Page 29 of Body Check

“Right,” Jesse said, eyeballing them. “So we’ve got Connor and me, Tanner, Graham. Anyone else joining us?”

Arkady Romaschenko—Kady, to the team now—looked at Graham. “You like girls and to dance and you go?”

“Yes,” Graham said with a shrug. “You wanna come?”

“Yeah, c’mon,” Jesse coaxed. “It’ll be fun.”

“Okay. I like to dance! We do dance-off like we talked about after goalie goal, Webby.”

Jesse grinned. “Awesome. Kady’s in too. Anyone else feeling secure enough in their masculinity to come?”

Danny Foley nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go. Dancing can be fun and I’m certainly not afraid of getting hit on.”

Leah shot him a surprised look he must have caught because he grinned at her. “You want to come too, Leah?”

She looked surprised but nodded. “Sure. It’s been a while since I went out dancing.”

Over the noise of Jesse taking a headcount, Gavin leaned forward. “What do you say, Crane? Shall we join them?”

Dakota blinked. “Oh, I didn’t expect you’d want to go.”

“Well, I am gay,” he reminded him.

Dakota rolled his eyes. “I know. I figured you had work to do.”

“Oh, I do,” Gavin said, wincing at the thought of what heshouldbe spending his time doing. “But it sounds fun, and I can’t remember the last time I went out dancing.”

With Rory, undoubtedly. His ex-husband loved to dance, to show off, to be the person everyone desired.

“Huh,” Dakota said. “Sure, why not, then?”

“Ooh. Are you guys coming?” Jesse asked, his expression bright and excited.

Dakota nodded. “Yeah, all four of us are coming.” He gestured to Leah, Danny, Gavin, and then himself.

“Hell yeah. It’s so nice having a GM who isn’t totally uptight. This is turning into aparty.”

“Annnd that’s my cue to leave,” Hoyt Kent said with a laugh. The team’s head coach rose to his feet. “I’m going back to the hotel to call my wife. And for plausible deniability after this ends up onJockGossip.”

Jesse snorted. “Not likely. I got up to way worse shit in LA last year and no one found out.”

A pained expression crossed Connor’s face and Jesse leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Sorry, Captain Growly. Wasn’t trying to wind you up.”

Connor shot him a skeptical expression. “Sure you weren’t.”

“I think that’s a good call, Hoyt.” Darryl Schultz, the team’s video coach, rose to his feet and joined the head coach. Aksel Rasmussen, the associate coach, stood as well, discussing sharing a ride back to the hotel with the other older guys.

Tyson Short, the team’s PR director, eyeballed Jesse as he walked over to them. “Becarefultonight,” he stressed.

Jesse snorted. “What am I going to do? I’m a happily settled down man with kids at home. I just want to dance with my partner.”

At that, Connor looked a whole lot more pleased.

Tyson appeared less convinced. “I’m not interested in finding out. Have fun tonight, but not too much fun, okay?”

“Fine,” Jesse huffed. “I’ll behave.”

“And remember,” Hoyt called out. “Hydrate. We’ve got practice tomorrow. You know I’m going to work you hard. We might have won in Anaheim but LA’s going to be a lot tougher. And if you can’t keep up in practice because you had too much fun on a night out, there will beno more nights outuntil I’m satisfied with your performance. Keep that in mind when you make choices tonight.”

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