Page 39 of Game On

Matt shoved his hands in his coat pockets, looking tall and muscular and like a badass in his lined leather jacket. “What happened to your no-pets rule?”

Dorian jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “She needed somewhere to go. Jamie practically twisted my arm. What else was I supposed to do?”

Not that there’d been much arm twisting. Dorian kept that to himself.

“Can she be in the video?” Pierce asked, still on his haunches.

Dorian frowned. “No. She’s not your dog. In fact, she’ll probably be someone else’s before the month is up.”

Something ugly and mean squirmed in his chest. Probably because he was cold.

“Do you even know what to do with a dog?” Matt asked.

Pierce, fully seated on the ground with Poppy in his lap, glanced up. “You’ve never had one?”

“We never had pets,” Dorian said, not at all jealous that Poppy was licking Pierce’s face. That looked gross. “My parents aren’t pet people.” They weren’t kid people either, but that wasn’t something Dorian was about to get into... well, ever.

Matt cocked his head. “Didn’t you have a hamster?”

“For a week. Every kid got to take the class hamster home for a week in fourth grade.”

And it had not bitten him, regardless of what he’d told Jamie. But he’d cried when he’d had to give the hamster back, and he’d vowed never to have another pet again. Pets died or they could run away and get lost or get squashed under a car tire.

Pasting on a smile, he waggled the tripod. “Are we doing this or what?”

* * *

Jamie leaned against the counter in Dorian’s kitchen, tipped his head back against the cabinet, and groaned up at the ceiling. He’d known the real estate market in Vancouver was out-of-this-world outrageous, but he hadn’t expected a private room in a shared home to go for almost two thousand bucks a month.

Two thousand! A month.

For a room. He didn’t even get his own washroom.

Christ.

When he’d first landed in Charlotte after being drafted a decade ago, he’d had an 860 square foot one-bedroom apartment for fourteen hundred dollars a month, which, with the current exchange rate, was about nineteen hundred Canadian. The closest he could find to nineteen hundred Canadian in Vancouver was a room in a house shared with four university students.

He’d never find a place at this rate. He didn’t mind a roommate, but he didn’t necessarily want one who was a stranger and none of the guys on the Orcas were looking for one.

It was disheartening as fuck.

He’d be selling his house in Charlotte this summer, but until then, he didn’t exactly have the funds to pay a mortgage and rent, especially not if he wanted to eat. Dorian had never imposed a limit to how long Jamie was welcome in his home, but Jamie assumed Dorian would want his space back eventually.

Maybe he’d let Jamie stay for the rest of the season?

But that season could get extended to June if they made the playoffs.

Maybe the guest house at Archie’s was still available and he’d rent it to Jamie for cheap. At least that way Jamie wouldn’t be in anyone’s way.

The microwave went off, but Jamie couldn’t gather the energy to remove his food, never mind eat it.

The front door opened. He couldn’t see it from where he was, but he heard the doorknob bump against the wall, the clink of dog tags, the thump of something being set on the floor. Multiple somethings. Dorian’s low voice, speaking perhaps to himself, maybe to the dog, and then the patter of tiny dog claws preceded Dorian into the kitchen.

“Oh, hey,” Dorian said, several reusable bags on each arm. He wore a bright red parka with a furred hood and his socks were patterned in purple stripes. “How did the apartment hunting go?”

Jamie started to respond, then noticed that the bags had the logo of a local pet store. “What’d you buy?” he asked, bending to pet Poppy when she came over and nosed his leg.

Dorian glanced at his bags and... blushed? “Just... things. For Poppy. To make her more comfortable.”

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