Page 14 of The Roommate Game

“It’s gonna be…great.” His delivery lacked conviction, but he pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose and smiled and, yep…I was putty in his hands.

“All right. I’ll be here.”

To top off an already strange week, for the first time in the five and a half months we’d been roommates, Rafe initiated a high five.

Weird. I couldn’t read these new signals to save my life. The glasses, the party I had to attend, the lack of general antipathy. And yeah, don’t act so surprised. I knew big words too. Still…nothing in my life made sense at the moment.

Thank God for hockey.

Our season had been full of the usual ups and downs, but the Bears had become a finely tuned machine over the past month, crushing our competition in the postseason. Our passes connected with ease as if we could read signals based on body language or the tilt of a blade.

Personally, I was a little more hit or miss, but the rest of the guys were on fire. Ty especially. He was our AHL-bound superstar and our biggest weapon on the ice. I might have been the captain, but I wasn’t as fast or agile as Ty or Brady. However, I was adept at reading the ice and getting the puck to the most open player.

Right now, that was Ty.

The Bears were up three to two with six minutes left in the third period as I deked around St. Mark’s biggest threat, controlling the puck and maneuvering to the goal. Ty was on my left but I could feel the defender closing in, blocking that option. There was no one else nearby. I had two choices: take the shot myself or dump it.

Now, this was where I relied on almost two decades of training to guide me. This wasn’t rocket science. This was a low-consequence split decision. The only way to fuck it up was to lose control of the puck.

Pass, dump, shoot…what’s it gonna be?

Seconds were ticking like a time bomb, but I froze.

I fucking froze.

“Langley, dump it!” Regan shouted. “Behind you!”

“Yo, Cap…I’ll take that.” St. Mark’s D-wad stripped the puck and skated down my lane on a breakaway with every Bear in the vicinity on his tail.

And scored.

Coach wisely called for a line change, skewering me with a harsh glare. I flopped onto the bench, removed my mouth guard, and guzzled half a bottle of water.

Ty sat beside me and did the same. “What happened out there?”

Shit, I was sweating all over again—more than the lights and nonstop action called for. My hair was drenched, my socks were wet, and I was parched. I drank more water and shook my head. “I don’t know. We’ll get it back.”

We did. No thanks to me.

I didn’t touch the puck once on the play that eventually led to a score in the final minute of the game.

However, we won, and that was what mattered. I pumped up my team like I always did and gave the requisite “We got this, Bears” speech that everyone expected. No one questioned mygame, but I did get a few funny looks when I suggested going to Vincento’s rather than to my house.

“No party? You okay, Langley?” some smartass piped up.

I gave him the finger and dropped my towel on my way to the showers. The hoots of laughter and the usual locker room melee were a balm to my inner frazzled state. I belonged with these guys. I was a team member, a friend, a captain.

I was somebody.

Now I just had to convince myself that losing hockey wouldn’t be the end of me.

CHAPTER 6

GUS

Whoa.This was the first Saturday I’d woken up without a hangover or a real itinerary in…weeks. After a mini Rafe sighting over coffee, where he’d reminded me for the fuckteenth time that his party started at four p.m., he disappeared to run errands.Cagey little shit.If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was up to something.

Whatever.