by Avon Gale
“Listen, Jared. I wanted you to know that I’ve talked to the guys for the Renegades, and let them know your interest in a three-year contract. I think it’s a good possibility. Real good. So if you want to look at that condo, I’d say go for it.”
Jared thanked him, told him to keep going with the negotiations, and hung up. He knew that Jimmy would indeed work on his contract, but not until the summer, like he always did. It was nice to hear that he might get the contract he wanted and be able to retire from a team he really liked in a city he’d come to love.
Lane was called up again, to Syracuse, right before the playoffs. He didn’t have a great game—in fact he was on the ice for a goal against the Crunch. But he did keep up better with the other players, and the coaches remarked on his improved speed. Jared was happy for him, and he knew Lane wasn’t going to stay in the league another season. He was going to move up sooner rather than later.
They found time to see each other, and for Lane’s birthday, Jared was happy to meet some of Lane’s teammates, who went out with them. After all, it was Lane’s twenty-first birthday, and they had to get the guy hammered. Right? He met Riley Hunter, the Storm’s goalie. And they did not have a threesome with him, though Lane suggested it, slurring his words and trying to kiss Jared in the bathroom at the bar.
Zoe was there with Ryan, who had skated by Jared a few weeks before and said, “Keep your hands off my captain’s ass, you fucking cocksucker.” Then he laughed maniacally and stole the puck from him. Jared responded by knocking into Lane on the ice—hard. Then Jared scored a goal on Riley after telling him, “My boyfriend thinks you should blow me.”
None of it was anything Jared took personally, but he gave Ryan and Lane shit for it. But not when Zoe was around, which made Ryan nod drunkenly and fist bump him, telling Jared, “You get the guy code. Cool.”
Riley, who was one of the calmest goalies Jared had ever met, just shrugged. He didn’t appear drunk, but it was hard to tell with him. A couple of the other Storm players dropped by and didn’t stay, but it was nice to see that Lane had friends there who accepted him for who he was.
But he’s not going to be here, not that long. Jared couldn’t help thinking that, if Lane were to stick around for a couple of years, everything would be perfect. Except it wouldn’t be, because there was a reason they called the league “Easy Come, Hard to Leave.” And Lane, having found acceptance and friendship, camaraderie and a team captaincy.... What if that was enough to keep him from what he really wanted?
Jared gave up his chance for a big-league career when he walked off his college team and signed with the Cyclones. And now that he was playing so well, he couldn’t help wonder what might have happened if he’d stayed. If he’d been drafted out of college, where would he have ended up? If someone had believed in him, instead of lying to him and telling him they did, just to fuck him....
It doesn’t matter. He wasn’t Lane, and he couldn’t make Lane’s decisions for him. But when Lane was crawling all over him, drunk and handsy, and his eyes a bright blue blur of happiness and alcohol, it was tempting to think about having him for longer than a few more months.
Because Jared realized that it wasn’t just Lane who was happier. He had also found friends and acceptance, a team... things he hadn’t known he wanted. But without them, he’d been slowly sinking into a mild depression. Jared wasn’t really afraid of what to do after hockey anymore, and he knew it was because of Lane.
Now he was just afraid of that. Because Lane was young and had his whole career in front of him. He wouldn’t want a retired player following him around. Would he? There would be plenty of other guys, younger guys, who would be all over Lane. Maybe he was supposed to be there to help Lane get over his issues and be comfortable with being gay? And that was all fine and great, really. But what did that mean for Jared?
He’d gone from being freaked out about what to do after hockey to being freaked out about what to do after Lane.
Maybe these weren’t different things. He didn’t know anymore. Maybe if this ended—when this ended—it wouldn’t devastate him like it had the last time. Lane learns to be gay, I learn to love again? Jared considered punching himself in the face for that one because it sounded so absurd.
But it did make him think about Andrew Whittaker and why he’d left college. And Lane, in his earnest voice, telling him, “I can wait to hear your story until you’re ready.”
