“Kinda feel like you should go first. After all, it’s your house, and you’re the one who had to save my sorry ass from frostbite.”
“Fair enough. I guess I’ll bite.” Devon leaned back in his chair, took a moment to consider his phrasing, and then decided he wasn’t the kind of guy to think a lot before he opened his mouth and there wasn’t much point in pretending he was. “What’s a nice boy like you doing in a place like this, Noah Bell? And by ‘this,’ let’s pretend I mean a freezing-cold rest stop forty miles from nowhere. Or the side of the interstate in a blizzard.”
“I think it’s only, like, three miles from Gaylord,” Noah said dryly. He ruffled a hand through his hair, which had mostly dried and was now adorably fluffy and even more Muppetlike. Christ. Devon would have to see if he could subtly leave the guy some hair product before Amber came in tomorrow morning and decided to use that fluff as ammunition to ruin Devon’s life.
“Quit stalling,” he managed. Look at him, holding up his end of the conversation.
“Right. Well, like I said, it started with a shitty breakup. Or I guess it started when my now-ex started embezzling money, but I didn’t know about that at the time.”
Oh shit. Devon should’ve made popcorn. “Should I have made popcorn?” he asked.
Noah ignored him. “So yeah, one day in, like, June, the cops come knocking on my door, and they’ve got a warrant to look through our stuff, and I’m sitting there going, ‘What?’ Like, do I need a lawyer? And—” He paused with a furrowed brow. “Actually, I think we need to go back farther.”
He really should’ve made popcorn. “How much farther?”
“Like seven or eight more years?” Noah said ruefully. “Because honestly, this story starts where the first one ends.”
The same as Devon’s, then. “Early retirement.”
Noah snorted and pulled his feet up onto the armchair with him. “Okay, one of us did not make enough money in the show to retire. I never even got to sign my first standard contract.”
So three years making probably league minimum, with maybe a signing bonus. “Fair.”
“Anyway. The first obstacle was the concussion. You ever?”
They weren’t exactly uncommon in hockey, but Devon shook his head. “Head’s about the only thing I never broke. At least not like that.”
“Yeah, well, I spent three weeks getting real acquainted with the inside of my toilet bowl. I mean, I could find my way to the bathroom in the dark on my hands and knees.”
Devon’s stomach churned in sympathy. “Jesus. Never heard of anyone having it that bad.”
“I was just lucky.” He quirked a wry smile and lifted a shoulder. “I guess I mean that both ironically and sincerely. Because yeah, it sucked. I mean one minute I’m living the dream I’d worked for my whole life, and the next the doctors are telling me it’s a miracle I can still talk and feed myself.”
And here he was walking around and driving and living a normal life. Devon suppressed a shiver at the might-have-beens. “Well, you look”—Hot. Edible. Available. —“good.” But not like a hockey player, anymore. Not really. He was too reedy for that.
Noah tilted his head in acknowledgment, or maybe he was trying to decide if Devon was flirting with him. “Took some getting used to. I can’t work out like I used to—that kind of physical exertion will trigger a monster migraine and I’ll be in bed for two days. But I felt awful if I didn’t get any exercise, so I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself until I found a routine that worked. And then, once I didn’t feel like cold deep-fried dog turd, I figured I needed to do something with my life, and I was already in Colorado, so I applied to school. Begin chapter two.”
“What’d you go for?”
“Oh, I was an undeclared major for two years. Going back to school was hard. Ended up with a degree in education with a focus on human kinetics. Probably kind of predictable.”
Devon couldn’t have done it. “Wasn’t that hard? I mean… spending all day with the people who still might get to live out your dream.”
Noah flushed pink in the firelight. “I didn’t think of it that way. It was nice to have hockey back, even if it was in a different way than I wanted at first. I missed the closeness of being on a team, you know?”
Fuck, Devon shouldn’t have asked. Now Noah’s story was bringing up all his own shit. “Yeah.” He knew. But he’d had to leave it behind.
Maybe Noah realized they were treading too close to dangerous waters, because he cleared his throat. “So school was chapter two. Then chapter three. Work. Self-explanatory. And then chapter four.” He paused. “How do we feel about Sean Avery?”
What? Oh. Oh? Was he hinting at what Devon thought he was hinting at? “I mean, he’s a dick, but not because he’s bi.” He waved his hand. “Get to the embezzling part. I’m dying of suspense. Did you get arrested?”
Noah laughed with little humor. “No. Thank God. It took them a couple weeks to figure that out, though, and to realize Tommy’d been stealing from me too. Not enough to bankrupt me, just casually siphoning off funds here and there.”
“Wow. Nice guy.”
A considering hum, and Noah shot him that sly smile again. “I’d say he sucked, but he wasn’t even good at that.”
Devon laughed, startled. Okay, yeah, Noah was flirting with him. “So ends chapter—shit, what is that, chapter four? Five?”
