Page 9 of The Trade Deadline

Chapter 6

Ryan

After the locker room song battle, Ryan got confirmation that Lars 100% didn’t know him. It was actually kind of a relief, because it gave him some piece of control in the situation. He wasn’t the guy who’d had a one night stand with Lars Nilsson after his team had a shitty performance, and he wasn’t the guy whose former hookup was now on his team. He was a guy who knew a secret about his teammate that might help him gain an advantage. The advantage he chose to take? Amusing himself at Lars’s expense.

He hinted at Juniors in little ways, now secure that Lars would never make the connection. Once every few days, he’d slip in a question.

“Is your favorite color gold?”

“No,” Lars said seriously, if not without an adorable furrow between his brows. “I like green.”

Or, “Where did you play before the NHL?”

“I played for Fr?lunda HC and Team Sweden,” he said with a proud smile, and Ryan had to cut him off before he could direct the question back at him.

And once, boldly, “Have you ever been to Switzerland?”

“Yes! I was in Geneva for a few weeks the last time I played Juniors. Why?” A suspicious, calculating look made Ryan think he’d finally gone too far. He needn’t have worried, because Lars asked, “Are you Swiss?”

When he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing, Ryan wondered if he was being mean. It wasn’t as though it hurt Lars because only Ryan knew what he was doing, but it did wonders to ease his nerves. And he had a lot of anxiety about Lars’s appearance on the team, so he needed what little help he could get.

He decided it was maybe a little mean and he’d stop if anyone else noticed or if he thought it bothered Lars.

Satisfied, he plotted his next few questions and was delighted each time Lars answered as truthfully and obliviously as ever.

* * *

“He’s kind of a loner, isn’t he?”

Ryan looked up. Vorny, their goalie, was eyeing Lars.

Ryan shrugged and went back to untying his skates. Lars had complimented him at practice, which was messing with his equilibrium. Sure, teammates told him he did well, but that was during games, not practice. And it was Lars. There was nothing Lars could do or say to him that he wouldn’t (unfortunately) overanalyze. He wished he was as blissfully unaware of their hookup as Lars, because ugh.

“He’s new,” Ryan said as he wiggled his left foot out of his skate and flexed his toes. “It’s hard being the new guy.”

Ryan was speaking from experience. While Vorny had probably been the new guy on teams at some point, he was going on season five with the team who’d drafted him in the first round and had him playing as the starter most of his rookie year. Being the new guy wasn’t an experience Vorny had contended with in a while.

“I suppose,” Vorny conceded. “Is it true he calls you Brian?”

Ryan did his best not to make a face and tried to force his expression into a lopsided grin instead of whatever his actual reaction was. “Doesn’t he call everyone by their first name?”

“Yes,” Vorny agreed with a hint of disapproval. “I don’t like it. No one says my name right. And your name isn’t Brian.”

Both true—Ryan wouldn’t even attempt to say Vladislav Voronin if he could help it—but he was trying his best to keep his personal feelings about Lars out of the equation when it came to their teammates.

There was a slight pause where Ryan debated the wisdom of speaking versus keeping his damn mouth shut, but in the end, he was too nice not to say it. “Aren’t you guys going out tonight for drinks? Why don’t you invite him?”

Vorny hummed in consideration. “Not a bad idea.” He stood abruptly. “Come with me. We’ll ask him.”

“Me?” Ryan also stood up, but not as a call to action; he had to take off his hockey pants, and he did so with undue concentration. “What’s this gotta do with me?”

“He likes you,” Vorny said, and it was rather unfortunate that it made Ryan blush. It was absolutely not true or Lars would remember him, but he couldn’t exactly say that. Lars had consistently talked to Ryan more than anyone else for whatever reason, so he understood why Vorny would get the wrong impression. “You don’t have to go drinking,” he assured Ryan, misunderstanding his apprehension, “but if you stand next to me when I ask, I think it improves the odds, yes?” And then without waiting for a response, he grabbed Ryan by the arm and marched them over to where Lars was pulling on his shirt.

“Vorny!” Ryan protested. He tried to pull away, but the goalie’s grip was like a vice. He’d have to put his whole body into breaking free, and that would only make it more awkward.

Vorny, of course, ignored him and only let go once they were right in front of Lars, blocking his escape from the locker room. He looked up at them through his lashes, light brown with flecks of blond at the end, and raised an expectant eyebrow.

“We’re going drinking,” Vorny said, Russian accent suddenly ten times thicker. “You will come with us.”

Lars’s gaze darted between them. “Just you two?”

