Page 10 of Zero Pucks

I couldn’t remember much else other than him laughing and touching my hand. Or was I touching his?

“…thought I could take a moment to myself, but it feels like I’ll never be able to get away…”

“He was sad,” I blurted again.

Jonah leaned on his stick, his gaze pointed just above my waist. “Aww, you’re such a poet, Tuck.”

“No, like, genuinely. He was sad. We were talking about depressing shit. I don’t think he’s the guy I went to the room with. He was way too morose to get laid.”

“So that leaves you at square one.”

“Utterly fucked, except hopefully not literally, which would make this all a lot more bearable,” I said with a sigh. Then my alarm started blaring, and I jumped so hard I fell right on my ass. He grinned down at me.

“Hand,” he managed through another fit of giggles.

“Thanks, dick.” It was nice to use someone’s steady body to stand for a change, and I adjusted my legs, which had twisted a bit, before pulling out my phone. My alarm to let me know it was time for work. “Kids’ll be here in ten. Get the fuck off my ice so I can finish my drills. And you take jersey duty today, please.”

“You owe me.”

“Ten blowjobs.”

He grinned. “Grow a pair of tits and I’ll consider it.”

I smiled back. “Open your horizons, Jonah. Someone like me will rock your world.”

He giggled again, then headed for the small swinging door and left me to my ice and contemplation. But my brain appeared to be done spitting out memories for the day, so after four more laps and nothing but a new ache in my hips, I decided it was time to call it quits.

Whatever the fuck happened in Vegas was apparently destined to stay there.

* * *

Even with shit vision, I could see Boden’s Glare of Disapproval—in all caps—staring at me from across the restaurant. I leaned heavily on my walking cane as I navigated through the narrow tables, and it was honestly beyond me why he kept choosing this place to have dinner.

It was a whole-ass ordeal every time he wanted to get in and out with his wheelchair, but he still did it. Of course, he was a creature of habits so intense they drove me out of my goddamn skull and made me often question why I was still this dipshit’s roommate.

Love, I guessed. Because I did love him. He was a better brother to me than Killian had ever been.

He was in his manual chair today, and he rolled back slightly as I approached, which was his version of standing up to be polite. “Such a gentleman.”

“Take notes,” he said flatly. His Quebecois accent was thicker the way it always was when he spent extended periods of time back home. He usually stayed with his grandfather in some little one-horse town about an hour outside of Montreal.

It was deep in the woods, and it was healing, at least according to Boden. He was closer to his mom’s side of the family than his dad’s, except for his grandfather. Who also happened to be half of all of Boden’s mental and emotional trauma.

He was the man who attempted to start a family hockey legacy after winning four Stanley Cups in his youth.

His son, Boden’s dad, had hoisted two in his career.

But Boden would hoist zero because even if the NHL did unclench their fucking panties about disabled players, Boden’s cerebral palsy assured him that he’d never be able to skate on his feet. It was something he’d grown up knowing and something that never stopped eating at him.

The man had two fucking gold medals, and it wasn’t good enough for his family.

Boden was intense—it was like he absorbed all the fucks I lost after my accident and made them his whole personality.

Seriously, why did I love this guy?

“How was practice?”

“The usual.” I grabbed his beer and ignored his irritated look as I gulped down half, then grimaced because of course it was that no-calorie, non-alcoholic garbage. “Kids got into a bunch of fights, one of them broke their glasses, and I took a stick to the face.” I turned my head to show off the red mark on my jaw that would be light green by morning. “It’s a good thing I don’t have a partner. Poor fucker would be arrested by now after trying to tell people I get beat up by eight-year-olds and not them.”

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