Page 7 of Unrivaled

Eloquent. Max snorted.Gimme a break, bud. u think just cause the wcoh is in Toronto that people are gonna believe ur Armstrong? U took his headshot from nhl.com. 0 effort.

Grady Armstrong would never. Guy was the biggest try-hard Max had ever met.

What’s wrong with my head shot?

Max rolled his eyes.aside from the fact that its obviously not u? like at least crop a pic from the team’s insta or something, god damn. gimme something to suspend my disbelief on

Not my problem you don’t believe me.

What, he wasn’t going to take a candid photo to prove it? Big shock there.

It is tho. Bc I have too much self-respect to sext a guy whos catfishing as a dude with a hockey stick up his ass

That definitely sounds like a you problem.

Max laughed. He knew this was a good idea.Your loss, Fakey Armstrong.To rub it in, he scrolled through the folder of his borderline-obscene photos and sent a shot of his chubbed-up dick in his favorite pair of sweat shorts. No nudity; Max wasn’t an asshole. He wasn’t gonna send unsolicited dick pics.

Guess I’ll have to take the L since nothing I say will convince you.

Now he was getting it. Still… Max was having fun. He hated to have the whole thing end just like that. Besides, it was entertaining to pretend that Grady Armstrongdidhave Grindr on his phone and was somewhere in one of Toronto’s hotels, getting salty about Max chirping him. Well, Grindr profile MXLmillion—because Max had the brains to avoid accusations of catfishing and also didn’t want casual users identifying him by name—chirping him.

It was a good fantasy. Almost as good as the idle daydreams Max had about needling Armstrong until he finally gave in and fucked Max against a wall. The guy was tightly strung. Max wanted to know how hard he had to pluck to get him to snap. The sex would bephenomenal.

But in the meantime, he had to deal with Mr. Catfish.

Tell u what, Max said, because he had spent his entire life making sure he got the last word.If ur really Armstrong u can prove it. Meet me in the arena basement after the Canada/young guns game. Ill be wearing the team Canada shirt.

This time the response took longer to come through. Perhaps the guy had finally realized Max had him.What’s in it for me?he finally said.

Seriously? Was this guy new or something?If ur grady Armstrong?? An orgasm.

What’s in it for you, then?

Grady Armstrong’s dick, if Max was lucky.When I prove u are not grady Armstrong u will delete this account and stop trynna catfish horny queers.

See you then, came the immediate reply.This was followed by a row of American flag emojis.

Max laughed again and sent back a middle finger. Whoever this guy was, he was committed to the bit.

Satisfied, he set his phone on the nightstand to charge and flicked out the light.

Sleep came easily.

GRADY HADnever been in love. Jess, like any overly invested older sibling, thought this was her fault and therefore her job to fix.

When Amanda broke up with her, she was a wreck. She tried not to show it in front of Grady, but there’d been no hiding it.

Grady could admit—to himself, anyway—that it had left its mark. He’d already lost his parents. He couldn’t imagine being in Jess’s shoes and losing his partner too. It was bad enough when he overheard one of the friends he had in juniors talking to a teammate about how everyone treated Grady like he was special “just because he’s an orphan.” The betrayal still stung over a decade later. So he’d never put much effort into relationships. Grady had suffered enough losses.

But Jess didn’t have to know he was looking for a holiday date and not a happily ever after.

It was just as well that guy on the dating app only seemed to want him for sex, because what did Grady know about relationships?

It was that, more than anything, that convinced him to go through with the meetup. At this point, what could it hurt? Grady would show up, his “date” would be surprised it was actually him, and they’d have sex. At least he’d get some physical gratification out of it. Maybe he could even get in a few verbal jabs at the man who said he had a hockey stick shoved up his ass.

He considered no-showing—how was some random going to get into the arena’s basement anyway, unless he was one of the army of staff members it took to keep the place going?—but at the end of the day, his pride wouldn’t let him.

It wouldn’t let him dress up for the occasion either. Sweats and a T-shirt would do. He was an athlete. It was practically his uniform.

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