Page 13 of Body Check

It had been nice of the O’Shea family to host the Thanksgiving open house. It gave guys who lived across the country—or across the world—a place to go for the holiday. And for the ones who had family in the area, they could pop in before or after their own family dinners.

Dakota had been a little surprised to be invited, since he was support staff, but he’d seen everyone from security guards to, well, the general manager and president of hockey ops who stood beside him.

The guest list said a lot about the O’Shea family. Their fame and wealth had made Dakota a little wary, but they were truly some of the warmest, most down-to-earth people Dakota had ever encountered.

He cleared his throat. “Well, I think I’m going to head out.”

“Yeah, me too. Walk out with you?” Gavin offered.

“Sure. Think we should say goodbye to our hosts?”

Catherine was laughing about something as she sat at a table with her daughters-in-law, all of them working on a craft project. Scrapbooking, maybe?

Dakota didn’t have a clue where Declan was.

Gavin shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think they’ll mind if we just head out.”

“Okay. You know them better than I do.”

“They’re great people,” Gavin said as they walked up the stairs from the finished basement to the ground floor.

Dakota studied Gavin’s movements, wincing at how tight his Achilles tendons appeared. He was practically walking up thestairs on his tiptoes. His entire posterior chain was probably fucked.

“Who? Catherine and Declan?” Dakota asked, rather than yell at Gavin to drop his heels, like he was tempted to do. He’d save that for Saturday. They’d start with loosening and stretching his feet and ankles.

“Well, all of the O’Sheas.”

“They seem to be,” Dakota agreed. And there were a lot of them. All four of Declan and Catherine’s sons were hockey players. Kelly was the only one who was with another team, but Dakota had met Finn and Pat, since they were at the arena fairly often. Retired, but unable to leave the team behind completely.

He knew Connor the best, of course, since he was one of the players Dakota worked with regularly. Connor bitched and moaned about Pilates, but he did it anyway, and he genuinely seemed to like doing yoga. He was nowhere near as flexible as his boyfriend Jesse, but, then again, Jesse was a goaltender.

Dakota was quickly growing fond of Jesse. He was funny and irreverent, flirty in a fun, unserious way. Everyone could tell he was crazy about Connor and his kids and the feeling was mutual.

They all seemed very happy together.

Good for them. Dakota certainly hadn’t had any luck in love, but he was gladsomeonedid.

Upstairs, in the hallway, Dakota ran into Luke Crawford. The big-bodied defenseman nodded at him and Gavin, then kept walking.

“Headed out?” Gavin asked as they reached the entryway.

Luke nodded, shoving his feet into a pair of leather boots, his motorcycle helmet resting on a bench nearby. “Yeah.”

He didn’t elaborate, and neither Gavin nor Dakota pressed him on it as they pulled on their own shoes and grabbed coats.

Dakota didn’t know Lukewell. And he wasn’t sure he liked him.

He was another player who gritted his teeth through the Pilates workouts, did the same with yoga, and seemed mostly scathing about the whole thing. He hadn’t endeared himself to Dakota in any way and considering most of the conversations he had with his teammates seemed to revolve around hockey, motorcycles, beer, and hookups with women, Dakota suspected they’d have little in common.

Luke shrugged on his leather jacket as Dakota and Gavin stepped through the door. Gavin left it open, no doubt assuming Luke would be behind them.

It really wasn’t even that cold out tonight for late November, though Dakota still shivered, because he hadn’t quite adjusted to the weather extremes in Boston after living in Seattle his whole life.

“What are you off to do this evening?” Gavin asked as they stepped onto the sidewalk. He tipped his head, like he was listening intently and genuinely curious to know the answer.

“Honestly, more work,” Dakota admitted.

“Yeah?” Gavin frowned. “I’m sure you do a ton of planning and prep for the team outside of the hours you’re at HCI but surely you getsomedowntime.”

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