“And people say we’re bad,” Levi muttered under his breath.
Aidan shushed him, and it suddenly occurred to Lane—with his remaining five brain cells—that Levi’s invitation had not been as casual or as random as he’d tried to act like it was.
Were they being pushed together by Aidan and his boyfriend?
Lane didn’t know whether he should be freaked out or flattered.
“Oh look,” Aidan said as the lights in the arena flashed once and then went dark, “game’s starting.”
Lane didn’t know how he was supposed to focus on hockey when Trevor was pushed up against him, body warm and solid against his.
Especially when Trevor would lean over and ask questions, voice murmuring right into his ear, like Lane actually knew more about hockey than Trevor did.
The Wolves’ first power play came midway through the first, and Lane knew how excited Nate would be when he saw Ramsey skate out with the first group.
That felt like a safe-ish topic to broach to the group, unlike how absolutely perfect Trevor would be as someone’s partner—yours, a voice inside him insisted, but he shut it down—so he said, “Ramsey’s back on the power play.”
“Huh?” Aidan said.
Lane had a feeling that Aidan’s hockey education was coming along even slower than his own was. “Ramsey’s back on the power play,” he repeated. Amused by the cluelessness on both Aidan’s and Levi’s faces. “Don’t you watch Ramsey’s games, sometimes?”
“Sometimes,” Levi claimed, but that didn’t seem true at all.
“Westartthe games,” Aidan offered, a flush climbing up his cheeks.
Lane was not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. He also deliberately ignored the pang of envy that he and Trevor had not once gotten so carried away by wanting each other that they’d not finished something they were watching.
Maybe theyweren’tthe same.
Maybe Trevor didn’t want him as much as Aidan and Levi clearly wanted each other, and that was a fucking depressing thought.
“Anyway,” Lane said, “apparently at the end of last season, Ramsey had been transitioning to the first power play, which islike a pretty big deal, I guess. After he got injured, he wasn’t sure he’d get that spot back.”
“Ah,” Aidan said. He still looked confused.
“How do you know so much?” Levi wanted to know when the power play ended, Ramsey feeding the puck to one of the Wolves’ forwards, them tipping it right into the net, only forty-four seconds into the power play.
Levi asked his question when the crowd and the four of them settled back down into their seats after celebrating the goal.
Lane did not mention that it was becausetheywatched the games all the way through. Instead he said, “Nate’s always talking about it these days.” Which also happened to be true.
“Thought you’d be too busy with other things to talk to Nate about his boyfriend and his hockey these days,” Levi said slyly.
“Busy with what things?” Lane played dumb. He certainly wasn’t going to out Trevor without his explicit permission. But Levi seemed to suspect something, anyway.
Had they been that obvious? HadLanebeen that obvious?
“The playoffs, of course,” Levi said innocently.
But Levi, the youngest of the Banks brothers, who were all universally notorious, had probably never been innocent a day in his life.
“Right,” Lane said.
“We’ve been watching a ton of film,” Trevor chimed in.
“Oh yeah?” Aidan looked unsurprisingly interested.
Lane tried not to tense, telling himself that Trevor wasn’t going to say what he was afraid he would. But of course he did.