Vorny shook his head. “Whole team.” A pause as Ryan nudged him. He sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. “Most of team. RJ doesn’t drink.”

Lars frowned and fixed his attention on Ryan. “Doesn’t drink?”

“Not during the season,” Ryan clarified. They hadn’t technically had any games, but they were well into training and Ryan wouldn’t touch alcohol again until maybe Thanksgiving when his sisters talked him into a few glasses of wine so they could shit talk their parents, aunts, and uncles in the basement den.

“His body is a temple,” Vorny deadpanned, his lips curling as he repeated the running joke. He shot Ryan a disapproving scowl before turning back to Lars. “You will come with us,” he repeated, this time more a threat than an invitation. “We will meet at the Rangoons in Fed Hill at seven. The skate tomorrow morning is optional, so we can drink as much as we like.” A sideways look at Ryan. “Or as little.”

Lars nodded as he considered. “And you’ll both be there?” he asked. He kept his focus on Vorny, who did the same, and Ryan suddenly felt like he was a bargaining chip in some weird poker game.

“If you will be, then he will be,” Vorny agreed.

“I—” Vorny elbowed Ryan before he could finish.

“Then I guess we’ll both be there,” Lars eventually said with a business-like nod.

“Good,” Vorny said, then pointedly shooed Ryan away before he could argue.

“I don’t want to go,” Ryan whined. It wasn’t the socializing—he frequently went out with the guys, both in town and on road trips—or even the drinking. They’d overdo it for sure and tease Ryan for abstaining, but that generally didn’t bother him and he’d long ago accepted that his role on most teams was to babysit drunken teammates who forgot how to order an Uber. He was just…tired. Drained. The amount of energy he put into practice, plus the added mental gymnastics of the Lars situation, had him in Tanner’s apartment most evenings eating takeout and falling asleep to the sound of video games.

“And yet you will,” Vorny said. He patted Ryan’s shoulder and walked away. Ryan had no way to back out without looking like a weasel. Great.

He caught a glimpse of Lars leaving the locker room, blond hair a damp mess from his shower. Once out of sight, Ryan vividly recalled the younger Lars he'd met at a hotel bar. His hair wasn’t long anymore, and all of the baby fat had melted away, but he hadn’t quite escaped the boyish twinkle to his eye. Heart suddenly in his throat, Ryan resigned himself to going to Rangoons.

* * *

Ryan sipped his soda and watched Vorny and the Ivans (Nikita Ivanov and Ivan Petrovich, forwards on the same line that also seemed to come as a duo off the ice) at the pinball machine. All three held the top scores, their places marked by their last initial and jersey number. Well, usually they had the whole leaderboard. Tonight they’d come into the back room reserved for the team and found, to their dismay, that three of the top ten places now belonged to a mysterious ASS. They’d be there all night until they reclaimed the spots. Even if it meant bribing the owner into manually resetting the machine.

Vorny was cursing in Russian as the other two nudged the machine to tilt it to help him when a large figure sidled up to Ryan.

“What are you wearing?”

Ryan turned and found himself almost nose to nose with Lars. Ryan tensed and wished he were a pinball nerd so that he wouldn’t be alone with Lars. This wasn’t a rink; he couldn’t hide behind hockey here.

“Huh?” he asked a little too gruffly.

“That.” Lars pointed to his chest. “What is that?”

He got lost in Nordic blue eyes before he snapped himself out of it and looked down. He was wearing a light blue Hawaiian shirt with a crab pattern; his hands clenched fistfuls of the fabric under the table.

“Oh. I’ve got a bunch of crab-themed clothes. This is my favorite,” he said, surprising them both with his honest answer and even more when he expanded with a self-deprecating, “I don’t know what I’ll do with it all if they trade me.”

“Why would they trade you?” Lars asked, way too serious. If he hadn’t figured out by now that Ryan was a nobody on the team, Ryan didn’t really want to get into it now.

“Did you find this place okay?” He expected some push back from the subject change, but Lars either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“It’s close enough to my apartment that I walked here.”

That didn’t surprise him. Rangoons was a high end sports bar in a swanky part of town. Of course Lars would’ve picked a place nearby. A couple other guys from the team were within walking distance, mostly the younger ones with no families and healthy contracts.

“The hostess nearly fainted when she saw me,” Lars said with a pleased little smirk. “Hard to find a real sports bar where they recognize players.”

“Yeah,” he said. And then because he felt like an ass for stopping there, he added, “They play every Baltimore sports game here. You should see them during football season.”

