Page 102 of Goaltender Interference

ALL of this shit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Thanks for the ride!” Jesse called out, shutting the passenger door of Tanner’s SUV behind him.

Tanner waved, then took off, nearly ripping off the mirror on the van parked nearby. God, Jesse could tell Tanner was a fucking Massachusetts native.

Jesse unlocked the front door, then frowned when he saw the alarm had already been disabled. He glanced around and spotted two pairs of sneakers.

Ahh, Nolan must be home. And from the look of the shoes, he probably had his friend Kyler over. They played on the same hockey team and he lived down the street. The boys were inseparable and from what Jesse could tell, more or less lived at each other’s houses.

Jesse padded down the carpeted stairs to the basement, wanting to let them know he was here. But he froze when he got halfway down. The boys were seated on the couch, laughing togetherabout something. They sat close together and Nolan had a sweet, shy smile on his face as he looked at Kyler.

“You were so great at practice yesterday,” Nolan said breathlessly.

“Yeah?” Kyler sounded pleased as he ducked his head, looking up through his lashes at Nolan.

“Yeah. Like, that goal you had …”

Jesse could practically see the heart-eyes from here, so he smiled to himself, turning away to creep up the stairs. But he must not have been quiet enough or they caught the movement in their peripheral vision, because Nolan yelped, “Jesse!”

Jesse turned back to see that he’d bolted off the couch and stared, wide-eyed.

“Hey,” Jesse said, trying to be casual. “Sorry to interrupt. Just wanted to let you know I was home.”

Ugh. Shitty timing. He should have hung around the rink longer, or taken Tanner up on going with him to shop for a TV for his new apartment. He hadn’t meant to interrupt Nolan and Kyler’s flirting. Because that wastotallywhat that was.

Jesse wondered if Connor knew.

“You weren’t interrupting. We were playing video games,” Nolan blurted out, his face red.

The TV screen showed that the game had ended and Jesse wondered how long ago that had happened. “Cool. Have fun. I won’t bug you. Let me know if you need anything though.”

Jesse went upstairs to the second floor, grabbed a sweatshirt, peed, then jogged back downstairs to the first floor. He frownedwhen he noticed Kyler’s shoes were gone now.Weird. Hopefully he hadn’t freaked the kids out. Honestly, it was kinda cute the way they were clearly crushing on each other.

With a shrug, Jesse headed to the kitchen, rummaging around in the refrigerator to see if anything looked good. He’d eaten before he left HCI but his stomach was still rumbling. He pulled out some slightly dried-out but still edible carrots and a bottle of yogurt ranch dressing. When he turned to set them on the counter, he nearly yelped when he came face-to-face with Nolan. “Uhh, hi. What’s up, Nolan?”

He was very red and had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. “Nothing.”

“Okayyy,” Jesse said slowly. “Did Kyler head out? He didn’t have to.”

“Oh, um, he had some homework to do.”

“Sure. That’s cool.”

“I didn’t expect you to come back so early. Dad said he’d be home late because he had a meeting with his GM and I—I thought you’d ride with him.” Nolan’s words tumbled out a little too fast and he wouldn’t meet Jesse’s gaze, staring down at the floor.

Jesse shrugged and got a plate for his carrots, squirting some ranch onto it. “I was done early. No meeting for me so I caught a ride with Tanner Clayton.”

“Right.” Nolan shuffled a little awkwardly, his socked feet flexing on the hardwood floors as he scrunched his toes. He had big feet and hands, in that awkward stage where he reminded Jesse of a big puppy whose body hadn’t quite caught up to its paws.

“So,” Jesse said. “Do you want to talk about something?”

“Um, kind of?”

“Okay.” Jesse dragged a carrot through the puddle of dressing. “What do you want to talk about?”

Nolan turned away and stuck his head in the pantry cabinet, returning with a bag of popcorn. He stuffed it in the microwave, hit the pre-set button, then cleared his throat.

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