Jared was ready, but there was one small problem.
The playoffs.
The race for division winner came down to the last game of the season.
The games were grueling, but the atmosphere was electric, and everyone was caught up in it. Jared got some good-natured teasing—and some not good-natured teasing, because it was that time of year—from his teammates about “sleeping with the enemy,” though he and Lane had barely seen each other in weeks.
The last regular-season game between the Storm and the Renegades turned into a brawl, with even the team’s two goalies—calm, even-tempered Riley and the Renegades’ temperamental Vladimir Zubarev—throwing down their gloves. Hunter was thoroughly pummeled by the much bigger Zubarev, who had been known to throw his goalie stick at his own teammates during practice.
Jared, who’d been fighting Ethan Kennedy, as everyone expected, was surprised when Kennedy stopped messing with him and made a beeline for the two goalies. He yanked Zubarev off Hunter and gave the Russian netminder a black eye while yelling, “Get the fuck away from my goalie.” He also got a two-game suspension, which everyone—even Zubarev—agreed was ridiculous. Jared, who didn’t have a fight partner after Kennedy took off, found himself standing next to Lane.
“Wanna go?” he asked, grinning. “I gave you lessons. Come on. Show me what you learned, pipsqueak.”
Lane threw his gloves off and tried to tackle him. Jared was cracking up laughing, until Lane socked him in the jaw—a lot harder than last time too. Jared stopped laughing after that, and he thought he and Lane had a respectable fight. It was uploaded to YouTube later that night, and he and Lane watched it repeatedly after they had really rough and fantastic sex on Jared’s floor.
The brawl ended with the Sea Storm winning the game 6-2, the coaches pissed off, and highlights on ESPN that both teams saw when they went for beers after the game.
“Sorry I had to leave,” Ethan Kennedy said at the bar, sliding next to him on a stool. “I was going to beat you up, but you know. Had to protect my goalie.”
Zubarev and Hunter were both having a beer and talking very animatedly. They looked like old friends by the time the teams went their separate ways, and Jared overheard Kennedy apologizing for the black eye he’d given Zubarev.
“I don’t have anything against Russians,” Kennedy said. “I think we should have open borders. Just don’t try and hit Hunter again. Okay?”
That’s what happened when your sport was invented by Canadians—even though Kennedy was from New York.
Hockey players. They weren’t like other people, but Jared loved that two teams in a death match one minute could go for beers and cheer at their fight recaps the next.
Jared wanted to tell Lane about Andrew that night, but they were both too turned on after the game. Besides, it was going to be a while until they saw each other again. They had to make the most of their time, and that definitely didn’t include using their mouths—to talk.
The Renegades ended the season two points behind the Sea Storm, putting them in fourth place. Everyone was disappointed, but nearly the entire team agreed that the brawl had been fun—so let the Storm have the home-ice advantage, along with all the pressure. They were ready. They were going to do it, and it didn’t matter on whose ice. They were going to win.
And they did win. The playoff schedule was three rounds of best-of-seven games, and the Renegades took care of the Toledo Jackhammers—named such, according to the Jackhammers’ captain, because Ohio was always under construction—in a fairly easy three-to-one series.
The Sea Storm, as the number one ranked team, eliminated their first opponents in a four-game sweep. Lane led the playoffs in goals scored, and Jared was proud of him when he was sure no one would notice.
Jared scored a few goals but he also notched quite a few assists, so much so that he led the playoffs in that statistic. He went through the last two games of their series with the Jackhammers without a single fight, which was both amazing and a little disappointing for the fans—if not for Jared. They were still thrilled at their veteran’s amazing season. They just wanted him to throw a punch or two at the same time.
Luckily for them the next round delivered that and then some. The Evansville Eagles were an upset win over a higher-ranked team, and they were riding high on adrenaline and ready to play. They weren’t quite like any other team the Renegades had played before, and they gave them fits. Their skaters were fast and, like the Storm, they were prone to fancy moves and complex plays. Unlike the Storm, the Renegades hadn’t played them enough to figure them out.
