“That play was unreal,” Santiago adds once he’s stopped yelling and sat back down. He takes a drink of his beer before tipping back in his chair to look at Andrew. “You must be his lucky charm.”
“I don’t think so,” Andrew protests. “I—” but the rest of his words are cut off when Reuben and Steven start screaming. Andrew has no idea what’s going on, but apparently someone got too close to their goalie and several players, Nicki included, are making it a team issue. There’s some shoving and yelling, but it’s quickly broken up by the referees before things escalate enough to require penalties. Andrew does know that the two teams playing tonight are rivals as they’re both local teams. He might work on the corporate side, but he does know enough to recognize the opposing team. He wonders if the entire game will be this tense.
“That looks like it hurts,” Andrew remarks moments later, when one of the players, possibly Pavel, slams an opposingplayer into the boards in an attempt to get the puck. Apparently, there was something off with the hit because there’s a whistle blown and play stopped.
“Probably, but they’re used to it.”
“Do you get used to being hit though?” Andrew muses, finding it hard to look at anyone but Nicki, who is being dragged backwards by Tony in an attempt to deescalate yet another shoving match that had started after the whistle.
After spending a good chunk of his life trying to break up his brothers’ fights or trying to keep the peace, it’s strange to passively watch people fight. Watching the game now, having met Nicki’s team in person, knowing the personalities behind the numbers, makes it hit differently, and he can’t help but wonder about the motivations. Do they all fight because it’s expected? Or do they build up their tension, waiting to release it on game days like Nicki?
Thinking about Nicki has Andrew remembering his bruised knuckles, and the way Nicki seems incapable of handling his own feelings without fighting. So far as he can tell, there is zero reason for Nicki to have joined in this fight, but he was one of the first ones there once it erupted.
If Andrew thinks that fight will be it for the night, he’s sorely mistaken because several smaller fights break out over the next two periods, and each time, Andrew has no clue why. Apparently just being rivals is enough to have both teams on edge because the fighting seems excessive, even for a hockey game. Nicki isn’t involved in all of the fights at least. Andrew thinks it is a good thing, and that lasts up until there’s only 6 minutes left in the game. That’s when all hell seems to break loose.
“Now what the fuck happened?” Andrew asks, shooting to his feet and heading toward the ledge of the booth.
“Not sure,” Mark says beside him. “Didn’t look like anything.”
“Maybe the other player said something Whitmore didn’t like. He’s known for having a bad temper on the ice.”
And off it, Andrew thinks. So far as he can tell, Nicki’s handle on his emotions is par for the course with a deregulated child, or a spoiled man raised by emotionally negligent parents who was never taught to deal with his own emotions. Nicki could benefit from therapy. Men in general could benefit from therapy really. Andrew should know. He spent years in therapy during and after college until he’d realized he was autistic, and no amount of therapy or failed medication was going to fix him because there was nothing to fix. Eventually, he stopped going, but he is very pro therapy for everyone.
“The fuck is Whitmore doing?” Steve yells.
“What?” Andrew asks, diverting his attention back to the ice. He looks down just in time to see Nicki throwing his gloves and squaring up with an opposing player who also throws his gloves to the ice. The other guy swiftly knocks Nicki’s helmet off. Andrew leans so far forward over the edge of the booth that he nearly loses his balance trying to see better.
With Nicki’s helmet off, he’s at a much higher chance for a head or face injury. While a concussion isn’t ideal, Andrew isn’t sure how he’d handle seeing a face injury, especially given how badly they tend to bleed. The prospect amps his anxiety up to a nearly unbearable level.
According to Steve, this whole “scrum” as he called it, is in retaliation for someone hitting Anders, after the whistle blew, after the play was called dead. Things continue to devolve quickly, and Andrew can hardly keep track of what’s going on with the fists flying. Nearly everyone else already on the ice gets involved. Pavel throws himself into the fight with extra force, apparently on a mission to avenge Anders, despite him appearing to be dazed but uninjured.
Eventually, the referees are able to regain control and separate everyone. A couple of Nicki’s teammates land in the penalty box, including Nicki and Pavel. A few of the opposing team end up with their own penalties, too, which makes Andrew wonder who threw the first punch. Maybe it doesn’t matter, considering how many joined in. Andrew doesn’t care about the penalties laid against other players—he caught roughing and fighting—but he pays enough attention to hear Nicki himself receive a five minute penalty for fighting.
