Hot Off the Ice Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by A. E. Wasp

  He heard a car pull into the parking lot. A quick peek showed the sedan pulling into a spot much closer to the entrance. Apparently, Paul hadn’t heard them, so, encouraged by the small thrust of Paul’s hips, Robbie kept going.

  The thump of the car doors closing echoed across the parking lot. That Paul heard. He tensed under Robbie’s hand as they heard voices.

  The car sheltered them, but they weren’t hidden. It wouldn’t take too long for someone to figure out what they were up to.

  He pulled off Paul with a hard suck, replaced his mouth with his hand.

  Paul grunted like he’d been punched. “Shit. Fuck,” he panted, eyes tightly closed.

  “Shh.” Robbie rubbed the head of Paul’s cock back and forth over his lips. “Do you want them to hear you?”

  Paul whimpered through tightly clenched teeth and his hips jerked up hard.

  Robbie filed that bit of information away for the spank bank and concentrated on driving Paul crazy. He held Paul’s hips down with both hands, as he bobbed up and down. Paul was going to have teeth marks in his fist for sure.

  He slid off with an obscene pop. Paul let out a garbled yell.

  Shooting a glance through the window, Robbie saw the woman look over towards the car with a small frown. She said something to the man she was with, and he looked over as well.

  "Uh oh,” Robbie said, running a finger across the tip of Paul’s dick. At the sexy broken whimper Paul gave, Robbie did it again. “Fuck that’s sexy,” he whispered. “But it looks like those nice people can hear you, baby.”

  Paul's cock jerked hard under Robbie's hand. Seemed like Paul had a bit of an exhibitionist streak. Sucked for him because this was a one-time thing.

  “Better hurry,” Robbie warned. “You’ve got about fifteen seconds before I have to stop.”

  Paul’s hand flew to the back of Robbie’s head, holding him in place as he fucked his face. Robbie couldn’t complain, he’d kind of asked for it. He grabbed on to Paul’s thighs, hoping the wind was covering the unmistakable moans and slurps of a fast and dirty blowjob.

  The clench of muscles under his hand and the sharp sting of his hair being pulled were the only warnings Robbie got before Paul came as quietly as he could. It wasn’t that quiet.

  Robbie pulled off more quickly than he would have liked.

  “You boys okay over there?” the man from the other car called out.

  Paul’s laugh had a decidedly inappropriate edge to it, so Robbie smacked him on the leg.

  “Yeah.” With a wink at Paul, he cleared his throat and licked his lips. “We’re good, Thanks.” He pushed himself up and leaned his elbows on the doorframe, hoping the giant tent in his pants wasn’t visible. “My friend just, uh, sprained his knee. And I was fixing him up.”

  The man didn’t seem convinced, but what was he going to say? ‘That sounded like a blow job to me’?

  His wife gave Robbie a look that said clear as day, Really? That’s the best you could come up with?

  Robbie smiled wide at her.

  She shook her head and tugged her husband further away from the Stingray.

  Inside the car, Paul shook with silent laughter, eyes bright.

  Robbie nudged his knee against Paul’s. “I really like your car.”

  “I really like you in my car,” Paul answered with a grin as he zipped his pants back up. “Want to put the existential crises on hold for a while and get some lunch?”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea.” Robbie waved at the couple before getting back in the car.

  23

  Robbie

  Robbie shifted his shoulders, settling his suit jacket around his shoulders better. He was definitely over-dressed for what was basically a coffee shop in Columbus, Ohio, but his parents had picked the place, and he and Paul had to head right to the stadium after the meal.

  He and Paul stuck out like sore thumbs in the small café that looked like a throwback to 1978, complete with macramé plant holders and posters for concerts from forty years ago on the walls.

  The timing of the meal was terrible for them, but his mother had said she couldn’t possibly get out of teaching her one o’clock class. Wouldn’t get out more likely, Robbie thought irritably. Would it kill her to let a T.A. teach the class one day? The students would survive.

