Now, I had two boyfriends cheering me on. The sight of their excited faces thawed the ice around my heart. I pressed my glove against my chest before stretching it out toward them, smiling.
“You done being a lover boy, Booth?” Addy grinned smugly. “Because we’re switching it up to test your defensive and offensive tactics. You up for it?”
I smirked in reply. “The question is, can you guys keep up?”
Rocky hooked a thumb in my direction as he spoke to Addy. “This guy, right? Fucking balls on him.”
Addy nodded. “It’s what we need. Let’s go, boys!”
I blew KC and Oliver an obnoxious kiss before I took off.
We spent two hours doing drills. Finally, a shrill whistle pierced the air.
“Hit the showers, boys. Me and Rocky need to talk,” Addy yelled.
Off we went.
The visitor’s locker room smelled like concentrated sweaty dick and rank armpits, but that wasn’t unusual when you had a lot of guys in a confined space. No one ever prepares someone for the smell of a hockey locker room. Unless you’ve playedhockey yourself, it’s difficult to understand. So, I was reliving a deeply imbedded sense memory.
I sat on the bench in front of my locker and leaned my elbows on my knees, then exhaled roughly through my nose. We’d run a hundred drills out there on the ice to show the level of our skills. I couldn’t remember the last time—outside of KC and Oliver—I’d enjoyed myself so much. I hadn’t played hockey after high school, since three seconds after tossing my cap, I’d spent all my free time focused on creating a plan for revenge. A plan that had barely lasted three weeks once I’d attempted to enact it.
I sucked at this whole retribution thing, apparently. I blamed my boyfriends.
“Hey.” The guy next to me—Robby, he’d said at the start of tryouts—leaned on his knees like I had and grinned. He was a massive dude with shoulders broader than mine and sweat-soaked blond waves that fell across his eyes. He was a D-man, and he was built like one, too. “So, those guys in the stands. They related to you or something?”
“They’re my boyfriends.” I shrugged. I’d never given a shit about what people thought about my bisexuality. There had been times when I’d needed to defend myself, especially in locker rooms, and I’d fucked up guys for saying homophobic shit, too. Everyone loved to run their mouth until they saw a fist cruising toward their face.
“No shit?” Robby sounded impressed and went as far as to whistle. He held out his gloved fist. “Nice pull, dude.”
I gave him the fist bump. “You gay?” I asked.
He laughed. “Nah, man. Straight, but I don’t discriminate. That’s my motto. My girl would kill me if I was even a tiny bit homophobic, racist, et cetera, et cetera.” He waved his hand with theet ceteras. “She’d probably bury me ten feet under. Not six. Ten. Make sure no one knew I existed in the first place.”
I snorted. “Don’t know her, but I already like her.”
“Yeah, me too.” Robby cackled. “Probably why I put a ring on it, you know? When you got someone—” He paused, grinning. “And someones who are good, you’d be stupid to let them go.”
“Was your girl here?”
His face did something I could only explain as a lovesick pout. His eyes softened and his jaw went slack. Is that what I looked like when I thought about my boyfriends? “Yeah, she was talking to your boys. The blonde. Her name’s Aria.”
“If KC and Oliver were talking to her, she must be nice. They looked like they enjoyed her company.” I stood and stretched my aching muscles before yanking at the protective layers.
“Maybe we should go on a double date one day. Where are you from, Ren Booth?” Robby stripped his shoulder pads and sweat-drenched shirt. His muscles shifted under his skin. He was fit, but it wasn’t his abs that caught my attention.
I whistled at the tats spread across his chest, an array of black ink spiraling over sun-kissed skin. “Who did the work? That’s talent.”
He glanced down at his chest and chuckled. “Guy back home in Toronto. I moved here last month, so I haven’t found someone else. What about yours?”
“An employee of mine. He works in my shop here in the city now. I brought him with me from LA.” I assessed the lines. In terms of technique, his artist was good. Real good. A pro. I yanked my compression shirt off and threw it onto the bench in front of me.
The sound of the showers being switched on made my muscles ache harder, craving the feel of hot pounding water.
“Do you ink?” Robby asked as we dumped the rest of our gear.
Seeing other guys naked in the locker room wasn’t anything new, so I didn’t bat an eye at the nudity as we made our way into the shower room. I switched on the knobs and sighed in relief ashot water cascaded down my shoulders. Ducking my head under the spray, I hummed in delight.
“You didn’t answer the question. Are you a tattoo artist?” Robby asked again.
