Page 76 of Scoring Position

Phil nodded and eyed the kid with sympathy. “You gonna be okay, rookie?”

“Yeah,” Chenner said to his skates. Then he lifted his head like an idiot and said, “I saw bone!” He turned green and Ryan pushed his head back down.

“Shit,” Phil muttered. He skated closer. “Deep breaths. I can’t say that you didn’t see bone, but let’s leave the diagnosing to the doctors. In the meantime, focus on breathing and getting the world to stop spinning.”

It took another three minutes for Chenner to regain enough color to exit the ice. Ryan and Phil went off with him. By the time they made it to the locker room, several of the guys had showered and changed, but no one had left. They seemed to be waiting for news.

Phil shook his head and went to find answers.

Nico was nowhere in sight.

Everyone was dressed and Nico was still missing by the time Phil returned, his mouth set in a hard line. “Broken. He’s been sent to the hospital for surgery.” He ran his hands through his hair and gave the news they all were waiting for. “He’ll be out for the season.”

Greenie swore loudly and creatively in what sounded like all the languages represented in the NHL.

“Exactly,” Phil agreed with a sigh. “Go home, hug your loved ones, and I’ll see you all back here tomorrow. We should have more news then.”

The guys stood and shuffled out in quiet clumps. Yorkie held back to talk to Phil before he too left with a grim nod at Ryan. As he left the room, Ryan remembered that Yorkie had known Kitty for as long as he’d been in the NHL.

Phil settled on the bench to Ryan’s right and sighed. “What a day.”

“Right?”

“Thanks, though. You’re good in a crisis.”

“I try my best.” He waited a beat before asking, “You know where my ride is?”

“Still in one of the trainers’ rooms taking a minute. He stayed with Kitty while they did the first aid, but we kept him back from following. Not that he didn’t try, skates and all.” Phil rubbed his face and then slapped his hands on his thighs as though getting ready to stand. “He could probably use a friend right now.” He gave Ryan a wan smile and left.

When Ryan found him, Nico was slumped in a chair in one of the rooms, staring at his hands, still in half his gear.

“Hey,” Ryan said softly.

Nico looked up. “I broke his hand.”

It would not be a good idea to snuggle Nico at the arena, but he wanted to. “You didn’t—”

“I did.”

Fuck it. Ryan stepped into the room and shut the door. He looped his arms around Nico’s shoulders and let him press his face into Ryan’s sweater. They stayed like that for a long minute, until Ryan could feel the tension flowing out of Nico even as it gathered in his own shoulders.

Nico would notice that, and that would lead to nothing good. Neither would Ryan getting into a fistfight with the next homophobic dickbag to look at him and Nico wrong, which was what would happen if Ryan hugged Nico any longer and got any more worked up about someone potentially seeing them.

I’ll make sure he never plays another game.

Ryan took a deep breath and pulled back. He had to crane his neck; Nico was ungodly tall when he was wearing skates. “Come on. You need to change.”

“Yeah.” Nico shook himself and grabbed his helmet from the top of a file cabinet. “Hey, what did Vorhees say to you? When you, you know….” He gestured. With the helmet in his hand, it looked like he was waving a giant fist. “He doesn’t usually go after you.”

He didn’t this time either.“Don’t worry about it.”

Nico shot him a look. “It was about me, wasn’t it?”

The definite downside to living in someone’s pocket was that theyknewyou. “Just trust me when I say you don’t want to know.” Knowing wouldn’t make him happy. It wouldn’t alleviate the guilt he felt over Kitty’s hand. It would just give him something else to stress about.

“Ryan.” Nico stopped in his tracks and grabbed Ryan’s elbow. “You almost punched our coach in front of the entire team because of something he said about me. Phil had to hold you back! What did he say?”

Ryan stopped too. Nico slid his hand down to his wrist and—fuck,now? He was gonna hold Ryan’s wrist like that in the arenanow? And prove everybody right, that the Fuel got Ryan as a companion animal for Nico? “Let me go.”

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