  Spotting his parents and Georgia in a booth against the wall, Robbie assured the hostess he could find his way. Touching Paul lightly on the lower back, he pointed his chin to his parents.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” he asked quietly as they threaded their way through the mostly-empty tables. Three o’clock wasn’t peak time at any restaurant.

  “You couldn’t pay me to miss it.”

  “You didn’t have to pay. I did.” Team members who met their families when they played in their home states had to pay a ‘fine.’ All the money went to end of season bonuses for the staff, so Robbie didn’t mind.

  “Thank God, Georgia is here,” he sighed. “I wasn’t sure she could make it.” Since meeting Paul, Robbie had become painfully aware of how many times he said ‘thank God’ without actually meaning it literally. He hadn’t been able to find a suitable substitution, though. Thank heaven? Just as bad, and made him sound like his grandmother. What else was there? And he didn’t even like to think about how he used ‘Jesus Christ’ solely as a curse.

  Robbie introduced Paul to his family. “This is my mother, Jenny Massie. Mom, this is my friend Paul.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Paul said, dipping his chin at Paul’s mother.

  “My dad, Grant Rhodes.”

  Paul shook his hand firmly. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “This is my favorite person in the world, Georgia Blue.”

  Georgia stood up to give Robbie a big hug. He hugged her back hard. She was a tall, wide-shouldered woman and her hugs were worth their weight in gold.

  “Very nice to meet you, ma’am,” Paul said with a smile after they broke their hug.

  “I didn’t know you were bringing a friend, Rob,” his mother said. “I would have gotten a table.”

  “I did tell you, Mom.”

  Jenny looked at her husband for confirmation. Grant shrugged.

  “I think we can put a chair at the end of the table,” Georgia said. “Why don’t you two take the bench seat?

  Paul and Robbie slid in as Georgia went to talk to the hostess. Robbie ended up against the wall.

  Georgia came back with a chair and sat down in it. She looked at Paul, studying his face. “You look so familiar to me, but I just can’t place it.”

  “Might be from my college hockey team?”

  “No. That’s not it. Dyson. Dyson. What’s your whole name?”

  “Paul Stonewall Dyson, Jr, ma’am.”

  Georgia snapped her fingers. “That’s it. Is Stoney Dyson your dad?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he is.”

  “You are the spitting image of him at your age.” Georgia turned to Robbie. “I played football back in college with his dad.”

  “Really?” Paul said with surprise. “Roll Tide!”

  “Roll Tide!” Georgia agreed.

  “No offense, ma’am, but you look ‘bout ten years younger than my dad does.”

  Georgia pointed at him. “You can stay. Robbie, keep this one around.”

  “Stoney?” Robbie asked Paul with the lift of an eyebrow. “Is that why your nickname is—”

  “Don’t you say it,” Paul warned.

  “Chip,” Robbie finished with a laugh. “A chip off the old stone?”

  Paul punched him hard in the arm.

  Robbie’s parents looked somewhere between amused and alarmed.

  “I didn’t know Stoney got married,” Georgia said with a look meant only for Robbie. “Whatever happened to Skippy, do you know? Those two were thick as thieves back in the day.”

  Robbie had never heard Georgia’s accent so clearly before.

  “Sorry, I don’t know, ma’am. Dad never mentioned hi
m.”

  She shrugged. “It was a long time ago. And please, call me Georgia. How’s your mother?”

  Paul’s face dropped. Under the table, Robbie put his hand on Paul’s knee for comfort. “She, um, passed about a year and a half ago, Miss Georgia.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Georgia looked flustered.

  “So, I heard Gary’s daughter is in Uganda with Médecins Sans Frontières,” Robbie’s mother said, changing the subject. “That’s Doctors Without Borders,” she explained to Paul.

  He nodded with a tight-lipped smile.

  “Did you guys order yet?” Robbie asked.

  “No, we were waiting for you.”

  Robbie kept his leg pressed against Paul’s while they examined the menu and ordered. Considering they had a choice between three different sandwiches, two types of quiche, and a soup, it didn’t take too long to decide.