After the fourth game, with the series tied at 2-2, Lane sent him a text message. u can beat them come on want 2 have a conference final with your team and then, go high glove side on their goalie once and you can score there all night.
Jared sent back so the goalie is your mom??, because he was in playoff mode. Followed by thnx that’s good advice good luck with the Ice Dogs. Which wasn’t necessary, because the Sea Storm proved why they were the leading team in the conference—and the league—and defeated the Ice Dogs four games to two.
The Renegades won the next two games with the Eagles, though the final game went to overtime. Not a very long one, though, as Leblanc scored in the first twenty seconds and sent the Renegades to the conference championships for the first time in franchise history.
They weren’t that old a franchise, but still. The party after the win was epic, and Jared had to endure Lane’s howls of laughter when he played the voice mail message Jared left, which was nonsensical screaming interspersed with him yelling, “Me and my lucky dragon will own you, Courtnall!” and ended with Jared saying, “I love you, okay?” three times in a row.
The Renegades and the Sea Storm were going to the conference finals, which was amazing and awesome and meant that the winner would play for the Kelly Cup in the championship. Jared wanted that more than he’d wanted anything in his entire professional career, and that was something else he’d figured out about himself. He’d been afraid of it—the emotional highs and lows of completely immersing himself in the competition of his sport—and if he regretted anything, it was that it took him so long to do it. It was his Stanley Cup. No. It was his Kelly Cup. He wasn’t ashamed to play in this league and fight for its prize. He just wanted to win.
He and Lane decided they couldn’t see each other during their playoff series, for a variety of reasons, including that their respective teammates would kill them. They kept that promise for all of two games. But then they ran into each other after the game, found a hidden spot in the arena where they could make out, and then Lane sucked him off, and Jared gave him a hand job.
The series was tied 2-2 after the first four games. When the Storm made it three games to two, the Renegades had a chance to avenge their end-of-season loss and keep the Storm from advancing to the finals on Renegade’s home ice in Savannah. The game was high-spirited, but the teams were too focused for there to be much extracurricular activity.
The Renegades won the game and sent the series back to Jacksonville for the most electrifying and terrifying of all playoff games—a game seven.
Jared checked his stats on the database website because he knew he’d played in a few game sevens in his career, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever won one. And he almost wished he hadn’t checked, because he’d lost every single one he’d ever played in. Lesson learned. Never read your stats. Got it.
The overwhelming majority of game sevens were won by the home team. This one would be played in Jacksonville, but Jared didn’t care. They were going to win, and he knew it. He would make sure of it. Jared was a fighter, and as he’d learned the past season, that didn’t always mean using your fists.
Lane scored a goal two minutes into the game and assisted on another not twenty seconds later. Tempers flared at the end of the first period, with the rowdy Renegades earning a penalty. They watched in frustration as the Storm netted another goal, to earn them a 3-0 lead when the buzzer sounded to end the period.
Jared, who wasn’t one for making speeches, stood up after the first intermission and made up a bunch of statistics that he “read last night” on the hockey database website. He told them that was the most dangerous lead in hockey and the easiest deficit for a team to come back from, because the other team sat back and coasted on their lead. He told them that he’d played for more teams than he could count, several who didn’t exist anymore, and they were the best team he’d ever been on, and he wasn’t ready for their season to be over.
By the end of the second period, the Renegades had tied the game at three goals each. Jared’s second intermission speech was simply, “I told you so. Let’s go win.”
The third period started off with a goal by Leblanc, causing jubilation on the bench for the Renegades—for all of two seconds—until Lane tied the game again at four.
