by Tricia Owens
“Because I don’t think with my dick.” Neil, wearing his shirt and holding his jacket, looked around for his pants and underwear. Adrian saw them, and surreptitiously kicked them under the bed.
“You’re telling me you’re going to go the entire season without getting off?” Adrian asked, dubious. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Your blue balls won’t fit in your jock. You’re going to play like garbage.”
“Yeah? Well, that won’t be out of character for me, will it?”
Adrian stared at him, struck momentarily dumb by the self-disgust in Neil’s voice. Neil ignored him, continuing to look for his clothes. With a sigh, Adrian accepted defeat and went in search of his own pair of jeans, though he didn’t point out where Neil’s were. He enjoyed looking at his bare ass too much.
“Is this because of the trade?” Adrian asked after pulling on and buttoning his jeans. “You’re still pissed? Don’t tell me you think this was a pity fuck, too?”
Neil shot him a dirty look. “You only got me tonight because I haven’t slept in nearly two days and I’m not thinking clearly. This has been a lousy day.”
“Lousy because you’re now on my team.”
“Doesn’t help,” Neil acknowledged off-handedly.
Adrian frowned. He wanted to grab Neil and shake him and order him to give Adrian his full attention. But Neil was still looking for his jeans and underwear and seemed to be using the hunt for them as an excuse to give Adrian the cold shoulder. It wasn’t something he was used to.
Was that part of the problem? Was Adrian so accustomed to things and people going his way that the first time someone resisted him, he didn’t know how to handle it? He’d claimed he liked challenges, but had he ever faced one outside the rink? One on a level with his biggest adult crush?
“You and I need to talk,” he said firmly. He motioned at the unkempt bed, where he’d made memories that would last a lifetime but he hoped wouldn’t be the only ones he made with Neil. “Forget, for the moment, what just happened here. We need to get our relationship on the team sorted out. We can’t bring this to the other guys. It’ll be cancer in the locker room.”
“I’m a professional.” It seemed to be a favorite statement of Neil’s. “I have never been and never will be a cancer in the locker room. Where are my fucking jeans?!”
Adrian calmly walked to the bed, bent down, and pulled the clothes out. He tossed them at Neil. “Get dressed and stop acting like a prima donna.”
Neil gave him a look to bend metal, but suddenly frowned at himself and let his shoulders droop. “I’m not a prima donna,” he said quietly. “I’m a team player.”
“I know, which is why I said it. If I really thought you were a prima donna, I wouldn’t care what you had to say.” Adrian looked around before grabbing the sole chair in the room, an ugly upholstered thing, and dragged it to the center of the room. It was a squeeze to get into it, but he managed. “I do care what you have to say because I respect you, Neil. So please show me the same respect and talk to me.”
After pulling on the rest of his clothes, Neil paused and dragged a hand through his dark hair, untangling the unruly waves. A barrier seemed to have risen between him and Adrian, a cool distance, though Adrian didn’t sense any hostility in it. Neil mostly seemed mentally and emotionally exhausted. Adrian fucking his brains out probably wore him out a little, too, but Adrian tried to be modest and not include that.
“I don’t want to be on this team,” Neil stated.
Adrian smiled and motioned at the end of the bed. “Please. Have a seat.”
He could tell Neil didn’t see only a bed when he looked at it. He remembered everything they’d done there. Watching him closely, Adrian liked that Neil’s look seemed to linger almost wistfully.
He could work with that.
After a few seconds, Neil hesitantly sat on the corner of the mattress farthest from Adrian and folded over, elbows on his knees.
“I had a team,” Neil went on as he stared at the carpet between his feet. “It was my team. I worked my ass off for it and took it to the Finals. And then you tore me away from it.” He looked up from beneath his brows. “Why? And don’t feed me that crap about wanting the Cup. We all want the Cup but we don’t bully our GMs to make a trade for a rival.”
Adrian sat back and rested an ankle on the opposite knee. “I wanted you.”
Neil licked his lips nervously. “Bullshit.”
“Okay, you’re right. Not in that way—” although he most certainly did, “—but I want to play with the best. That means Neil Shannon. The fact your team made you available was an opening I couldn’t let slip by. Moments like that don’t come often. I was willing to push, but luckily management agreed with me. Everyone wanted you.”
“Then you’re all delusional. You shouldn’t have wanted me. I’m not the player I was.”
Adrian sat forward, dropping his foot to the carpet. “That’s a load of bull. You said yourself on the bus there’s nothing wrong with you. Your injuries weren’t the kind that’ll affect you again. There’s nothing stopping you from playing at the same level you’ve been playing your entire career.”
“Have you seen me play lately?” Neil demanded with sudden passion. The color that had just begun to fade from his cheeks returned, splotching his pale skin. “I’m not the same player and I’m pretty damn sure I never will be because there's something wrong with my—with my—”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Adrian told him, beginning to slot some pieces together in his mind. “You’re not the guy I ran into at the awards. You check out medically. Your baseline tests match up. There’s nothing wrong with you that a good team won’t fix.”
“I had a good team.”
