Page 59 of Home Ice Advantage

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He talks about you...pretty much constantly.”

They stared at each other in silence for a second. Murphy looked away first. “We work together,” Eric said, unnecessarily.

“Uh-huh,” Murphy said. “I don’t—look, Aronson. I’m not assuming shit about you. About him. But I want you to know that I’ve got my eye on you.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. And if you do anything to, I don’t know...” Murphy said. For someone who was always smiling, the expression he had on his face now seemed highly out of character. He wasn’t smiling at all. He didn’t have any expression at all: he just looked Eric straight in the eye, so serious that Eric felt for a second like he was actually facing the Department of Player Safety again, and not in a sexy way. “Anything at all to make him unhappy. I just want you to know that I’m fucking watching. And I’m not going to be happy about that.”

“Funny,” Eric said, and smiled.

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I. You know. A lot of shit about you makes sense, eh?”

“How do you mean?” Murphy asked, leaning into Eric’s personal space, as though he were the sort of person who could be easily intimidated.

Instead, Eric reached out with one finger and pushed it against Murphy’s chest, sending him back on his heels in the skates. It was rearing up in him, the vicious little animal that always had the urge to go for the jugular in any fight. “I’m just saying. I know how these things went, back in the day. Things you maybe thought about saying but never did. Things you didn’t even know how to put into words, maybe, eh?”

Murphy’s face looked a little green around the freckles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t. But I’ll tell you this. The last thingIintend to do is do anything to—” To what—to hurt Ryan? To make him unhappy? Even a few months ago that would have been the furthest thing from his mind to worry about, and now it was something important and central. “I’ll tellyouthis. Keep yourself out of business that doesn’t concern you. Because you might not like the fucking answers you get.”

Murphy stared at him. Eric stared back.

“Am I clear?” Eric asked, quietly, patiently.

In the distance, Ryan had caught sight of them talking, and something flickered over his face. Worry, concern, interest. Whatever it was, he was skating over toward them, and whatever Murphy would have said, he’d probably had to swallow.

“Smile,” Eric said, with mock cheer. “Your buddy’s back.”

“Aronson,” Murphy said, his face a little thundercloud, “I’m gonna—”

“Hey, boys,” Ryan said, making a sharp stop next to them. “What’re you two talking about over here?”

“Nothing,” they said, in unison.

Ryan looked from one of them, to the other, suspicious. “Okay. Well. We got a practice to run. Murph, you want to help lead this drill?”

“Sure,” Murphy said, more easily than anything he’d said to Eric. As he skated off after Ryan, Eric pinched the bridge of his nose, counted to ten and wondered how the hell he was going to get through this dinner.

The practice itself had gone well, but Ryan still felt despondent after it was over. Cook and Williams had done everything he’d asked of them: they’d been the sparkling center of attention, they’d signed jerseys for Murph’s kids, they’d been generally charming and likable and perfect. The veterans had taken the time to chat with Mason and Sophia too, and Davey had let her come into his crease and take some shots from the boys. Her whole face had lit up talking technique with him and it was easy to forget that Davey was almost a decade older than her—they both looked like excited little kids, their expansive hand gestures and everything.

Everything had gone well. Except for the one thing that he had actually needed to go well, which was Eric meeting Murph. It was inexplicably tense, like cats fighting over territory, and Ryan couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. He’d caught them having some kind of Wild West standoff by the Beacons’ bench, although both of them had flatly denied that anything was wrong. Ryan hadn’t been born yesterday, though. He knew something was up, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

He’d taken everyone to the Back Bay and one of his favorite new Italian restaurants. It wasnice—the kind of place that he could show off his city, and feel good picking up the tab for everyone, and the food was fucking delicious. Ryan had always been someone who’d appreciated a good meal, and Faccia a Faccia definitely provided one. The dinner itself, though, was more of the same. The kids were out at a more child-appropriate spot with Murph’s parents, and it was just the adults. Petey, Heidi and her wife, Melissa, had to carry most of the conversation, while Ryan picked at his lobster and attempted to get Murph and Eric to actually acknowledge each other’s presence, wishing Tara hadn’t taken the opportunity for a staycation of her own.

It was futile.

By the time they had ordered dessert—and Ryan, who had an unfortunate sweet tooth, was definitely ordering anything with a cardamom coffee crumble—Murph had stood up and said, shortly, “Excuse me, I gotta go outside for some air.” Before Ryan could even respond, he had already hauled his big body out of the chair, loping for the door.

Eric looked at Ryan, and Ryan had to bite down the urge to snap,You couldn’t even make a tiny fucking effort?But instead of fighting, he said, “Hang on, let me go check on him,” and got up to follow.

The restaurant was located on one of those pleasant Back Bay streets, all redbrick townhomes and scrubby little leafless trees. Murph was standing by the door, looking up at the night sky, washed out with the city lights. Only the brightest stars and the trail of an airplane streaking across the skyline were even visible. Even though he was looking up, his posture sagged, exhausted in a way that Ryan had rarely seen him. When he noticed that Ryan had come out of the restaurant, too, he smiled, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that reached his eyes.

“Murph? What’s wrong, brother?” Ryan asked.

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