Regardless of who or what started the fight, it’s clearsomeonethinks he’s a winner because there, plastered across the Jumbotron is the penalty box, especially focused on Nicki, who grabs a water bottle before spitting out a mouthful of blood. It’s disgusting really, but the smug as shit smirk he sends the camera seconds before looking up directly where Andrew’s private suite is and blowing a kiss is, well—also smug as shit, but kind of sexy, too. Not the act itself, but the confidence exuded. This is the Nicki who gets million dollar endorsement deals for things like underwear and cologne because people love to look at him.
To Andrew’s surprise, and horror, Nicki doesn’t stay on the big screen long because seconds later, it’s Andrew’s face that’s plastered across the Jumbotron. Instinct has him inching backwards to hide, but Mark and Santiago both move behind him, whether to prevent him from leaving or just to get their own faces on camera is unclear.
Andrew’s entire body burns with the sudden attention. Between the kiss and the jersey there is no doubt who Andrew is here for. It occurs to Andrew as he stands here, watched by thousands, that this must’ve been what Nicki wanted—for the world to know he was his. The suite, the jersey, the attention garnering fight on the ice. Nicki once told Andrew he always got what he wanted, and he’s getting it now. The world knows Nicholas Whitmore is taken, just like he wanted. Forcing on asmile that doesn’t reach his eyes, Andrew fights down the urge to lock himself in the bathroom and hide. He forces himself to smile and wave, all while something inside him aches.
He’s doing everything he promised Nicki he would—playing the part of dutiful and socially irreproachable boyfriend. Things are going exactly like they planned, even if that plan changed and had to be adapted along the way. Everything is going perfectly. Andrew should be relieved. This is one step closer to their deal being done. Except if he’s supposed to be happy, why does it hurt so damn much?
15NICHOLAS
Post-game adrenaline coursesthrough Nicholas’s veins, dulling the sharpest edges of pain and fatigue that threaten to weigh him down.
Tonight’s game was unreal—Nicholas was unreal.
No stranger to acknowledging his own talent, even Nicholas is amazed at how fucking good he played out there. It’s like there was a fire under him, every play cleaner and sharper, every fight just a little harder. It’s easily one of the best games of professional hockey he’s ever played, and not even the damage to his face or the bruises that litter his body can bring him down from this high.
A high made even brighter by the memory of Andrew fucking King up there in the private box watching Nicholas play, wearing his jersey, cheering forhim.
Knowing that Andrew was up there watching him play, probably cheering him on, had rewired Nicholas’s brain. He thought he was used to stadiums of adoring fans, but no one had ever come for Nicholas. Not even Amanda, who only took him on as a client because he’d managed to get such a bad reputation no agent would take him. His parents sure as shit had never come to his games. Why would they? They’d shipped him off toboarding school so someone else would finish raising him. Once he’d asked to play hockey, they assumed it was something they could throw money at to avoid dealing with Nicholas. When he got old enough to make it clear to his father that hockey wasn’t a hobby but his endgame, his father had made no secret he was disappointed in Nicholas. His disapproval had only slightly improved when he realized Nicholas was good enough to not tarnish the family name. Something Nicholas went out of his way to do with sordid sex scandals and unprompted fights anyway.
Over the years, Nicholas told himself he sought the scandal and limelight to piss his parents off, to rub in their faces how much everyone else wanted him, but the truth is something smaller and more painful. Some part of him, the little boy who so desperately wanted a hug from his mother or approval from his father, thought one day they’d be interested enough to pay attention to him. They haven’t.
Not once in his twenty-seven years have they ever showed up for him. Not once have they come to a game. Not his first in the NHL, not his championship games, not even the year his team almost got the Stanley Cup. No matter how fucking good or famous Nicholas gets, it’s never enough to make his parents care.
He thought having strangers wear his jersey and scream his name was enough, thought the millions of followers on social media who wanted Nicholas could fill all those ugly, gold dusted holes, but nothing has come close to how fucking good it felt to see Andrew up there. How right it felt having someone there just forhim.
