Page 119 of Goaltender Interference

“You know how I love getting double-teamed,” Jesse said cheerfully, watching the vein in Connor’s temple pulse. His face was getting a little red too. “Finn’s not really my type. Patrick’s hot in a beefy, bare-knuckle-boxer sort of way, but I guess if I had to pick, I’d go for Kelly. And heisgay, so there’s that.”

Jesse took a sip of his tea.

Connor was practically purple now and his knuckles were turning white on the steering wheel. God, he was so easy to wind up.

In between sips of orange pekoe Jesse kept prattling on, winding Connor tighter and tighter, but it wasn’t until they screeched into the garage attached to the arena that Connor exploded. He threw the SUV into park, unbuckled the seat belt—the clasp hitting the window with a metallic clang as he flung it away—then whirled to face Jesse.

“Cut it out. You’re a ridiculous, annoying chaos demon but you’remyridiculous, annoying chaos demon and no one else is touching you.Especiallynot my brothers.”

He hauled Jesse in by the tie and kissed him, his tongue delving between Jesse’s lips like he was gasping for oxygen and Jesse was the last source on earth. Jesse happily kissed him back before he remembered where they were.

He pressed a hand to Connor’s chest and pushed him away. “Easy. We don’t want someone from the team to see this,” he pointed out.

Connor sighed, shaking his head like he was coming out of some weird stupor as he slumped against the window. “True,” he rasped. “But I mean it.”

Jesse smiled and patted his chest, then straightened his tie. “I know you do. Now, c’mon. We’ve got a game to get ready for, Captain Growly.”

From the moment Connor went out for warmups, he feltoff.

Or maybe he’d felt off since he called Jessehisand kissed him. Connor’s face felt hot at the memory even now. Jesse hadn’t gotten weird about it, but he’d … ignored it. And now Connor’sskin felt too tight and itchy and his skates weren’t laced right and he … he just needed a re-do.

But of course, Kelly was waiting for him at the red line.

“Yo,” he said, thwacking Connor’s shin pads. “Good to see you.”

Connor rolled his eyes at his younger brother. “Good to see you too.”

“Sounds like Finn and Pat are organizing something at O’Neill’s pub tonight. You’re coming right?”

Connor shrugged because this was the first he’d heard of it. “I guess. Just family or can the team come?”

“Team can come. I don’t know if they’ll wanna after we beat your ass but …”

“Fuck off,” Connor said with a laugh. “We’re gonna destroy you guys tonight.”

“Sure.” Kelly gave him a deeply skeptical look. “Your defense is like Swiss cheese.”

“Yeah, but we’ve gotJesse,” Connor said.

“It’s gonna take more than that. We’ve got Hajek in net, plus Theriault and me.” With another thwack, Kelly took off.

Connor glared at Kelly’s back as he picked up speed, shooting a few pucks at their goalie, Hajek, who batted them away.

Hajek was good, Connor would give him that.

And Gabriel Theriault was, unfortunately, a top-notch defenseman. More offensive than defensive on the blue line buthe still wasn’t afraid of blocking shots and applying the kind of forechecking pressure that made scoring hellaciously difficult.

Kelly was no slouch either. Much as it galled Connor to admit, his brother was getting to be very good. Kelly wasn’t as offensively inclined as his D-partner but he was phenomenally good at disrupting the opposing team’s offense.

Neither Evanston nor Boston were doing great this season but they were well matched. It was gonna be an interesting night, that was for sure.

After warmups, while guys prepared for the first period, Connor tried not to stare at Jesse as he got into game mode. He’d been a chatty monster on the drive over but now he was quiet. He sat in his stall with his earbuds in, chin tucked into his goalie pads and jersey like a turtle.

Connor had a good handle on Jesse’s pre-game routines by now and one part of it involved yoga and standing on his head. Jesse swore it improved blood flow to the brain and helped him play better but it mostly made Connor laugh every time he saw it.

Jesse and Kady did hand-eye coordination work too, but this shit? Connor didn’t have a clue what played on Jesse’s earbuds. Music? Meditation? Audio porn? Hell if Connor knew. With Jesse, it could honestly be anything.

But whatever it was, it seemed to work, so no one dared disturb him.

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