.

In the kitchen—which is really just the other end of the living room—Clay puts the skillet on the stove and turns on the heat. Then he grabs a funny-looking bottle of oil out of the cabinet, pours some into the pan, and adds a pound of ground beef a moment later.

With stabbing motions, he breaks the beef up with an ancient wooden spoon, while also talking a mile a minute. “There’s something just off about this team, don’t you think? You’ve been here longer than I have.”

“Only by a single week,” Jethro points out. He watches Clay attack the meat with speed and finesse, and wonders where he comes from. Like, what planet.

People often mystify Jethro, but Clay is truly baffling. For starters, he drives a BMW. Not a new one, but still. His clothes all look like they were designed and manufactured according to his exact musculature. And there are products in the bathroom that Jethro has never heard of. Styling foam, for example. And Clay’s razor looks like it came from the James Bond lab—all matte metal and angles.

Clay opens another cabinet and frowns. “Is there a cutting board?”

“I…maybe?” Jethro has never used a cutting board in his twenty-two years on Earth.

Clay grabs a plate instead. Then he produces an onion from somewhere and dices it quickly in several directions. As Jethro watches, several cloves of garlic meet their fate in much the same way. “Okay, but the team… There’s all this tension .”

“Because we suck?” Jethro offers. They’ve had three back-to-back losses since Clay arrived. As the goalie, Jethro has been too busy trying to stop shots to notice anything subtler than pucks flying at his face.

“No, it’s bigger than that. The coach always looks like he wants to strangle Laytner.” That’s their team captain. “Which is weird because Laytner is the only decent player who’s not in this room right now.”

Jethro smiles at the compliment, knowing that it’s true. He’s busy keeping their losses to a minimum, while Clay Powers has done his level best to double their shots on goal.

But they can’t do it alone, which is probably why Clay is so stressed out over there, cutting up a red pepper as if it’s personally offended him. “How did Laytner get to be captain, if Coach hates him?” he wonders aloud. “And why is everyone so quiet in the locker room? It’s just weird. But I have an idea. I think I know what we need to do.”

Get some better players and a better coach?

“We have to throw a party.”

“Wait, what?” Jethro has neither money nor friends, and you kind of need both to throw a party.

“Don’t worry. I got this. Doesn’t have to be anything special.” He throws the diced vegetables into the pan with the sizzling meat, and Jethro’s stomach growls.

In his experience, eating pasta means pouring some sauce from a jar over whichever spaghetti was on super sale. It never smells like what Clay’s cooking.

Clay has a jar of pasta sauce on the counter, which he eventually adds to the beef. But he also adds some expensive looking olives, and… heavy cream? His new roommate is some kind of cooking-show guru. It would be more amusing if Jethro wasn’t stressed about how to pay this guy back for sharing his food.

A colander that Jethro didn’t know they had has appeared in Clay’s hands. “Okay, I’ll drain this, and we’ll eat.” He turns off the heat under the pot.

Jethro gets up and joins him in the kitchen space, which is awkward because there’s barely enough room to turn around. Clay serves up two giant plates of pasta and then spoons generous portions of meaty sauce all over them.

“Hold up,” Clay says when Jethro tries to take his. “Don’t forget the cheese.” He grabs a small container and sprinkles its contents heavily all over the plate. “Okay, you’re good to go.”

Their dining set is a shaky card table and folding chairs. They sit down together, and when Jethro takes a tentative bite, he has to hold back a moan. It’s just so good . Meaty and flavorful and hot. Even the penne is better than he’s used to. The flavor is almost nutty.

“Uh, thank you for this,” he says. “Kinda great.”

“De nada.” Clay attacks his own plate, but the wrinkle of worry in his tanned forehead hasn’t eased.

And who’s tan in November?

“The team might turn around,” Jethro offers, feeling he owes his roommate a little conversation while he chows down on this amazing food.

“It has to,” Clay says. “Otherwise, we’ll be stuck in this backwater forever, on this weird-ass team.”

Whatever. Jethro’s life is already complicated, and he’s getting paid actual money to play hockey, even if it’s barely a living wage. Besides—it’s only been two weeks. Things could look up.

In the meantime, he clears his plate.

Clay does the same. Then he puts his elbows on the table and rubs his temples. “I got a headache coming on. This fucking team.”

Jethro gets up to put away Clay’s leftovers and scrub both pans. It’s the least he can do. But when he’s done, Clay is still sitting there, looking miserable. For a charming, rich guy, he’s seriously anxious. “You get a lot of headaches?” Jethro hears himself ask.

“Sometimes,” Clay mutters.

“Drop your head,” he says, tapping Clay between the shoulder blades.

Clay obeys without asking why, a sign of trust that strikes Jethro as both unusual and possibly stupid. They don’t even know each other.

Jethro puts a hand at the base of Clay’s skull and digs his thumb into the muscle there.

“Damn,” Clay whispers. “Harder.”

A shiver runs down Jethro’s spine, but he couldn’t have said why. He massages Clay’s muscular neck, using his other hand to grip the crown of his head where Clay’s hair is softer than he’d imagined. “My, uh, mom used to get a lot of headaches. She hated the meds, so we tried massage. Just to release the neck and shoulder muscles. Like this.” He moves his hands down to the juncture of Clay’s neck and shoulders and applies an even pressure.

Clay groans.

“Drop your shoulders,” Jethro orders, working his hands into the tight muscle. This dude seriously needs to relax.

“Trying to,” Clay mumbles.

Jethro leans in, willing Clay’s muscles to release. He’s solid under his palms. Sturdy.

Then Clay lets out a sudden moan, and Jethro feels lighter inside. Like he’s been useful. “Usually works,” he says unnecessarily. But it’s true—a man’s body is far more predictable than his temper.

Clay sighs. “Your mom’s headaches got better? Without meds?”

“Yeah,” he lies. Because they could have. If she hadn’t driven drunk into a telephone pole and died.

Clay sags happily onto the table. “Thanks, man.”

“De nada,” says Jethro carefully. And Clay laughs.