Page 99 of Going All In

“Aw, thanks, man. Sort of a backhanded compliment,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“I just mean that you guys work together, and as long as you don’t fuck it up, I’m happy for you.”

“We having a moment over here or are we playing hockey?” Baz interjected, nodding toward Jake to scoot down the bench.

“You love the sappy shit, Baz. You should be all for this conversation,” Harty said.

“Yes. Jakey’s in love. So much so that he didn’t go after that ref for a bad call.”

“Hey. I never went after officials when they were clearly blind,” Jake muttered. “I mean, I might’ve yelled my opinion, but we all do that. Only a true asshole would go gunning for a ref.”

“Just saying you’ve mellowed, and it’s a good thing. I mean, you are still fucking awesome on the ice,” Harty said.

“Damn straight. Now how about we get our mellow asses out there and score some goals?” Jake said as Baz hitched his leg over the boards to jump on the ice.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Harty said with a grin as they hopped on the ice during the change.

Cheesy got possession of the puck and sent it toward Jake. One of Dallas’ forwards almost snagged it, but Jake spun, keeping his stick tight, and deked around the man. Then he was skating down the ice. He spotted Harty out of the corner of his eye and sent the puck toward his linemate as Jake almost tangled up with a Dallas defenseman.

Jake skated behind the back of the net while Harty was cornered into the boards by Dallas. Harty tipped the puck to him, and Jake skated back around the net and found his opening, sending the puck right over the line.

The goal horn sounded and the music blared through the arena. The fans were on their feet, screaming and clapping along with the music. Fuck. He loved this game so damn much.

“Yeah, fucking right,” Baz yelled, wrapping his arm around Jake’s shoulder and shaking him as the other guys hugged and patted each other on the helmet.

“One more and that’s a hattie. We got this,” Harty said as they started skating toward their bench to tap gloves with the rest of their teammates.

Jake finished tapping through the line and looked in Darcy’s direction. Not that he could see her from the bench, especially through the marked-up glass around the rink, but he shot her a grin anyway. He loved that she’d started to enjoy watching the sport he loved. She made an effort to talk stats with him—most likely because there was nothing she loved more than a good stat—and to understand why he loved playing hockey so much.

It meant more to him than he could put into words, one more thing he loved about her.

He could only imagine how much she was enjoying the game with her family. The Collinses were a riot. He rarely gave tickets away since his family only visited once during the season, so when Darcy’s dad hinted about tickets, Jake was more than happy to grab them. It’d taken some finagling to get six seats together, but he’d wanted them all to come to the game.

Maybe he’d winked at them just to see her mother get excited, which would probably cause Darcy’s cheeks to flame pink. She was so fucking adorable and he was in love with her. Not that he had plans to tell her that anytime soon.

No matter how great things were going, he had no plans to rock the boat, and those three little words would probably do just that.

“Earth to Jake. You getting on the bench?” Harty asked with a bemused expression.

A handful of his teammates had similar expressions on their faces. Jake cursed under his breath and slid onto the bench. Thank god they had a TV timeout, so he didn’t look like a complete ass hanging out on the ice when it was no longer his shift.

“I think he’s blushing,” Baz chortled.

“Fuck off, man. I’m just happy with my scoring chances tonight,” he said, grabbing the Gatorade bottle in front of him and taking a healthy drink.

“Is that what you call what’s going on with Darcy? So crass,” Baz said.

“Hey, don’t talk about her like that,” Harty said, snapping a towel toward Baz’s head but getting Jake’s shoulders instead since Jake was seated between them.

“Yeah, don’t talk about Darcy like that, asshole,” Jake said.

Baz held up his hands in surrender. “Kidding. Kidding. You know we are all happy for you. Finally got your head out of your ass and found a nice girl that could clearly do better than date you.”

“Seriously, you are such a shit-stirrer,” Harty said. Jake was surprised that his friend ended it there and didn’t agree with Baz. A month ago, Harty would’ve jumped right on the Darcy-could-do-better bandwagon. Guess that was progress.

“You boys going to gossip or get ready for the next shift?” Cheesy asked, looking down at the line of them. “We do have a game to win.”

“Damn straight. Let’s get Jake that hattie,” Harty said, sliding down the bench, his legs bouncing with the same anticipation that Jake felt every day.

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