He sighed. “I don’t know. D-men aren’t usually fully blind. We have rules—helpful rules, you know? So anyone can play any position. I’m not good in the crease. I’m the world’s shittiest goalie.”
“No. You’re the second, trust me. I’m the worst.”
He snorted. “Yeah? Fuck, Jonah was ready to have me hate your guts, but you seem cool.”
I couldn’t help but glance over toward where I knew they’d set up the net. It took me a moment to find it, but when I did, I could see him leaning over Vanya, giving him pointers. I could hear Vanya’s laughter. I could see Jonah’s smile behind his mask.
He hadn’t once smiled at me like that, not that I wanted him to. But something about their close proximity—something about the way Vanya touched him and Jonah let him—made me feel all hot and pissed off.
Tiago and I stopped, and I watched as the dark-haired rookie on the Legends set up for a shot against Vanya. He missed—all but the last one. Then Vanya knocked him onto the ice and kissed the side of his helmet.
Jonah looked happy.
Fuck him so much.
“I want to score against him,” I said quietly.
Tiago skated closer. “It won’t be hard. Vanny’s an amazing goalie, but he’s never really done it blind.”
“No,” I said darkly. “Against Adams.”
Tiago hummed in thought. “He’s a fucking prodigy, bud. That’s not going to be easy.”
“I want to try.” I turned to face him. “Can you help?”
“I rarely sink the puck when he’s in the net during practice…but I’ll do my best.”
I squeezed my hand around the stick, then tapped it twice on the ice. “Let’s go.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised to lose. The fact that I nearly sank the puck was enough of a triumph. But I wanted to smack the smug look off Jonah’s face. Or…maybe do something else that would get him to stop smiling like that. We took our time talking to the media interns. I did my best to grin and make it look like I’d had a good day, which wasn’t that hard, considering it wasn’t terrible at all.
Not everyone was a snarky ass like Adams. Tiago was nice. He didn’t treat me like I didn’t belong, and he didn’t seem swayed by my reputation or the opinion of others. I liked him. He seemed like a guy I could get a beer with.
Or a couple of shots.
Tiago and I were the last to finish up our interviews and sound bites, and then I made my way into the away team showers for some privacy. Moments like this, when I was feeling a little overwhelmed, I needed the space.
I could rarely do this on game days, considering the other team always took their sweet fucking time, but it was nice to have the place to myself. Or, at least, I thought it would be to myself. But as I walked in, I could hear the water running, and there was steam billowing out from around the corner.
I passed the soaking tubs and turned the corner to find the one man I both did and didn’t want to see with his hands pressed against the wall. Jonah had his head bowed under the spray, and he was rocking it back and forth as water pounded against his neck.
“Tell me you’re not winded after something so easy,” I said.
He jolted and turned his head toward me. I wondered how much of me he could see. I’d read a ton about him, but no one ever talked about his blindness. I assumed totally blind at first, but then I learned goalies just had to play that way, so a lot of them wore masks to obscure their vision fully.
I hadn’t seen Jonah changing, so I had no idea if he wore a blindfold or not.
But he did seem to track me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
My eyes took in his naked form—lithe, lean, a few tattoos on his body. His skin was ruddy from the water, his hair several shades darker now that it was soaked. Water ran in rivulets down his face, and his eyes were very wide.
He licked his lips, and my cock responded.
I couldn’t fucking stand him. I thought he was an ass, and I wasn’t really into guys who neglected their ill parents, but fuck, he was hot.
“Same as you,” I told him.
