“Great! Fucking challenging as hell but it felt amazing. It got me fired up for the upcoming season, you know?”
“Definitely,” Thad said.
A part of him wanted to grab Graham by the shoulders and shake him and tell him to stop acting like this. To stop beingweird.
Because they’d never been this awkward together before. This stilted and fake.
The fakeness bothered Thad the most. Because he’d always hated the way his family put on a good face to pretend like everything was perfect when it very much wasn’t.
“What about you?” Graham asked. “How was your summer?”
“Not bad. I spent some time with my brother and Dakota.”
“Dakota’sgreat,” Graham replied.
“Yeah, he is.” Thad liked his brother’s new partner. Well, not so new now, he supposed. They’d been together for over eight months at this point. But he was a vast improvement over Gavin’s ex.
Thad had never liked Rory. Talk about fake.
“His Pilates training kicks my ass,” Graham continued.
Thad laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I hear.”
“It was good though. I felt like my core was more stable by the end of last season.”
Gavin had raved about that too when he and Thad got out on the ice together for the first time in years. They’d started skating together last winter, with a vague plan to reconnect by playing hockey.
With the two of them, it was mostly friendly messing around interspersed by competitive streaks as they tried to outdo each other, but eventually Finn and Pat O’Shea had joined them and it became a little more organized.
A little more like actually playing.
Thad always felt a few steps behind. He hadn’t seriously played hockey since he was eighteen, so he’d never had the professional development Gavin did, much less the experience of decades of playing the O’Sheas did.
Nor was Thad anywhere near as naturally talented.
But it had been nice to team up with his brother again, even if they got their asses handed to them regularly. And he’d joined a summer rec league.
He told Graham as much now.
“Oh nice. Sounds fun.”
“Yeah, you know. Nothing compared to what you do but it keeps me out of trouble,” Thad joked.
Graham shot him a sidelong glance.
“And as far as work, I did stuff for free agency, the draft, the combine … all that. We attended some events around Boston. There were lots of birthday posts to keep up on for all of you summer babies.”
For the first time all day, Thad caught a flash of the real Graham in his quick smile.
“Yeah, well, you know what they say about Cancers,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
“No. What?”
Graham shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m not into astrology.”
Thad laughed at his deadpan delivery. Okay, this was better. This was feeling more normal.
“So, what else did you do? You can’t have spent all summer doing stuff for the Harriers, hanging out with your brother, and playing rec league hockey.”
