“Okay.” Max felt warm all the way through. He would’ve needed to do some altitude training anyway, but it meant something to have an official invite. “Thanks.”
“I mean….” Grady paused and hit the brakes as LA traffic LA trafficked. “That’s assuming you’re not sick of me by then, I guess. Or were you planning on having me stay with your parents?”
What? Max tilted his head and stared at him. “Why would you stay with my parents?”
Grady’s ears had gone pink. “’Cause you still haven’t officially invited me to your Cup party. Or, you know, your house in New Brunswick.”
Oh.
“Okay, well, now that I’m not drunk, hungover, or jinxing it, hey, Grady, do you want to come spend the summer with me in New Brunswick?”
The car jolted a little as Grady braked hard to avoid an accident. When he’d navigated around it, he said, “The whole summer?”
“I mean, other than going to Colorado and maybe if you want to take a vacation somewhere.” Preferably with Max, but would that be too much? “I mean, we don’t see a lot of each other during the season, so—”
“Yes.”
So many boyfriend points. “Are you sure? I’m related to, like, half of New Brunswick. It’s going to be a lot.”
“I can handle it,” Grady said.
Max heard,You’re worth it.
Theywere worth it.
Truthfully, it would be a lot for Max too. His family would give him endless shit over falling in love with a rival player—and Grady, who had a reputation as kind of a stick in the mud, would provide plenty of opportunities for his aunts and uncles and cousins to mock him. But Max had never minded that, and he didn’t think Grady would either.
At Christmas last year, Grady’d held his own with Max’s siblings and niblings, and Max’s heart had grown three sizes because he got to give Grady a full family holiday experience. And that was before they were technically even together. It was Max’s pleasure to provide Grady with family-level chirping—and to be chirped about him, forever.
Well. Now he knew what happened if someone got too many boyfriend points.
Max cleared his throat. “Okay, then. I’ll book us tickets.”
BECAUSE GRADY’Slife was a joke, at this year’s NHL Awards, Grady won the Lady Byng—the most-sportsmanlike-conduct award he kept missing out on because Max got under his skin.
Grady probably didn’t deserve it, but itwasfunny, and he enjoyed telling the Condors beat reporter that he was probably the first person to get a trophy for learning to get along with someone.
“Get along with?” Max said incredulously in their hotel room after, flopped over on the bed but propped on his elbows. “You argued with me for fifteen minutes about which Elvis impersonator to see.”
“That was foreplay.” Grady swatted his leg. “Get your shoes off the bed, heathen. What was I supposed to say? ‘First guy to get a trophy for fucking his rival’?”
Max smirked as he kicked his shoes off. “It would’ve made a better pull quote.”
“I think I’ve said enough embarrassing things about you to the media. Quit fishing for compliments.”
Max leaned up, grabbed Grady’s tie, and pulled him down until they were eye to eye. Then he said, very seriously, “Never.”
None of the compliments Grady gave him in the ensuing twenty minutes were fit to be printed anywhere but aPenthouseconfessional, but Max didn’t complain.
After they’d cleaned up, and after Grady had spent ten minutes fussing with the blackout curtains that couldn’t quite keep the orange city lights from creeping in, and after Max drifted off in his usual spot, curled around Grady like an octopus with a body pillow, Grady let himself think.
A whole summer with Max. Just a year ago that would’ve seemed more like a nightmare than a dream. Now Grady was looking forward to spending time with Max’s whole family, who were exactly like Max except with thicker East Coast accents.
Was that crazy? How long had they even really been together? Should he start counting from September or the trade deadline? Or Christmas? Did he count the time they were broken up, even if they hadn’t officially been dating?
Grady paused with his fingers in the curls behind Max’s ear and rephrased the question. Did he care if it was crazy?
Max sighed in his sleep and rubbed his face into Grady’s chest. Grady’s dumb heart melted into a useless puddle.
