Page 7 of Game On

Coach Shore hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that Dorian wasn’t a gardener.

At the back of the yard was a shed done in the same shades as the exterior of the house, with two large windows and fancy French doors. A storage unit of some kind. Or a very small mother-in-law cottage.

Maybe Dorian was independently wealthy and that was how he was able to afford this house? How did one become independently wealthy, anyway?

Leaving his bags on the floor to unpack later, Jamie fell face-first onto the bed.

Fuck, he was tired. And grungy after a nine-hour flight with a two-hour layover in Chicago. His body was telling him it was dinner time, but in Vancouver it was only three. He was lucky that he hadn’t had to go straight from the airport to practice or a team meeting, as was often the case when one got traded. Instead, he had the time and space to recharge before life got hectic again in the morning.

He wanted to call his parents, let them know he’d made it safely. But first, a shower.

Dorian had told him that the washroom at the end of the hall was all his, since he had an en suite bath in the primary bedroom, so Jamie grabbed his stuff and made his way there. The bathtub backsplash was done in milk-chocolate tiles the same shade as the cabinets under the sink, and there was a fake plant of some sort in a skinny vase on the counter.

No, wait, it was a real plant Jamie discovered when he touched it.

Cute.

Even better? The hot water from the rainfall showerhead. He lingered longer than he usually did—it just felt so good to be clean and warm—before drying off and dressing in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

The house was quiet as he padded his way back to his room on bare feet. Sitting up against the pillows on the bed, he grabbed his phone and video called his mom.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hey.” He smiled at her familiar face, a tug of love pulling at his heartstrings. Her red hair was in the same pixie cut it’d been in for the last decade, and she wore the gold necklace with the little diamond stud that Dad had gifted her years ago. “How’s it going?”

“We’re good. You just missed your dad, though. He stepped out to pick up a few groceries.” Mom flicked her bangs out of her eyes. “You made it, then? How does it feel to be back out west?”

“I’ve been back before,” he said, thinking of Mom and Dad’s house in Kelowna—his childhood home.

“Not to stay.”

“True.” He sank deeper into the pillows. “I don’t know. It doesn’t quite feel permanent yet.”

“What’s your new roommate like?” came his brother’s voice from off-screen.

Jamie frowned. “Niall?”

“Hey!” Niall’s face popped into view over Mom’s shoulder.

“Hey. What are you doing there?”

“Just finished shovelling so Dad could get out. We got a fuckton of snow last night.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “Language, Nye.”

Niall rolled his own eyes, the hue the same blue grey as Jamie’s, their dad’s, and two of their other siblings. “I’m thirty, not ten. I can swear if I want to.”

“You sure sounded like you were ten right there,” Jamie teased. Because he was the youngest of eight and annoying his older siblings was basically his god-given right.

Niall gave him the patented don’t-mess-with-me older brother look, then grabbed the phone. “Mom, your neighbour’s outside. She wanted to talk to you.”

Things went a little fuzzy for a moment. Jamie was treated to a view of the ceiling, the floor, and possibly someone’s chin as the phone got passed from one person to the other, and Mom and Niall’s voices went muffled.

Then Niall was back, Mom nowhere in sight. “So? Spill. What’s your new roommate like?”

Sexy.

Tall.

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