Grady snorted. “Thanks for the warning, I guess.” The US was playing Team North America next.
“No charge.”
They left the locker room, and Max realized it was time to part ways. They’d have to travel through public areas, and while he didn’t care about being seen fraternizing with the enemy, Grady would.
Especially when wearing the enemy’s shirt.
Max didn’t want to examine the twinge of sadness he felt at that, so he said sunnily, “Okay, well, this is where you leave me. I recommend you call an Uber for the ride back to the hotel. If you jog through the lobby, maybe no one will notice your shirt.”
“I hate you,” Grady told him, voice flat.
Max only grinned wider. “I know.”
GRADY HADtaken a hit to the head in practice.
That was the only explanation he could come up with for why he’d agreed to meet a stranger for sex in the depths of another team’s arena.
It was definitely the only explanation for why he’d gone through with it after learning the stranger was Max Lockhart.
And then, of course, reality reasserted itself, Max returned to being a shithead, ruining Grady’s shirt, which he had to wearin public, and Grady had regrets—regrets he couldn’t put words to, not that hewantedMax to know about them. It made Grady feel like a pod person, reverting to small talk with a guy he’d always gone out of his way to avoid, but Max was… distracting.
Fuck, that was probably part of Max’s plan all along—throw Grady off his game with sex, then humiliate him by sending him out into the world in a Team Canada T-shirt that smelled like Max.
After he made his graceless escape, Grady put on his sunglasses and speed-walked with his head down to the nearest shop, where he bought a Toronto Raptors shirt. He was thankful the clerk was too busy looking at her phone to pay him any attention.
He took the long route back to his hotel. He needed the exercise to clear his head.
What had he been thinking? No, this wasn’t the first time Grady’d hooked up with someone from another team, but itwasthe first time he’d done it with someone he actively disliked. Maybe the reality wasn’t as dramatic as sports media liked to pretend, butarchnemesiswas only an exaggeration because neither of them had superpowers.
And now Grady was spiraling because he’d handed Max a free pass to get into his head whenever he wanted. For what? A hand job in a deserted hallway? Had he lost all self-respect?
It was agoodhand job, though. That annoyed him. Maybe he had a previously undiscovered public sex kink or something. Maybe he’d been getting off on being kind of mean to a guy he didn’t like. Grady didn’t get rough with his partners. He was a big guy, and it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d do with someone he just met. Even when he hooked up with other players, they went pretty easy. The last thing anyone wanted was a sex injury keeping them out of the lineup. And honestly… he’d never thought about it.
It figured that Max would be into a little pain with his pleasure. Ruining Grady’s life by making him realize Grady was into giving that to him was probably a bonus.
Grady needed to stop thinking about it. He had a game tomorrow. He couldn’t be up all night dissecting what it meant that Max Lockhart gave him a hand job and he liked it. It meant he had a dick and enjoyed having someone else touch it for once. The end.
Focus on the game.
That reminded him. He called up highlights from the Canada-North America game and scanned through until he found Chen’s hit on Max.
Oof. That was a big hit, all right. Grady smiled to himself as Max went ass over teakettle. Should’ve kept his head up. Rookie mistake.
He was still smiling at it when the Team USA group chat notification lit up with an invitation to meet for drinks and second dinner at the hotel bar.
Grady understood team bonding was important, especially for short tournaments like this. He’d just sucked at it ever since his first year of junior hockey, when he’d caught a teammate mocking him behind his back for being an orphan.
But he did need to eat again, and the invitation came from Dante Baltierra—Baller—who Grady had known since his parents were still alive, and who’d sat outside development camp with him after he got the news so he wouldn’t be alone while he waited for Jess to show up.
Hockey players being hockey players, neither of them mentioned it again, but Grady wouldn’t forget it. Nor would he forget the—well,ballsit took to be one of the league’s first out players, paving the way for Grady’s much quieter and less dramatic exit from the closet of professional sports.
For one thing, Baller would never let anyone forget it. He’d appointed himself the league’s queer mascot.
Grady always tried to pick up the tab when they got together as a means of saying thanks.
Unfortunately, this time when he showed up, it was him, Baller, Tom Yorkshire, and Jack Hedgewood.
He considered turning around.
