Page 129 of Unrivaled

“No, the Cup is the baby. Max is the sister.”

Fortunately their lunch and drinks arrived, so Grady only had to listen with half an ear as Farouk and Mitch debated what it would be like to give birth to the Stanley Cup. Grady was replacing them both with Dawg.

“Okay, new subject,” he interrupted when things got a little too graphic. They all turned to look at him. No point beating around the bush. He was going to get shit for this either way. “I need a shopping recommendation. Specifically jewelry.”

“GRADES?” MAXlooked into the closet and cursed his own lack of foresight. None of his nice shirts’ sleeves had buttons. He’d always worn his lucky cuff links.

“Yeah?”

Max hated to ask, but unless he wanted to show up looking like a slob, he didn’t have much of a choice. “Can I borrow a shirt?”

After a moment, Grady poked his head into the bedroom. “Do you actually not have any shirts with button cuffs?”

“Not ones that are nice enough to wear with a suit.” At least not during playoffs. He had another set of cuff links, but they didn’t feellucky. Maybe one of Grady’s shirts would.

Grady opened the other closet. “Yeah, I might have something.”

“Oh, you might have something,” Max joked. “In your designer closet full of designer dress shirts—”

When Grady turned around holding a small velvet jewelry box, Max’s words died in his throat and morphed into a strangled, “You’re not gonna tell me there’s a shirt in there.”

Grady must’ve caught Max’s runaway train of thought, because he gave a wry smile. “Breathe, Max. I am not a good enough loser to be proposing to you right now.”

The nervous tension in Max’s belly broke into a laugh. At least Grady could own up to it. “Thank God. I thought maybe you were concussed.”

“No concussion.” Grady rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling faintly, his cheeks tinged with red, like he was nervous or embarrassed. Maybe both. “Stockholm Syndrome, maybe.”

What an asshole. Max grinned and made grabby hands for the box. “So what did you bring me?”

Wordlessly, Grady opened it and held it out.

On the left side of the box sparkled a tiny lobster studded with red and blue gems. On the right, a rose-gold fish with shiny dark turquoise scales bared sharp white mother-of-pearl teeth. Max swallowed. “You romantic motherfucker.”

“I know they can’t replace the ones you lost.” Grady took a deep breath. Was he nervous? Why? Max was on the brink of tears over here. “But I thought maybe these could be lucky too—”

Max cut him off with a kiss. The box dropped to the bed as Grady wrapped both arms around him.

Finally.Grady hadn’t touched Max like this since before the Condors’ last game. Max had been starting to despair. He fell into the kiss.

“I love them,” he said when the kiss broke. He waggled his eyebrows. “And they’re definitely lucky.”

Grady snorted at the joke. “I’m glad you think so.”

Max thumbed the side of his mouth. His own emotions were doing an impression of a microwaved marshmallow, warm and sticky-sweet and exploding all over everything. “Do you think piranhas eat lobsters in the wild?”

“I don’t think they meet in the wild. Piranhas are freshwater fish.”

Of course he knew that, thereby spoiling Max’s innuendo. He went in another direction with it instead. “Well, this fish wants to get fresh with you. And after tonight’s game, we’ve got two days off before the next one.”

Grady’s hands drifted down to Max’s ass. “Is that so?”

“It is,” Max chirped. “And personally I think that if these cuff links turn out to be lucky, we should get lucky too.”

“I do owe you for what you did to my suit.” Grady kissed him briefly and then pulled back. “Can I pick the shirt?”

A little shiver went down Max’s spine. “Kinky.” He gestured to the closet. “I’m all yours.”

Grady picked a black shirt off the hanger and held it out. It took Max a moment to realize Grady intended to slip it on him, but he turned around and Grady pulled the silky fabric up his arms. He stayed behind Max and buttoned his shirt from behind, his chin hooked over Max’s shoulder.

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