“Maybe, or maybe you had the same team I did, which was good because of us.” Adrian shrugged. “I’m not full of myself, okay, but I’m aware of my abilities just as I’m sure you’re aware of yours. We have to be. We need to know our value. You and I were the reasons our teams made it to the Finals. That’s why it’s unbelievable to me that the Snowdevils hung you out to dry when your performance dropped off.”
“They didn’t hang me out to dry,” Neil mumbled, though he sounded unconvinced. A day away from his old team seemed to be helping him gain some perspective.
“They lost confidence in you because they believe you’ve lost confidence in yourself. But it’s only temporary. I know how you are.”
Neil’s laugh was dry. He eyed Adrian skeptically. “You don’t know anything about me.” He colored. “This doesn’t count.”
Adrian grinned. “Sure felt like it counted. Looks like you’re sitting on one hip, so you must have felt it, too.”
“Screw you.”
“Give me another hour or so and I’ll be game for it.”
Neil covered his face with both hands and sighed into his palms. “No. Just no. We can’t do this or talk about this—never again. No.”
Adrian sobered, understanding the gravity of the situation. “We can be discreet. Believe it or not I can keep my mouth shut when it counts.”
“Sure you can,” Neil said into his hands. “And I’m supposed to trust my entire career to you. No thank you. No offense.”
“Well, I kinda am offended—”
Neil abruptly rose to his feet, avoiding Adrian’s eyes. “I need to go.”
Adrian rose, too. “Neil, wait.”
“No.” Neil pointed at him as he backed a semi-circle away from him to reach the door. “We slept together. We fucked. That’s it. Fun while it lasted but we’re never bringing this up again. I’ll play hockey alongside you until you figure out I should be on the third line, but you’re not entitled to anything more from me than my effort on the ice. I hope you’re prepared to be disappointed this season, Magnusson, because that’s what you and the Kraken have just purchased for yourselves.”
“Um, you’re sounding pretty melodramatic right now.”
“That’s because I’m a prima donna,” Neil shot ba
ck, and walked out the door without another look back.
Adrian stared at the shut door. “Well, hell.”
.
Chapter 8
Everything moved at lightning speed. After flying from Baltimore and arriving in Seattle, Neil was given only a couple of hours before he participated in the overdue press conference to discuss his trade to the Kraken. He said all the right things, was gracious to Denver and its fans, and sounded excited about starting something new in Seattle. But although he was practiced at spewing out robotic, harmless sound bites, this time felt infinitely more difficult. Wrangling his expression to hide his emotions was exhausting, and his brain throbbed with the effort of putting a positive spin on every answer he gave.
But this was life as a hockey player. This was life as a superstar, and he did his best because he understood his duty to his fans and to the league. Neil was Mr. Hockey, and that was a burden he willingly bore because it was something he could control, unlike his health problems.
His brain felt swollen and his arm ached as he dropped his gear and luggage into the one-bedroom apartment the team had provided for him while he transitioned to the city. It was fully furnished and less than ten miles from the Kraken’s arena. The practice facility was even closer. He suspected the apartment was an upgrade over what new, mid-tier players received. He also suspected that Adrian Magnusson had had a hand in making sure that it was the best it could be.
Neil flopped onto the comfortable sofa and stared out the window at a gray day. His thoughts drifted to Adrian. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Neil had been getting his brains fucked out by the Swedish winger. He laughed in the quiet of his apartment, still slightly incredulous that it had happened.
A dopy smile settled on his face. What a night. It had exceeded his fantasies because all of it had been real and even better, Adrian had been into it. He’d been very into it, which was more than Neil could have hoped for. Adrian would definitely push for a repeat performance, and that was as wonderful as it was worrisome.
Neil sighed, his smile fading. He couldn’t throw caution to the wind like Adrian was willing to do. It was impossible. Merely imagining the reaction of the various charities he worked with once they learned that he was gay was enough to curdle the latte he’d drank on the drive over. As progressive as the world was becoming, sports involved children, and he knew there existed a noisy minority that would provide ugly pushback against a gay athlete being a role model to those children. It was gross and it sickened Neil, but it was a mindset that could only be changed with time and continued education. Maybe the next generation of hockey players after him would be the game changers.
It wouldn’t be him.
Thus the memories of Adrian’s awesome chest and abs, the thickness of his thighs and the power in his hips, would tide Neil over for the remainder of his career. Fortunately, Neil had a good memory. Unfortunately, that might work against him while he tried to play hockey alongside a man whose cock made Neil’s mouth water.
A buzzing in his pocket prompted him to quickly sit up. He checked his phone and smiled at the screen as he answered.
“I’m here and I’m fine.”
“Too little, too late,” his sister muttered, clearly annoyed. “What happened to last night’s game? That was your frickin’ debut with the Kraken, Neil! What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I shouldn’t be playing after feeling a tweak.”
“Oh, puh-leeze. A tweak. Do you know how bad it looked that you were out with an injury after being traded from a team that had issues with your previous injuries?”
“I’m not risking my career because of bad optics, Moira.”
“Okay, but maybe you need to start paying a little more attention to them. You know I want the best for you, Neil. This is a fresh start. It’s your chance to put all that weirdness behind you. But you gotta start doing it now. Don’t bring that baggage to Seattle.”
