Page 91 of Scoring Position

He schlepped into Kitty’s place with a pair of chickens for roasting, a bag of brown rice, stock, onions, spinach, and enough butter to cause heartburn on sight, and set up in the kitchen.

Kitty followed him in and sat down at the table. “Talk.”

Ironically, Ryan was very good at talking. He just also happened to be good at saying the wrong thing. “I fucked up with Nico. I want to fix it.” He cranked the oven on to start preheating and grabbed a pot for the risotto.

“Okay,” Kitty said, “but fix is different depending how is broken. So how did you break it?”

Ryan thought about that while he rinsed the chickens. “I jumped to a lot of conclusions.” Like that Nico was using him to get one over on his dad. “Maybe some projection.” But that wasn’t the worst of it. “I didn’t take him seriously. He tried to tell me we could have something real and I basically told him it wasn’t worth finding out because we’d probably never be on the same team again.”

Kitty tilted his head. “Why?”

Ryan narrowly avoided dropping the raw chicken on the floor. “What?”

“Why you tell him that? Now you try to fix, so obviously is not true. So why you say it?”

Jeez, Kitty didn’t pull any punches. Ryan put the chicken in the roasting pan and turned the water on to wash his hands. “Vorhees had just finished threatening me. Either I control Nico, make him do what Vorhees wanted, or he’d kill Nico’s career. I figured I’d probably be leaving the team in April and Nico wouldn’t. Put everything together, it seemed like a long shot that we could work out.” He pulled a dish of salt toward himself. “If we broke up sooner rather than later, at least Vorhees couldn’t use us against each other.”

Kitty groaned and slumped in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.

Ryan blinked. “What?”

“I was right,” Kitty sighed. “You’re stupid.”

“Comforting,” Ryan grumbled. “Thanks.”

“Cook.” The command came with the same imperiousness with which Kitty imposed fines. “And listen. I’m tell you how to fix.”

THE DAYbefore the trip to Indianapolis, Nico got a text from Ryan.I fucked up, it said.

Nico spent a few seconds staring at it with one hand over his mouth, knowing Ryan would see he’d read it. Let him sweat. After all, that’s what Nico was doing. His palms were clammy and his stomach was in knots as he wondered if Ryan’s text meant what he wanted it to.

Butdidhe really want Ryan to say he was sorry? Nico’s wounds had just started to heal. Nico had heard some bad non-apologies in his life. There was every chance that hearing Ryan out would be like ripping out the stitches before the cut had closed. Did he want to give Ryan a chance to hurt him again?

An eternity later, another message followed.Is there any chance I can apologize in person?

Nico swallowed. Now that he had the words in front of him, he knew hedidwant to hear it. Human hearts didn’t understand logic. But hope?

It had to be worth a shot, right? Even if all he got was closure.

Finally, with nerveless fingers, Nico typed,My house. After the game?He wanted to pick up a few things anyway. It made sense to do it without actively trying to avoid Ryan at the same time.

OK. Thank you.

So tomorrow Nico would not only be playing his former team for the first time, he’d be facing his ex-boyfriend for the first time since their breakup. He’d better get a good night’s sleep.

He landed in Indianapolis with worse nerves than he’d ever had as a rookie. Jordan—possibly his unofficial handler, although Nico didn’t mind since at least Jordan had volunteered—nudged his elbow before he stood to get his bag. “What do you think? First career hat trick?”

Nico dredged up a smile. “I don’t know. Someone might burn my house down.”

The house he’d be in with Ryan again in just a few hours.

After skate, Nico plastered on his best media relations smile for the beat reporters and kept to the talking points the Vancouver PR had coached him through—he was grateful for all the support from the Fuel organization and fans, he was happy to be back in Indianapolis, trading was part of the game, he just wanted to play hockey to the best of his ability, he hoped he could continue to play good hockey in Vancouver and make his supporters and fans proud.

He didn’t mean to gravitate to center ice during warmups, but he couldn’t help it. And maybe he wasn’t the only one.

Ryan skated up to the circle across from him. “Hey, Nicky,” he said quietly, watching Nico with uncertain eyes. The barely healed scars of their last encounter pulled and threatened to reopen.

Nico was aware of the thousands of eyes on them, and that he hadn’t suddenly developed an immunity to Ryan’s charm. Unfortunately. “Hi.”

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