“Portland doesn’t have football. Will I have to learn?”

Ryan snorted. “No.” Just this morning, that was where he would’ve stopped; when he just kept going, he wondered if someone had spiked his soda. “You don’t have to, but it’ll impress the fans if you mention literally anything about the other teams.” He spotted their server coming over, his eyes wide and eager as he zeroed in on Lars. “You gonna get a strawberry daiquiri?” he blurted out.

Lars perked up. “Do they have those?”

“No,” Ryan said as their server arrived. “Lots of beer, though. Like, lots .”

“One hundred different beers on tap,” the server confirmed. He looked like he wanted to ask Lars for his autograph, but didn’t. That was one thing the Rangoons had going for them over other places in town: the staff never treated them any differently than other patrons. “Need a recommendation?”

“Something light,” Lars said dismissively, his eyes never leaving Ryan.

“And three orders of rangoons,” Ryan added. It was his one cheat food, and they were delicious. He’d ordered knowing the smell would attract Vorny and the others, who would then steal most of them.

Once they were gone, Lars asked, “I thought rangoon was just the name of the bar.”

“It’s also a dish. Crab rangoons. Fried crab and cream cheese. You’ll love ‘em. It’s their specialty. Plus, y’know.” He gestured between his shirt, the two of them, and their teammates.

“Names are hard,” he said slowly. “Things aren’t like that in Sweden. Or maybe I don’t know English well enough to understand them. Like Jake. Why does everyone call him Soups? Does he really like soup? Or is he like Superman or something?”

Ryan stifled a laugh and pulled out his phone. “Like the soup,” he said as he held up an image of a Campbell’s Soup can. “Campbell.”

Lars’s eyes went wide. “I’ve seen that.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, though he had no idea. “That’s more a cultural thing. Your English is great.” Better than it was seven years ago.

“Better than it was when I started,” Lars echoed his thought. “Being in the States helps, but I still need help.” The server returned with Lars’s beer and another soda for Ryan, and a quiet settled between them as they sipped tentatively at their drinks. Ryan considered whether he should make an excuse to go home or disappear to the main bar for a bit until more people arrived, when Lars asked, “Why does the team call you RJ?”

Ryan had the weird impulse to lie. As much as it had annoyed him (read: pissed him off) that Lars didn’t remember him and couldn’t even get his name right, he kind of enjoyed that Lars called him Brian. He didn’t like that he liked it, because it either meant he enjoyed an excuse to feel superior to Lars or he liked the weird flutter it caused in his chest whenever Lars said it. He never wanted to figure out which it was, so it was probably for the best he just got this over with.

“Because those are my initials.”

Lars frowned, this adorable pinch between his eyes. “Initials? What does it stand for?”

“Ryan Junior.”

“Ryan?” Lars’s head jerked back like he’d been slapped, his cheeks coloring the same rosy tinge as when he went all out at practice and was breathless from exertion.

Ryan nodded grimly.

Lars buried his face in his hands and moaned. “I’ve been calling you Brian like a jubelidiot .” He peeked through his fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…” That was complicated. Ryan wondered how much to share when Lars abruptly sat up straight and sighed.

“No, I understand. You’re too nice and didn’t want to embarrass me.” He reached across the table top and squeezed Ryan’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

And he looked genuinely sorry. Embarrassed, too. He stared at Ryan earnestly, like everything hinged upon Ryan forgiving him for what was an honest mistake (and admittedly a common one—it wasn’t the first time someone had called him Brian).

Ryan sat there, jaw dropping, because what? People like Lars Nilsson didn’t apologize to people like Ryan. Or if they did, they didn’t really care if they were forgiven.

“It’s okay,” Ryan assured him and actually meant it.

“It’s not, but thank you.” Lars removed his hand, leaving Ryan’s shoulder feeling cold and bare. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to—” The server stopped by and dropped off three platters of crab rangoons. Ryan took one and pointed with his chin that Lars should do the same. “They’re better warm and you gotta be quick or?—”

“Food!”

Vorny, the Ivans, and two other teammates Ryan hadn’t noticed rushed the table. Lars quickly grabbed two and held them close to his chest protectively as the rest disappeared far too quickly. With the growing crowd, Ryan was able to lose the weight of Lars’s attention. He even escaped to play darts while Lars stayed at the table, and Ryan managed to keep his distance the rest of the evening. They didn’t say another word to each other, but occasionally their eyes would lock across the room and every time, Ryan could hear the promise as clearly as he had the first time.

I’ll make it up to you.