He hated that she was right, especially with her being his sister. It was extra salt in the wound.
“I’m playing in our next game, so you can stop freaking out,” he told her.
“Good.” Her tone abruptly changed, becoming sly. “So Adrian Magnusson as your linemate, hmm? Have you checked out his peach in the locker room yet? And what about his you-know-what? I need the details, Neil. This is vital.”
“I’m not breaking my teammates’ trust by sharing their intimate details with a misguided young lady who should know better.”
“Who are you talking about?”
He gulped down a laugh. “We’re teammates now, which means we’re going to be professional toward each other.” Now that we’ve exorcised the lust from our systems.
“Well, you’re just boring. Fine,” she sighed. “I hope he’s a good guy and that you can get along with him. I’m excited about this, just so you know. I feel like this is your year.”
He smiled. “And not last year, when we stormed to the Finals?”
“I was optimistic then, too, but I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Turns out it did, when you got injured and the Snowdevils had nothing else left in the tank.”
“You and I were the reasons our teams made it to the Finals.”
Moira would be thrilled to learn she shared an opinion with Adrian.
“This year, you’ve got Maggy to pick up the slack,” she went on.
He rolled his eyes. “’Maggy’? Really, Moira?”
“What? Everyone else calls him that. You should, too!”
“Do you want me to get you his autograph?” he drawled.
“I’m hanging up. You’d better kick butt in your next game so you don’t embarrass me.”
“Somehow, I still love you.”
“Somehow, I love you more. Bye.”
The call, though slightly aggravating because it was Moira and sisters were inherently aggravating, inspired him to action. She was right that this was a fresh start for him. His season with the Snowdevils had ended on a dark note which hadn’t brightened through the new season. He had a chance in Seattle to find the light again. To find the fun in hockey again.
Inspired, he set to unpacking.
He was just finishing hanging up his clothes when the doorbell chimed pleasantly. Wary, he approached the door and peered out. He was relieved to see that it wasn’t who he’d feared.
“Hey,” Neil greeted Elias Koskinen, their top line center. The Swede was accompanied by the rookie on their third line, a twenty-year-old kid with the notable name of Bastion Hemlock.
“Welcome to Seattle,” Elias said with a broad smile. “Thought you might like some help settling in and finding your way around.”
“That’s really helpful, thank you,” Neil said as he stepped back to allow the two men inside. “This is my first time here, actually, so I’m driving blind.”
“Wow, nice digs,” Bastion said. The dark-haired, dark-eyed young man walked, awed, through the living room and kitchen before pausing at the balcony to look out at the view. “I’m farther out and my place looks like a dorm room.”
“This is the kind of place you earn, kid.” Elias snuck a wink at Neil. Neil could tell the captain held affection for his younger teammate. “Neiler and I stayed in plenty of dumps early in our careers. One day you’ll be worth a place like this, too. Or else you’ll get traded.”
“Ha-ha,” Bastion said, good-naturedly accepting the hair ruffling he received from Elias. His smile turned slightly bashful as he turned it on Neil. “Sorry I didn’t get the chance to talk with you until now. Things just kind of happened.”
“It didn’t help that I was a scratch for the game,” Neil replied.
“Yeah, true. Are you okay now?”
Ignoring the twang of guilt, Neil nodded. “Just a precautionary measure. I’m good to go.”
Elias clapped Neil on the side of the arm. “You up for a ride to the practice facility? We could show you the best route and give you the grand tour.”
“That sounds perfect. Loo
king forward to seeing my new home.”
Elias slung an arm behind Bastion’s neck and dragged the younger man with him to the door. “Alright let’s go. And kid, what are you doing? Why is Neiler carrying his own bag?”
Neil smirked as Bastion sighed and held out his arms.
Neil passed him the heavy bag. “One day, you’ll do this to someone else,” he promised.
The younger winger groaned, “So I keep hearing. It better be true.”
~~~~~
“So, uh, I’ve been following your career since I’ve been in juniors,” Bastion admitted without looking at Neil. “Kind of a big fan.”
The three of them had laced up for a quick skate to allow Neil to get a feel for the practice rink. Since everything was only a year old, the facilities were impressive, but he would have been happy playing on a backyard pond. It was the game that mattered to him, not the fancy extras. He Bastion were taking turns shooting pucks into the net while Elias cleared out the ones they’d already shot.
“Nothing like a little pressure,” Neil joked in response to Bastion’s admission that he was a fan.
“Nah, I know it won’t matter,” Bastion replied. “You’ve always been good under pressure.”
“I’ve heard some good things about you, too, you know. Looks like you’re going to be the future star of this team.”
Bastion shrugged, self-conscious. “I’m going to try. That’s all I can do, but I’m going to try my hardest. I know what a chance I have here, playing right out of the draft. I have to make the most of it.” He glanced at Neil. “Not sure I’ll get the Calder Trophy like you did, though.”
“Rookie of the Year is some nice hardware, but what matters more is how you affect your team. Being a productive teammate is better than being a great one-man show.”
“When you were with Colorado, was it tough to make that happen, though? You were so much better than everyone else. You carried their weight.”