Page 36 of Spite Crush

As my driver fought his way through traffic back toward the highway, I debated whether or not to let Zak know I was in town. He was going to be busy celebrating their victory with his team and I didn’t want to interfere with that.

But I also didn’t want to get on a plane and regret not seeing him while I was there. So I fired off a text and figured I’d let him decide where he wanted to spend his evening.

Kellen

Nice win, jackass.

If you get bored drinking with the team tonight, stop by and say hi.

Westin Resort Room 1124.

Chapter Fourteen

~Zak~

“I shouldn’t have even come to the game,” Kellen said as he opened the door for me. “You only scored one goalandyou left me on read all night.”

“Nice to see you, too,” I said as I grabbed him around the waist. “Yes, I did play very well tonight, thank you. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Maybe I would have if you’d texted me back,” he snapped, but hedidn’t try to pull away, so I figured he couldn’t have been too mad at me.

Which was good. Because I was way more excited to see him than I would have liked to admit and I wanted to celebrate our win and not fight with him. That shit was only fun in public anyway.

“How drunk are you right now?” he asked, his tone thick with humor. “You smell like a distillery.”

“I think I’m wearing more than I drank,” I assured him.

When I’d gotten his text, I’d wanted to rush straight back to theresort, but I knew it would be suspicious if I didn’t spend at least a couple hours celebrating with the rest of the team.

So I’d put in my appearance at the afterparty on the Strip, then ducked out as quickly as possible.

“When did you get here?” I asked him, grabbing his hand and urging him to sit next to me on the edge of the bed.

“I chartered a flight this morning,” he admitted, threading his fingers through mine and resting our hands on his thigh. “I wasn’t sure I wasgoing to be able to get away, so I didn’t want to tell you until it was confirmed. And then…you know…you stopped texting me. But fortunately our new BFF didn’t have that problem and she helped me sneak into the arena so I could watch you win your playoff spot.”

“I can’t believe you flew all the way out here,” I said. And I meant it. We hadn’t had a chance to have a conversation about what might be happening between us. But I chose to take his coming out to watch my game as a very good sign that he wanted something more than afriends-with-benefits kind of arrangement.

“I can’t believe this is your team’s first playoff run in thirty years,” he teased. “Or that you got in by the skin of your teeth.”

That was true. It had taken a combination of other teams losses paired with strategic wins by us to make it this far. The Inferno had always been the joke of the league, the underdog story that maintained a fan base and coverage based almost solely on our inability to win. But we’d spent a hard few years improving,and now we were showing the world what we could do.

“But made it we did,” I reminded him. “Now we get a week off and we get to host the first game of the playoffs at home.”

“Are you going to win it all?” he asked.

“I have no fucking clue,” I admitted with a chuckle. “But we’re sure as hell going to try.”

“What possessed you to tell Naomi Rose of all people the truth?”

His abrupt change of subject didn’t actually surprise me. In fact, I was more surprised he let me talk about hockey for as long as he had. I knew he was still frustrated, and I didn’t know what she had shared with him, so it was really only fair that I tell him about the conversation that had taken place earlier.

“I didn’t mean to,” I assured him. “She made some comment about you being prettier than her or something and then I was just admitting stuff to her. I mean, not everything, by the way, but enough.”

“It must have been a relief to be able to talk to someone about it,” he said softly. “I mean, most people in my life know I’m gay, but I still can’t just talk about who I’m dating because they don’t want to hear it. And apparently those guys aren’t allowed to talk about it either.”

“What a pair of sad, sad men we are,” I teased. “Thank God we’re hot and rich and famous, huh?”

“No doubt.” He shifted to climb onto my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck and resting hisforehead against mine. “I have to fly out again in a couple of hours.”

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