Page 103 of Scoring Position

Ryan?

Shit. He exhaled the breath he’d been holding.I don’t know if that’s a good idea.

It took all his guts to hit Send, and his stomach curdled when his phone rang twenty seconds later.

He’d barely picked up when Nico blurted, “Are you having second thoughts about us?”

“No!” Ryan said quickly. “No, God, except in the sense of ‘every second thought is about us.’ I want to see you so bad, just….” He had to swallow against reflexive bullshit. He was supposed to be moving forward. That meant giving honest answers, not misdirecting.

Nico exhaled audibly. Ryan could hear the tension in it, but when he spoke, his voice was even. “Just what?”

Spit it out, Ryan told himself. “I don’t know. What if I fuck up again? And then we both have to play while we’re upset. If I screw with your game, we’re both going to hate me. I want you playing your best.”

Nico considered this. “Okay, but what if not seeing each other is worse? You can’t tell me you’re not wondering….”

“I’m definitely wondering,” Ryan said firmly. So much wondering was happening. “Which is the other thing.”

This time Nico sounded amused. “I know you’re not the kind of guy who doesn’t get off on game days, so….”

Ryan snorted. “Sex with you for the first time in months is not going to be ‘getting off.’”

He said the words before they could pass through his brain-mouth filter. He meant that it wouldn’t be the same—that it would be weeks of pent-upwhateverand they’d be desperate, they wouldn’t take their time.

But that wasn’t what itsoundedlike. And the problem was, he meant that too.

Instead of clarifying, he cleared his throat. “I’m not going to be able to keep my hands to myself, and I just…. Look, imagine getting this far in our first Worlds tournament together and one of us gets sidelined with a sex injury. Imagine explaining that to your coach.”

A beat. Then Nico, holding back an obvious laugh, said, “Should I be offended you think I’m that easy, or concerned what you have in mind if you think it’s going to end in injury?”

Which led to Ryan detailing the myriad ways his idiot college teammates had hurt themselves during sex, to Nico’s disbelief and amusement.

He eventually agreed to wait until they were both finished the tournament, but he wasn’t happy about it.

Ryan wasn’t happy about it either, but he didn’t trust himself. He half believed he’d fall apart the first time they saw each other and make an embarrassing scene regardless of whether or not they were on the ice.

Finally he had to shake himself out of it and go meet his family for lunch.

“Ryan!” His mother hugged him as if they hadn’t spoken in months, even though they’d been in the same city for over a week. Tara and his parents had arrived in Prague a few days after the tournament began, and divided their time between sightseeing and coming to games. “How are you?”

“Living the dream,” he said, breezier than he felt. “Where exactly have you lured me?” The restaurant was on a hill that overlooked the city, which was a trip in and of itself. Ryan hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time exploring Europe. Everything looked sodifferentthan back home.

“Cool, right?” Tara said. “It’s a monastery! They make beer ice cream.”

Ryan’s stomach growled on cue. As soon as the tournament was over, he was coming back for a helping of that.

After lunch, his parents and Tara wanted to walk around, but Ryan had to get back to the hotel for a meeting. For a minute he thought he’d escape without comment—he could tell Tara had been dying to say something since the advancing teams had arrived from Brno, but hadn’t gotten the chance with Ryan’s parents around. But when they excused themselves to use the restrooms, Tara leaned across the table and said, “So….”

Uh-oh.

“The German team’s in Prague now, so I hear.”

“Are they?” Ryan checked his phone for the time. “That makes sense since the quarterfinals start tomorrow.”

Tara made a noise of frustration. “Ryan. You’re killing me, bro. Are you and Nico going to work things out or what?”

Ryan ducked his chin. “You’re pretty invested, huh?”

“Yes! Shockingly, I am very invested in your happiness!”

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