Page 45 of Home Ice Advantage

Whether anyone bought it—media or players—was anyone’s best guess.

Later that night, Ryan found himself on his knees at the side of Aronson’s bed, Aronson’s legs bracketing him in, one of Aronson’s hands in his hair. He was gasping; he still wasn’t so great at controlling his breathing, but he was alwaysdeterminedto go for it 100%.

“Taking care of the team,” Aronson said. He had that particular tone of voice he had sometimes when Ryan had really gotten to him, taut and kind of trembly, like he didn’t want Ryan to know how much it had affected him. “You’re always fucking saying that.”

“It’s important,” Ryan managed, after pulling off. His own voice was throaty, rough. Aronson hadn’t been easy on him. “The little things. Watching out for the guys. It’s always been important; I’ve always said that.”

“You have. And you’re right. It’s important. It’s just...” Aronson said, that little sly smirk twitching the corner of his mouth up. “I bet you liked taking care of the team. Eh?”

Ryan blinked, shifted his weight so he wasn’t leaning forward. He wouldn’t be able to do this much longer; his knees were already screaming. “Wait, are you trying to dirty talk me about my fuckingmedia availability?”

“I’m not trying, bud.”

“This is insane,” Ryan said, his hands gripping Aronson’s thighs.

“Taking care of the team...one player at a time,” Aronson said, his voice a mocking singsong.

“Oh my god—”

If it was anyone else, Ryan probably would have felt—embarrassed, or humiliated. But Aronson was so clearly enjoying this, his dark brown eyes dancing, like it was a joke he was letting Ryan in on, that Ryan just leaned down and bit him on the thigh instead, teeth digging in. Aronson hissed but didn’t pull away, put his hand in Ryan’s hair and pushed him back down.

“I’m here. I’m here right now. Take care of me.”

Ryan, his mouth otherwise occupied, couldn’t answer. Not with words.

After they were finished, Ryan pressed his fingers against the deep red mark he’d left on Aronson’s thigh. “The media availabilities really get you going, seriously?”

“The things that come out of your mouth,” Aronson said with a satisfied sigh, “and the things that go into your mouth. Just a talent, you know.”

By the time the holiday break rolled around, Ryan had been so busy and distracted with practices and games and travel and having what seemed to him like a ridiculous amount of sex that he almost forgot he had agreed to go home to his parents’ for Christmas. The text from Chelsea, reminding him, felt like falling through the sheet ice on a pond in the winter.

The Sullivans were nominally Catholic, in that the family had emigrated from Ireland generations ago and belonged to the same South Boston parish since. They had all been raised with a vague sense of constant guilt, a lot of noisy family events, and set foot in church approximately twice a year. Ryan, once he moved out for college, stopped going at all, eager to shed as much of that baggage as he could.

Dad, on the other hand, had gotten more religious as the years had dragged on, but in a way that meant that he didn’t have to attend church any more than he normally did. The lectures had increased, and the strict adherence to family rituals around the big holidays like Christmas and Easter, but that was about the extent of it.

Ryan had always hated Christmas, even when Shannon was there to soften some of the worst of it. This would be the first year he would have to go alone, without his mother or his wife. Briefly, he imagined what it would have been like to drag Aronson along. The mental image of his father and Aronson having to have a conversation was almost worth the fact that it would likely end with someone bleeding. Aronson wasn’t the kind of person to put up with anyone’s bullshit, and Dad—well, Dad had a lot of bullshit to offer.

Petey had gone home to his family in Vancouver; Heidi and her wife, Melissa, and their adorable baby were having a quiet holiday at home. And Ryan had to just get the fuck over it and suffer through.

By the time he got there, everyone was already present. The thin driveway along the side of the house was already packed, the Sullivan & Sons Construction truck backed into the far end of the drive by his brothers’ cars. They were always trying to one-up each other there, too. Jimmy had just upgraded to a new BMW, so Eddie had bought a Porsche.

The house was festooned with multicolored lights, and the noise from inside already carried out to the street. It was one of those cold, crisp nights where Ryan would really have rather just gone for a run along the Charles. Or jumped off a bridge. Pretty much be anywhere, doing anything, other than this.

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and went in.

Almost immediately, Kevin grabbed him by the arm and said, “Well, look who it is, the head coach of the second-to-last-place team in the Atlantic Division.”

“You guys angling for that lottery pick after all, huh?” Mark demanded.

Ryan counted to ten internally and said, “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

It went downhill from there. His brothers all seemed delighted that the team had been slumping and were eager to tell him. Kevin, especially, went on at great length about the power play and howhewould have fixed it.

“You’d just tell them to shoot more?” Ryan asked, incredulous.

“You can’t get too fancy passing constantly,” Kevin said, chest puffing out a little, “you just have to get the pucks on net.”

Sometimes when they got like this Ryan thought about all of the things he could have said: that the only reason they were so critical was because they had wanted what he had so fucking badly and had never had the talent or determination to get there. They had all played pro hockey at some level, at least for a few seasons, but Ryan was the only one who had made the North American major league. Eddie would talk your ear off at length about his time in Sweden. Kevin had played a few seasons with the Beacons’ minor league affiliate. And Mark had done his time in the league below the minors.

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