It’s my shoulder, Gabe had grumped, but he did relax after that.
“I don’t like it,” Dante grumbled in a passable imitation of his husband. Then he sighed and repeated the worn-yet-true maxim, “But that’s the game.”
Ugh, he hated brooding. It wasnothim.
“Hmm. That’s a hundred-dollar fine for saying that outside of a scrum. I’m telling Bogs.”
“Rude!” But Gabe had shocked him out of his funk.
He knew it too. He leaned back against the headboard, flattening his unruly, still-damp curls. “However.”
Dante was so weak for this routine. “Oh, are you going to blackmail me? Naughty.”
In a flash, Gabe turned and slung a leg over both of Dante’s. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Icouldbe convinced to keep your mistake to myself… for a price.”
Grinning, Dante put his hands on Gabe’s hips, slid them around to his ass. “What kinda price are we talking about here? ’Cause I think I’ve got a fifty in my wallet.”
He felt the curve of Gabe’s smile against his cheek. “I was thinking a little quid pro quo.”
“Oh baby,” Dante crooned. “Talk French to me.”
It was worth the pinch of retaliation on the skin of his hip to have Gabe laughing in his arms, in his mouth.
Jude Law and his adorable children would have to wait.
9. Christmas Eve Eve
THE DEKESplayed their last game before Christmas on the twenty-second, in Denver. Dante always liked playing there, and this one was particularly nice because they won 4–2 and got to fly home on a victorious note.
But they didn’t have long to enjoy it.
They landed in Quebec in the early hours of the twenty-third. Their cleaning service had been in and the grocery delivery had come, so the house was stocked. But somehow they hadn’t actually wrapped any presents, and their parents were due in today.
“We could pass it off it as being eco-friendly,” Dante suggested when they dragged themselves out of bed at nine to survey the pile of presents on the dining room table. It sat twelve. No surface was uncovered. “Wrapping paper is bad for the environment, right?”
Gabe thwapped him in the chest with a tube covered in figure-skating penguins. “It’s recyclable. Come on, team effort.”
Involuntarily, Dante made a mournful noise. “I’ll put the coffee on.”
They finished the wrapping as they drained the pot, and then Dante made omelets while Gabe dealt with the paper-scrap carnage in the dining room. His phone beeped as he was waiting for it to set.
In the car to meet Mom’s bf’s fam and I think I’m gonna hurl, Michelle said.I haven’t sat in the back seat since I was 12.
Dante smiled.Sure you’re not just nervous?
Please. This guy’s so sweet I have secondhand cavities. Can’t imagine his family’s any different.
He jiggled the pan—almost set.Put your phone away. Eyes out the window, on the horizon. It works for boats?
Which he’d learned the hard way on their honeymoon. Dante might like watchingPirates of the Caribbean,but he’d take a pass on reenacting it.
He was just turning the omelet over onto a plate when his phone chirped again.Thanks.
Gabe finished up in the dining room, smacked a distracted kiss on Dante’s cheek, and got the plates out of the cupboard. “Who’s that?”
Dante glanced up from cutting the omelet. “Michelle, on the way to Christmas. Turns out she’s carsick if she has to sit in the back seat.”
“Oof. Merry Christmas.” Gabe retrieved the cutlery, and also the ketchup because he was a heathen.
