Page 68 of Unrivaled

“Yesterday.”

“Wait, have you been fucking this guy the whole time? In between all your other dates?”

Now he needed to choose his words carefully. He didn’t like lying to Jess, even if it was for her own good. “It was casual.” It was still casual, but Jess didn’t need to know that.

“Except what, now you’ve decided you have feelings so you’re giving up on dating anyone else?”

No, Grady wanted to say. But that was exactly what he needed her to think. And….

And hewasgiving up on dating, and in part itwasbecause he didn’t want to be with anyone but Max. He’d gone on a very nice date with someone else and had a good time and thought about Max the whole while. Max had left his house and Grady immediately felt the loss of him—off-kilter in his own home.

But it was still casual… wasn’t it?

He cleared his throat and pushed aside a wave of impending panic. It was casual. Everything was fine. “Something like that.”

“Oh my God. Grady. Only you.” She was laughing, though. “God, I told you so. Are you going to tell me his real name now?”

Ah, fuck, he hadn’t thought of a good way to evade that question. “If we’re still together at the trade deadline I’ll tell you everything.”

There was a suspicious pause. “At?” Jess asked.

Shit. “By,” Grady corrected.Atmaybe made it too obvious Shithead was another hockey player.

“Uh-huh,” Jess said. “All right. Fine. You held up your end of the deal, so I guess I have to go skiing.”

“Please. How many black leggings and soft sweaters with too-long sleeves have you bought for this trip?” Grady knew how Jess dressed when she wanted to appear touchable. She had it down to an art form.

Now she mock gasped. “How dare you.” But he heard the grin in her voice. “You should see this cable-knit scoop neck I bought. It is softer than a newborn puppy and I look like I belong in a Nespresso commercial.”

Grady snorted. That was Jess, all right. “You’re a terror, sis.”

“You’re damn right.”

MAX SLOTTEDback into the Monsters’ lineup two days after he left Grady’s, but he was only back for one game before their star defenseman took an awkward fall into the boards and went out with a hip injury.

On the one hand, that sucked. The Monsters had a lot of firepower, but they’d built their defensive core around Jimmy, and the whole team felt his absence. Their first game without him should’ve been a blowout—they were playing Winnipeg, who were currently in last place in the Central Division—but they barely eked out a win, 4–3 in overtime.

Max liked a lot of things about his job. He loved the game, loved his teammates, loved the fans. Truth told he loved being the center of attention. He’d miss all of that when he inevitably got too old for pro hockey.

But he’d never miss the spicy takes from Twitter, the fan sites, and even the beat reporters who covered the team. A rumor that the Monsters were days away from trading Hedgie for a replacement defenseman kept him from dwelling on his holiday plans. He could’ve done without the stress for El, though.

Between games, practices, and travel, Max had barely enough time to confirm the last details of the vacation rental with his mom. He didn’t have to worry about Christmas shopping—he rented the house and paid for groceries and travel for his family as their gift. Max might only be able to stay for a few days, but he rented the house for two weeks so everyone else could enjoy some time away from the snow. Both Logan and Nora had seasonal affective disorder, and the injection of sunshine helped them get through the long winter.

Of course, Max liked spoiling Logan’s kids, so he’d gotten the family Disney passes and, to make it up to their parents, virtual reality headsets that would keep the little ones busy in the event of poor weather or a day spent recovering from sunburn.

But apparently his mother wasn’t on board with Max’s plan of “not worrying about the holidays.” He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the bedside clock in the hotel room as her voice came through the phone. “… and I set up the grocery delivery for the day we arrive, so we’ll be all set when we get there.”

It had gotten to the part of the hockey season where Max’s body didn’t know what time zone it was in, just that it was tired all the time. But those words woke him up. “Oh shit.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh shit’? Don’t you mean ‘thanks, Mom’?”

He put the phone on speaker so he could turn onto his side and curl up. “I do mean ‘thanks, Mom.’ The ‘oh shit’ was for me. I forgot to tell you we’re going to have one more.”

“One more what?”

He bit his lip. “Guest.”

“Oh! Do we have enough bedrooms? Do we need to look into getting another place? I think all the beds are spoken for, but there might be a pull-out—”

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