Page 35 of Breakaway Goals
“Fine, fine, I’m going,” Morgan said, sliding out of the booth and getting to his feet.
He didn’t miss how Hayes’ gaze flicked over to him as he sauntered over to the bar. He took his time ordering another beer, making more polite small talk with the bartender than he might normally tolerate.
Only when it was over and he had a fresh bottle in his hand did he make his way over to Hayes.
“Hey,” he said, interrupting some story the guy was telling. Something about a Leafs game. Morgan barely held in his eye roll.
Hayes glanced over. “Hey, this is—”
The guy made a trilled embarrassed noise. “Morgan Reynolds. Of course.”
“Yep,” Morgan said. He did not shake his hand. He was still contemplating yanking the whole arm from its socket. The guy was shrimpy, he probably had weak tendons.
“You finally decide to stop being antisocial?” Hayes asked, eyes crinkling with amusement.
Morgan wanted to shake him and demand answers.How did you get so fucking attractive? I’m dying here.
“Yep,” Morgan repeated.
The smile lines around Hayes’ eyes and mouth deepened. He tilted his head up towards Morgan’s face. Morgan was reminded, viscerally and suddenly, of kissing him.
Morgan licked his lips. He hadn’t wanted to come out at all, and now he had to extract both of them from this bar and this stupid idiot in front of them who had the nerve to imagine for even five seconds that Hayes was good enough for him.
“You’re just . . .” The guy was still making embarrassing noises. “Just so damn good at hockey.”
And yeah, it had gotten worse, because his interested gaze had moved from Hayes to Morgan.
“I know,” Morgan said.
“Yeah, he knows,” Hayes said, grinning now.
“That goal in the first game, against Sweden—”
“Now that,” Morgan drawled out, because he was done with this shit and more than ready to end it, “wasallHayes.”
Hayes’ cheeks pinked up. “No, it wasn’t. I told you . . .”
“Yeah, you did, and you were wrong. That pass? You made that play happen.”
Hayes flushed even darker but looked pleased. Not as pleased as hopefully Morgan could make him in about half an hour, but it was a good start.
Even better was the fact that Hayes was looking athimnow.
“Maybe,” Morgan continued, unwilling to stop now, “I’ll get lucky enough to send you one of those during this tournament.”
“Not against Canada,” the guy said.
“Dude, that’s pretty much who we’re playing for the rest of the tournament,” Hayes said, his eyes flicking to the stranger’s briefly, like he didn’t want to stop looking at Morgan and any time he was forced to, it was an annoyance.
“I mean, Sweden’s won all their games except—”
“It’s going to be the US and Canada,” Morgan said, nearly growling. “It’s practically a done deal.”
“Well,” random guy said, drawing himself up, like he suddenly realized he’d overstayed his welcome, “that’s probably true. Good luck, then.”
Hayes murmured his thanks under his breath but Morgan didn’t even bother. He wasn’t sad this guy was finally leaving and wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
“You could’ve been nicer,” Hayes said, but he didn’t seem all that surprised that Morgan hadn’t been.