  They made small talk, mostly about what other people’s children were doing, which apparently involved joining the Peace Corps, earning PhDs, and single-handedly saving the world. Sometimes all at once.

  “Robbie’s got twenty-five points already this season,” Paul said during a break in the conversation. “And he’s got an average time on ice per game of about twenty-two and half minutes.”

  “So do you, idiot,” Robbie said at the same time his father asked, “Is that a lot?”

  “Yessir. Especially since we’re second pairing and we’ve only played thirty games this season. Lotsa guys don’t rack up that many points in an entire season.” Paul smiled at Robbie. “He makes me look good.”

  Robbie knew he was grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care. Seeing Paul offended on his behalf warmed his heart.

  He knew what Paul was doing, and it wouldn’t make a difference. His parents would never be impressed with statistics of all things, but the fact that he was trying felt great.

  “It’s very good,” Georgia added. “Congratulation, Robbie. I only had twenty-three points. I must have missed some.”

  “He had two assists last night,” Paul told her.

  Georgia pulled out her phone and tapped on the screen. “There. Up to date. How are you feeling about the game tonight?”

  Robbie and Paul exchanged glances. “Pretty good,” Robbie said, answering.

  The server brought their food over, and they at as they talked about the Blue Jackets’ strengths and weaknesses, who was on the injured reserve list, and who the coach might start.

  Robbie was smugly satisfied to see his parents’ eyes glazing over. Normally, that was his situation. He squeezed Paul’s leg again, more grateful for the support than he could say out loud.

  “I think half their hits come from Jenner,” Paul said. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.” He finished up the last crumb of the chips that came with the sandwich.

  Robbie and Georgia murmured their agreement.

  “I don’t know why there has to be so much fighting in hockey,” Jenny said. “I hate seeing it.” She swirled the straw in her drink, ice cubes rattling against the sides of the glass.

  “When do you watch hockey?” her husband asked.

  “I try when Robbie’s playing, though the game moves so quickly, it’s so hard to tell who’s who.”

  “It’s just part of the game, Mom. No big deal.”

  “I always thought you should write a paper on it,” Grant suggested. “Something on violence and the performance of masculinity in sports.”

  “Speaking of college,” Jenny jumped in.

  “Which we weren’t,” Robbie said, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Georgia patted his hand in sympathy.

  “Have you thought any more about finishing your degree with those online classes I showed you?”

  Robbie held back a sigh. “I don’t have time, Mom. I’m too busy. I barely have time to buy underwear.” He didn’t look directly at Paul as he said that, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Paul smiling around his straw.

  “Twenty-two minutes of work every few days and you’re too busy?” Grant asked.

  Paul’s eyes widened. Robbie clamped a hand on his knee before he could say something.

  Georgia came to the rescue, as she had so many times before. “That’s just time he spends on the ice during a game, Grant. I know we’ve had this discussion before. They have practice just about every morning including game days, skill drills for everything, workouts and post-workout care, and workouts after the game. Equipment has to be maintained and then the travel. How many miles did the Thunder travel last year?”

  “I wasn’t on the team, but from what I remember, they hit fifty thousand, but they made the playoffs,” Robbie answered.

  “And how many games?”

  Paul answered that one. “Eight-two for the season. Forty-one home, forty-one on the road.”

  “Over how long?” Georgia asked.

  Robbie was more than happy to let Paul and Georgia carry this conversation. He’d told all this to his parents before, but he got the feeling they thought he was exaggerating.

  “In six and a half months. Twenty-eight weeks, ma’am. Miss Georgia.”

  “So about three games a week. For twenty-eight weeks with no breaks.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Paul answered with a grin. “Assuming we don’t make the playoffs. Which I am not willing to do right now.”

  He and Robbie shared a fist bump.

  “Well, we do have that bye week in the spring,” Robbie interrupted. “So, we get one week off.”

  Georgia turned to Robbie’s parents. “When I was in college we played thirteen games over thirteen weeks, seven of them at home. The NFL teams play sixteen regular season games over seventeen weeks.”

