Max couldn’t begrudge him that, not when the discovery of the soft belly hiding beneath Grady’s prickly exterior had been the thing that made Max fall in love with him. And especially not when Grady reached behind him for Max and pulled him close, tucked their bodies together while mom and baby put on their little show.
Finally, with one last fluking, they were gone.
“Okay,” Grady said at length. His voice was still ringing with awe. He let out a shaky little laugh. “Wow. That was….” He laughed again.
Max had never seen him struck speechless like this. It felt as precious as the moment with the whales.
He could get Grady to marry him another time. Right now, sharing this feeling was enough.
And then Grady started to shiver, and Max clucked his tongue. “Yeah,” he agreed. Then, “Come here. Jesus, I’m cold just looking at you.”
He led Grady belowdecks, where at least he’d be out of the wind, unearthed a towel from the bag of things Grady had brought along, and wrapped it around him.
“I might not be cut out to be a fisherman,” Grady admitted after a few minutes of Max hugging him into submission.
Max buried his smile in Grady’s shoulder. “Well, thank God. We’d both suffocate if the house smelled like hockey gearandfish.”
GRADY THOUGHTthe cooking lesson went well—he enjoyed it, and he could see Max did too, and the food tasted great. They got a lesson in smoking, pan-frying, and grilling on the beach, and the whole thing only underscored how much better fresh food tasted. The experience didn’t hold a candle to the whole whale encounter, but even though the day hadn’t gone to plan, Grady didn’t have any complaints.
At least not until the middle of the night, when he woke up and the room was rocking.
Or, well, obviously itwasn’t. It just felt like that, after being on the boat all day. Max’s weight wasn’t shifting all over him like crazy the way it would be if a giant had picked up Max’s house and set it in the bay like some kind of oversize bath toy. Carefully, he worked one leg out from the sheets and placed his foot on the floor. It worked when he’d had too much to drink.
Tonight, no such luck. A dull, throbbing ache settled in behind his eyes. His stomach swooped along with the room. The taste of salt filled his mouth.
Fuck.
Grady pushed at Max’s shoulder.
Max attempted to snuffle deeper into Grady’s chest. There might have been drool involved.
This time Grady shoved more urgently. Max might still marry him if Grady puked on him, but the romance would definitely be dead. “Max, get up. I’m gonna be sick.”
Max raised his head. “Bwah?”
Grady slid out from under him and stumbled to the bathroom.
When he was sure he could handle it, he pushed himself up off the floor and made his way over to the sink. After a moment there was a tap on the bathroom door, which he hadn’t managed to close entirely, and then it opened.
Max peered at him, half concern, half… well, half conscious. “You okay?”
Nodding would be a bad idea. Grady steadied himself on the counter with one hand and reached for the mouthwash with the other. “Yeah. No.” His head was swimming. He grimaced. “I feel like I’m still on the boat.”
“Sea legs.” Max made a noise of sympathy while Grady swished his mouth out. He should brush his teeth again too, but he didn’t know if he could stand to be vertical that long.
He spat. “Any suggestions?”
“Drugs,” Max said sagely. He slipped under Grady’s arm without Grady even realizing he’d moved. “C’mon. We’ll get you back in bed and I’ll feed you Gravol. It won’t make the feeling stop, but it’ll help your stomach and hopefully let you sleep through the worst of it.”
True to Max’s word, the Gravol did help, even if Grady spent the first half of the day in bed feeling sorry for himself. Max brought him toast and applesauce and mashed potatoes, and Grady alternated between sleeping fitfully and working on The Proposal, Plan B. Or was it C? He hadn’t really had a plan beyondbeat Max at fishing, which in hindsight was a bet Grady had no chance of winning.
He couldn’t exactly go ring shopping in Moncton. Not unless he planned to ask Max that day, at least, because the gossip would get back to him pretty much immediately. Grady didn’t know how he was supposed to pick out a ring anyway, even if he maybe sneaked a look at Max’s order form for his Cup ring so he’d know the size. That was Max’srighthand, not his left. How did people do this? There was no way to casually ask for someone’s ring size. And it seemed like it would be extra creepy to try to measure while Max slept.
He didn’t even have anyone to ask for advice. He couldn’t ask Jess—she’dnever proposed, and it seemed rude to ask her when she couldn’t legally marry both of her partners, even if they moved to Utah or something. Farouk would laugh at him and then hang up. Coop wouldn’t get it. There was Baller—
He paused. Baller was happily married to another hockey player. Well, former player now, but it counted. He’d given Grady reasonably good advice before. Grady had ignored it then, but he knew better now. Sort of. And there was no way Baller had waited around for his husband to propose, so he’d definitely done the asking.
But Baller was also friends with Max. What if he let it slip? He probably wouldn’t, at least not on purpose, but things just seemed to slip out when you were talking to Max. He was too easy to talk to. Grady didn’t care how anyone else found out, except maybe Jess, but Max should definitely find out Grady wanted to marry himfromGrady.
