Page 43 of Scoring Position

“That article, the stuff Doc said. You’re okay with it?”

Nico shrugged. “Fans have said worse things about me than comparing me to a Muppet.” He really didn’t want to talk to Misha about the rumor that he and Ryan were sleeping together.

“Doesn’t make it okay if the team takes the teasing too far.”

Nico swallowed the bitter feeling that rose in his throat. “It’s fine. They’re just having fun.”

But the feeling of unease dogged Nico for the rest of practice and as they headed home. He tried to brush it off, but he probably should have treated it as a portent for the inevitable phone call.

Knowing that ignoring him would only make him more annoyed when he was in the mood that he was presumably in, Nico answered. “Hi, Dad.”

“Nicolai. How could you let this happen?”

Los geht’s.“I didn’tletanything—”

“Flirting in front of the media! Letting that teammate—a plug no less—talk about you like that to the press. What were you thinking?”

It kept going from there.

By the time he was finished, Nico’s ears were ringing and his mouth was dry from arguing. What could it possibly hurt if there were rumors? Both Nico and Ryan were playing just fine—within the broader context of the Fuel’s dumpster-fire season, anyway—and if outsiders wanted to speculate, why should he care?

“You don’t want them thinking about who you date! You want them thinking hockey—that’s the best way to manage your image.” Right. Theimage. “And what, you want people to think you’re tying yourself down to a player who can’t compare or compete with you? You’re better than him and you don’t need him dragging you or your game down.”

Because everything was about hockey. Right. Except he and Ryan played the same position, so they were almost never on the ice at the same time, so it obviously wasn’t about hockey.

At least, notNico’shockey.

“Hey Nico, can you—shit.”

Nico turned around. Ryan was standing shirtless in the kitchen, basketball shorts pushed low. Nico could smell the open tin of Tiger Balm from across the room.

That explained why he couldn’t seem to get comfortable in the car earlier.

“You’re young. You don’t know how the world works. This irresponsible behavior will come back and haunt you. Nicolai? Nicolai, are you listening to me?”

Nico almost laughed. He might never listen to his father again. “You think Ryan’s a terrible hockey player and that being bad at hockey is sexually transmissible. I got it. Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Nicolai—”

Nico beckoned Ryan closer and gestured to the ottoman in front of him. Ryan tilted his head in question but sat anyway. “I have to go behave irresponsibly,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye, Papa.”

He hung up. For good measure, he turned his phone off too.

Ryan looked up at him. “Is everything okay?”

No, it wasn’t. Nico held out his hand for the Tiger Balm. “Right side?” he asked.

“Yeah, how did you—”

Nico scooped up a glob of eye-watering camphor-and-menthol-scented petroleum and applied it to Ryan’s back. “You have a knot I can actuallysee.”

“Ah.” He hissed when Nico pushed on it. “Ow, fuck. Okay, actually that feels amazing.” His head fell forward.

Nico continued rubbing Tiger Balm on the spot with his thumbs, working the muscle loose the same way he was working out the tangle of his own thoughts.

Ryan had been there for him almost from the beginning of the season. He hadn’t given up on Nico when Nico was being an asshole. He was kind and patient and occasionally obnoxious, and his body was hot and solid under Nico’s hands.

Nico could keep pretending that he hadn’t noticed how much Ryan touched him. He could keep pretending he didn’t see the way Ryan looked at him, half speculation, half pure heat. He could keep pretending that he didn’t want to touch back, that he wasn’tlookingback. He could keep his hands and feelings to himself and put hockey first like his father expected.

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