Page 10 of Scoring Position

“Tough two years on him,” Greenie said, obviously having followed Ryan’s gaze.

“More on Kersh than everyone else?” Grange licked a glob of sour cream from his thumb. “No question he’s under a lot of pressure, and it sucks that Lundström got traded. I get that they’re friends. But he’s not doing himself any favors.”

Ryan wasn’t going to ask what he meant.

Greenie frowned. “Give him a break. Kid’s just awkward.”

Was he? Maybe. Ryan figured you had to be pretty awkward for management to pull their bizarre trade maneuver. And while Kirschbaum certainly didn’t strike him as a social butterfly, Ryan didn’t thinkawkwardwas the whole truth.

Well, he’d have plenty of time to find out. Assuming neither of them got traded, they were going to be seeing each other pretty much every day from now until April, whether they liked it or not. And until he somehow managed to get Kirschbaum to trust him, whatever was going on with him was none of Ryan’s business.

Even if the flash of loneliness he could’ve sworn he caught in the man’s eyes matched his own.

NICO LOOKEDforward to the routine of game days. The predictable pattern of where to go and what to do next soothed him. For a few hours, he didn’t have to think about anything.

Not thinkingused to be the best part about hockey. With skates on his feet and a stick in his hands, he could let instinct take over. He could just react. He didn’t have to think about whether this was what his dad would’ve done, whether he’d be scolded for passing instead of shooting or the other way around. He’d never wanted to play like his dad—he’d even purposely chosen to play forward instead of defense—but Nico could never escape the comparisons. Pregame TV broadcasts still threw up images of Nico and his dad, side-by-side in their full gear, with their stats on display as if to underscore how badly Nico was failing to live up to his heritage.

Unfortunately, in the past year and a half, it had gotten increasingly more difficult tonot thinkduring games, so he had to enjoy the pregame ritual for the mindless meditation it provided.

Nico did a round of stretches and grabbed his pregame snack. Apple in hand, he wound his way to the locker room and stumbled upon several of the guys playing two-touch.

A pang of longing hit Nico low in the gut. Last year, Lucas might have eased Nico into the group and acted as a buffer. Even when they used to play together in tournaments as kids, they joked that Lucas was a Nico-to-human translator. Maybe if Nico had been a better player or if he hadn’t missed so much of last season with a broken arm, he would remember how to fit in with the rest of the team.

Now the idea of joining in seemed impossibly awkward.

He should move on, but curiosity got the better of him. Wright stood in the middle of the group, calling out encouragement and PG-rated trash talk. His energy and volume made him difficult to ignore. Nico’s eyes kept tracking back to him.

Greenie butted the ball toward Chenner, a rookie who would probably spend some time in the minors, and he whiffed spectacularly. Maybe his unfortunate hair was in his eyes. He caught his foot on the ball on the backstroke, then wobbled and stumbled backward. Nico cringed in secondhand embarrassment and held his breath as Chenner did a self-check after his fall.

“You okay, kid?” Wright held out a hand to pull Chenner to his feet.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he mumbled and rubbed his ass.

“Sweet moves, rookie!” Greenie hollered.

Chenner blushed and mumbled something Nico didn’t catch under the noise of the catcalls. And he couldn’t hear what Wright said when he reached out and placed a hand on the back of Chenner’s neck. He squeezed, and his biceps flexed, visible through the tight material of his Under Armour shirt.

It was a sight Nico needed to spend less time considering. If they weren’t going to be friends, theydefinitelyweren’t going to be doing anything else. And Nico had long since learned not to look, when it came to the locker room. It was always a bad idea. Besides, hockey players were undeniably fit, but they were also kind of gross, both in attitude and hygiene. Especially in their teens. Years of conditioning made it easy to ignore any of the guys Nico might have found attractive.

So why the fuck was he suddenly noticing that Wright was all compact muscle?

Chenner glanced at Wright, who smiled warmly and nodded. As he pulled his hand back, he patted Chenner’s shoulder. Nico’s skin itched with envy. He could almost feel the ghost of a warm hand on his shoulder, the brush of callused fingertips catching at the collar of his shirt—

No.What the fuck. This was worse than a physical attraction. Nico was staring hungrily because he was jealous of a friendly touch. Because Ryan—Wright, damn it—had shown Chenner kindness. Because as much as Nico hated to admit it, it turned out he really didn’t have any friends on the Fuel. He and Lucas had been thick as thieves—they’d even lived together. Nico hadn’t needed anyone else.

Rees was right about him after all.

The humiliation of that might actually burn worse than his on-ice problems.

Prickling with embarrassment, Nico slipped away from the game, his shoulders still tingling. He wondered if he looked as much like a freak show as he felt—clumsy and out of place.

Somehow he’d managed to get so touch-starved, just standing there among his teammates, that the sight of a good-looking player offering platonic physical comfort made him want bad enough for his brain to mix the signals. That had to be what was happening, because Nico refused to think about the alternative. Crushing on any teammate would be stupid, but on the guy they’d paid to babysit him? That was just masochistic.

The blush had finally left his cheeks by the time the team gathered in the locker room to dress for warmups, but Nico still avoided looking at Wright. He had to.

The thing about preseason games, Nico thought bitterly, was the lineup was so full of call-ups and rookies that nothing was predictable. That was how Nico found himself at center ice, facing off against Nashville’s third line with Wright on his wing.

Not even Vorhees would pair Nico with Wright on the regular—they both played center. It made no sense. Sure, they might share the ice now and again in a pinch, but that was it. But in the preseason, coaches sometimes just threw things at the wall to see what stuck. And tonight, that thing was Nico.

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