Riley made a breathtaking save at one end, and at the other, Vladimir Zubarev stopped a shot that was so dead-on, the Sea Storm players were already celebrating at the bench. It was a game that highlighted the best things about their sport—the passion and athleticism, the quickness, the rapid momentum switches, and the zeal felt by every single fan, player, and coach in the building. When the clock ended and the game was—of course—tied, Lane skated by him and gave him that cocky grin of his, and then he winked.
Jared just smiled at him. I don’t think so, Courtnall. I don’t fucking think so.
He and Lane ended up across from each other on the face-off line, which made Jared wonder if someone had told both coaches that he and Lane were sleeping together.
“Gonna add this to your ‘game sevens you’ve played and lost’ stats, old man,” Lane chirped, eyes like ice.
“You keep being a brat, and I’ll shut that trap of yours with a puck,” Jared shot back, meeting his gaze. He was trying to make that sound mean, but it just came out gleeful. Ah, well. Hockey players were a strange breed.
They passed each other on the way to their respective benches. Lane gave him his “this is so much fun” grin that he sometimes gave Jared in bed, and Jared grinned back at him. At the next shift, they went back to trash talking. It was great.
“I thought you two had a thing,” Aaron said when they sat back down on the bench after their shift. Jared had never said anything to him about that, so someone else must have.
“Right now the only thing I have is a trip to the Cup finals, and he’s in my way.” Jared shrugged, breathing hard. He squirted water into his mouth from his water bottle.
Jared gave everything he had during overtime, and then some. Since it was a playoff game, there’d be no shootout. The game would progress until someone scored a goal. That would be the team going to the finals, and—goddamn it—it was going to be Jared’s team.
Fifteen minutes into the first overtime period, Jared found himself racing alongside Lane toward the goal, and Lane had a look on his face that Jared knew way too well—the one that always ended in a goal light or an orgasm. As Lane pulled back to shoot, Jared saw the Renegades’ goalie screened by one of the Sea Storm’s defensemen. And he knew, he knew Zub didn’t have a chance in hell at saving that puck.
When Lane sent the puck toward a practically empty net and a certain, game-winning goal... Jared cheerfully threw himself in front of the puck and caught it in his glove.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and Lane looked at him in utter shock, clearly not understanding why the goal light hadn’t gone off. Jared opened his glove, dropped the puck, and skated by him, saying, “Know what that’s called, kid? Win
ning. Nothing else. Saint Patrick sure had it right.” He laughed as Lane shouted every name in the book at him on his way to the bench.
Jared was practically mobbed by his teammates as he returned to their bench. You’ll be showing that one to your grandkids. Or Zoe’s. Someone’s kids, anyway. And you’re going to remember, every single time you watch it, that it was me that stopped your shot. And you can turn around and yell at me, because I’m going to be there with you. Even if you don’t know it yet.
Two minutes later, Darcy Leblanc stole the puck and went racing like a madman down the ice. Jared heard his teammates holding their breath, heard the entire building hold its breath, but he knew what was going to happen before the goal light went off and the Renegades scrambled over their bench to celebrate their win.
In the handshake line after the game, Lane shook his hand and hugged him briefly, like he did all of the other players. “Nice stop, Patrick Roy,” he said, and Jared knew how disappointed he was. He’d lost plenty of times in his life, but that only made it feel even better when he finally won.
Jared didn’t say what he thought to Lane. One day you’ll win the Stanley Cup in a game seven. Probably in sudden death overtime, because you will never, ever make anything in my life easy, and I’ll probably have a heart attack watching the game.
“This was the conference championships, not the Kelly Cup finals,” the Renegades coach said to his team, but he smiled widely and waved his hand. “But it’s okay if you want to go party like you just won it, because I sure as fuck am.”
Jared showered and changed, got his gear packed, and left the building to go meet his team to celebrate. There wouldn’t be any members of the Sea Storm partying with them this time, which Jared understood. He’d text Lane later, and they’d figure out a time to meet before the finals started. The finals that Jared would be playing in. Holy fuck.