  “That’s a big difference,” Grant admitted it. “When you put it that way…”

  “And the numbers don’t reflect the pace of the season. How many back-to-backs do you have guys have this year?”

  “Thirteen,” Paul and Robbie said simultaneously.

  “But who’s counting, right?” Georgia said with a smile. “And how many of those require you to travel to or from Seattle between games?”

  Robbie pulled up his schedule and conferred with Paul. “Do we count California or Vancouver? Because they’re really close.”

  “It’s travel, it counts.”

  “Five?” Robbie asked, looking at Paul.

  “Sounds about right. So, not too bad.”

  Robbie shook his head. “Those back-to-backs when you’re on the road are killer.”

  “I assume you mean playing two games on subsequent nights,” Grant said. “What exactly does that entail, especially with the travel?”

  “It means,” Georgia explained, “you work a whole day – morning skate, couple of hours of workouts, go eat lunch with the team, go back to the hotel, catch a nap, and then show up in your lovely suit–looking good, by the way guys–at the rink by 5:30 to watch some tape, strategy planning, and last minute equipment adjustments. Game starts around 7:30.”

  She checked in with the boys to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything out.

  “Sometimes we eat and go to the bathroom, too,” Paul added.

  Robbie motioned for Georgia to continue. This was the most fun he’d had at a meal in ages. Between Georgia and Paul, he’d never felt so supported in front of his parents. It wasn’t that they didn’t love him, they just couldn’t find it inside themselves to care about hockey. Which was his whole life. Robbie pushed that thought away for another day.

  “So,” Georgia continued, “they play the game, which takes about two, two and a half hours, skating an average of five miles a game, taking hits the whole time. Then there’s the post-game interview, post-game work out, shower, change, and get on the bus to the plane. Then you fly through the night, landing just in time to check into the hotel, have a few hours’ sleep, and then do it all again.”

  “Are you doing that today?” Jenny asked. “Did you play somewhere else last night?” She looked like she had realized for the first time
that her son and his team had been bouncing around the country like madmen since October.

  “No. We’re lucky, we had a travel day yesterday, and we’ll have one tomorrow.”

  “You’ve always worked so hard at your sports,” Jenny said. “I love that.”

  “And he worked extra hard at school work,” Paul said quietly.

  Even Robbie was surprised to hear that. “How do you know?”

  I pay attention, Paul signed. I remember. He painstakingly finger-spelled dyslexia and dysgraphia. “Right?”

  “Right.” Robbie was half a second from kissing Paul right in the middle of the restaurant.

  “It’s true. I’m sorry, Robbie.” His mom reached across the table. “You have always worked very, very hard. And I know I, we, haven’t said this enough, but we are extremely proud of you for your accomplishments. I’m sorry we make you feel like we weren’t.”

  “Did we do that?” Grant asked, worry evident in his expression.

  Robbie looked between Paul and Georgia. Paul nodded.

  Robbie took a deep breath. “Yeah, kind of. I mean, I know it’s not the Peace Corps—” He broke off as both Paul and Georgia kicked him under the table. “Ow! Okay, fine.”

  Robbie felt a tiny bit bad at the guilt on his parents’ faces, but it felt good to finally say it.

  “You’re playing tonight?” Grant asked.

  “Yeah.” Robbie answered, gesturing at his suit. “I didn’t get dressed up just to come to Sunshine’s Café.”

  “Is it too late to get a ticket?” Grant asked.

  “Really? You want to watch?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll be rooting against the home team,” Paul warned them. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  “Bring it on,” Jenny said with a wave of her arm. “I can handle it.”

  “Okay then. I’ll see if I can get two more tickets.”

  “Excellent.”

  There was more hugging than usual when Paul and Robbie had to leave. Even Paul got a hug from his mother, something Robbie had rarely seen.

  While the other three were finishing up their goodbyes, Georgia tugged Robbie aside. “Is that the guy from that night? The one who spent the night and then punched you?”