“Not much of a fighter, though,” Cooper called out from his stall down the wall, his grin teasing as he unlaced his skates. “Let Carter do the dirty work next time, eh?”
“Fuck off,” Jamie mumbled, but as the team broke out into laughter around him, he didn’t mind being the butt of the joke. Cooper wasn’t wrong–letting Carter Belanger, their tough as nails fourth line center, take care of the fighting would have been the responsible thing to do. The teasing was fine with Jamie,goodeven. If it meant the boys were together, that the team was finding their stride, he’d throw himself under the bus every time.
“Oi, Cheerios!” Matt Lee was one of the first out of the shower, his dark hair damp. “We playing ‘Chel at your place?”
Oliver Campbell and Onni Koskinen looked at each other and then, as expected, looked at Jamie, twin questions on their faces. They frequently hosted the rest of the younger guys on the team for NHL Xbox tournaments.
Jamie sighed. “How many times do I have to remind the two of you that, just because you live in my basement, it doesn’t mean I’m your dad.”
Oliver grinned while Onni flushed pink and looked sheepish. The two rookies had moved into his basement right before training camp. Oliver was coming out of Canadian juniors, whileOnni was coming over from playing in Finland. The basement was already set up like an apartment, with a separate kitchen, a comfortable living room, two bedrooms with a shared bathroom, and, most importantly, its own entrance.
Jamie loved having the rookies there, but he also didn’t want to be woken up in the middle of the night when the kids came home from partying.
“If I crash on the couch, does that mean I can get in on Sully making breakfast tomorrow morning?” Matt went on.
Onni scowled, looking up from where he was carefully situating his goalie pads. “No. Sully breakfast is special. Just for us.”
“Not fair!” Matt turned to Jamie. “Is he serious?”
Jamie felt a smile tug at his mouth and shrugged, leaving the kids to sort it out.
“Are you still beating yourself up?”
Jamie glared at Mitch. “No.”
They walked together down the corridor from the locker room to where the families waited. Mitch had showered and changed back into his suit.
“I don’t know why you think you can get away with lying to me. The mustache gives away all of your secrets.”
Scowling, Jamie shoved him in the shoulder. “Fuck off.” Then, after a moment: “Does it look bad?”
“My god, man. The mustache looks great. Tyler was looking at it like he wanted to eat it off your face.”
“What?”Mitch couldn’t really mean that.There was no way Tyler had been looking at him like–
“Not my best choice of words,” Mitch said, huffing out a laugh. “But the other night, at dinner? That man looked at you like he wanted you.Carnally.”
Jamie stared at his friend, trying to ignore the rising heat onthe back of his neck as his mind tried to come to grips with the word ‘carnal’ in the same sentence as Tyler. “Jesus, Mitchy. What have you been reading?”
“I have an extensive vocabulary!”
“Is that what you and Layla text about on the plane that gets you all fidgety? Wanting each other ‘carnally’?”
“Who does my husband want carnally?” Layla stood in front of them, blonde hair pulled up into a sleek ponytail and a stylish green sweater hanging off one shoulder. She looked immaculate, as always. Henri, their eldest daughter, was chasing one of Sergei’s kids behind them, while Jack was on the floor with his nose in a book.
“Sully’s talking about you, baby,” Mitch said, pulling his wife into a deep kiss. “He’s just jealous there isn’t a man in his life who wants him the way we want each other.”
When they pulled apart, Layla cocked a brow at her husband. “You’re a menace, but your passing looked better tonight. Don’t forget to look for your shot on the power play–you’re on the first unit for a reason.”
Jamie grinned. “Listen to your wife, Mitchy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mitch said, leaving them to say hi to his kids.
“Did Tyler and Rowan make it to the game?” Layla asked.
Right.He’d managed to shove that out of his head. The messages sent with no reply, the seats empty.
All he’d wanted was to do something nice for Tyler, but somehow it had backfired.
