Page 52 of Home Ice Advantage

“I mean was I—do I look like the kind of guy who’d say something shitty? On the ice?”

Sully started laughing, and his face when he did it lit up, his stupid, loud laugh that Eric liked so much. “Eric, you don’t remember calling me an Oompa Loompa?”

“...I did?”

“Come on, seriously? It was my fifth year in the league or something. I had to ask a teammate if you actually meantme.”

“Ryan Sullivan.”

“Eric Aronson.”

“That’s not what I meant. Like, would you have assumed I was the kind of guy who’d say something racist.”

“I mean, no? I knew you were Jewish, and you never—you just seemed like the kind of guy who’d chirp or try to get under someone’s skin. I thought you were an asshole, I never thought you were a racist asshole.”

“Okay,” Eric said, but he still felt ill at ease, like his skin was too tight.

Sully was still watching him, brown eyes shrewd. “Just because someone made a stupid assumption doesn’t mean the rest of us thought that.”

“Okay.”

Sully’s hand, briefly, on his knee. “We can talk about it later. Once we get home.”

“Yeah?”

“I have thoughts,” Sully said.

And Eric, because he was a weak fucking bastard, said, “Okay.”

Since he’d moved in, Ryan’s apartment was pretty bare-bones. He’d had the time to furnish and decorate it, but not the inclination. It was a lot of effort and energy he didn’t possess. Not after the end of a day when he had a game or travel or any number of other responsibilities. It was fine, but sometimes going home was kind of depressing. Acknowledging the piles of books he didn’t have time to read, the boxes of stuff he’d brought home with him from New Hampshire that he didn’t have time to unpack, felt like too much.

Instead of finding time to deal with it, Ryan spent a lot of time at Eric’s apartment instead. This wasn’t an ideal solution, either: Eric’s apartment was one step above a studio, and particularly on the way back from roadies, with Ryan’s suitcase spilling over everywhere on the floor of the bedroom, it got a little cramped.

Ryan liked watching Eric move around in it, though. He’d been here for long enough that he had bought everything he needed and knew where everything was. He moved with the ease that those things brought to him, even in the small galley kitchen, the minuscule bathroom. Only Ryan’s presence threw him off his game, but he’d started adjusting to that, too, pivoting around him while he cooked or making space for him on the couch that was really too small for two former hockey players.

“So what exactly happened to make you have that crisis of conscience?” Ryan asked, once they had settled down a little and had some water and Eric had placed an order for Thai delivery. He listened while Eric briefly described the encounter with Keen, watched while his face darkened.

It was rare that Ryan really saw Ericangrythese days, and it reminded him that the man had depths that he had barely plumbed. The way his eyes got dark and hot, the way it was like all of that tension and power crackled through his body, an energy he barely held in check.

Ryan hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he hadn’t thought of Eric as a dirty player during their playing days, but he had definitely been aware of that temper, that capacity for violence barely held in check. It was part of the game—deeply woven into the fabric of the game—but that had never been the kind of player that Ryan was. He had seen it in other players with a kind of fascination and envy. Had vaguely remembered Eric’s numerous suspensions, all the while knowing that that would never happen to him.

Ryan had won the Sportsmanship Award twice, and it wasn’t because he was such a nice fucking guy. It was because he had been a superstar who regularly got the shit kicked out of him, but also rarely took penalties. There was a distinction.

“What thoughts did you have?” Eric asked, after they had gone over the basics. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked very different in this context, barefoot, rumpled from the plane, glasses slipping down his nose.

“There’s a certain kind of guy who really regrets the fact that things are changing, you know? Especially guys like Keen. He came up right around the time when things weren’t like they were for us, but it was close enough that I think he really regrets he wasn’t around for the worst of it.”

“Maybe,” Eric said, shortly. “It just...we were both products of a different era, but I never—I talked shit on the ice, sure, but I neversaidshit like that. It just fucks me up, Sully, you know? I played the way I did because of who I was. Because of all of the shit I had to prove. If people were going to give me crap, I was going to make sure they regretted ever looking at me funny. And it’s the same way now. I didn’t get this job because of who I was. Or maybe you got the job because of who you were, but...”

Ryan took a step forward. “You really wanted this, huh?”

“I’ve been working my whole fucking life to prove people wrong. This was the next part of that. I’mgoingto be a head coach one day. I might not have the Cup, I might not have the hardware, but I’m fucking good at what I do, and I’m going to show all of them.”

Ryan had thought about what it would mean to come into a team where the coaches had been employed before him and been passed over for the promotion, but in a general sense. He hadn’t really thought about what it would mean for Eric, even after all of this time. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Eric just looked at him from under the sardonic line of his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth twitching. “At this point, Sullivan? It’s fine. I resented the hell out of you at first, and I still think you’re too fucking nice, but it’s...we’re fine now. Whatever the hell we’re doing.”

“You’ll be a head coach one day. I don’t doubt it. Hell, depending on the way the rest of this year goes, you might even be a head coach as soon as next year.”

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