Page 67 of Broken Ice
With a wink, Beau gave Emilio some finger guns and moseyed out of there.
Beau smelt like nothing more than himself when he got to breakfast. A little less subtle was the fucking bruise Emilio had left on his neck, the absolute animal.
Because his teammates were idiots, they immediately pounced on it.
Korpi pointed at Beau as soon as he sat down a few spots from Emilio.
Tinny’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit! Beau got some last night.”
Even Don piped up. “Damn. I didn’t know you had someone in Atlanta.”
“I don’t,” Beau huffed, backpedalling quickly as he realised that was actually the only reasonable explanation. “I mean—just an old friend. Shut up.”
Beside him, Moose elbowed him. “Come on, we’re gonna need more than that.”
“What, you wanna know the size of his dick?”
Down the table, someone choked. Beau leaned forwards to see Pavel slapping Emilio on the back.
“So it’s a guy,” Tinny cheered. “What else? It’s not the asshole, right?”
“Nah. This one’s nice. A bit of an idiot, but at least he’s pretty.”
Emilio seemed to have recovered. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
Beau sipped his coffee innocently. “Well, no, but he’ssodumb. Truly, just so, so—”
Emilio cut him off. “Okay, we get it.”
When Beau looked, he found a small, private smile on Emilio’s face.
***
Beau didn’t even see the hit. He knew something had happened only because of the crowd’s reaction, an agonised ‘Oooh.’ Beau had just been given the puck, though, a neat cross-ice pass by Emilio, so he didn’t exactly have the capacity to figure it out.
It was only after his shift was over, panting on the bench, that he glanced at his teammates and asked, “Where’s Em?”
“Got bodied into the boards,” Moose said. “Went straight to the locker room so he might have tweaked something.”
Beau froze. “Fuck. Was it bad?”
“Not really. It was a clean hit.”
Beau asked for the iPad during the next commercial break anyway, asking the trainer to show him the play. He watched as Emilio got slammed into the boards, but Moose had been right—it looked like a million other plays, the opponent player finishing his check, hard but clean.
Beau was more preoccupied by the way Emilio had left the ice quickly, holding his right shoulder.
It was the beginning of the third period, so Beau had to force himself into concentrating on winning the game instead of searching for Emilio.
He’s fine, Beau tried to convince himself. It’d been a little bump. It was patently ridiculous to stress about it—injuries were such a staple part of their lives.
That didn’t diminish the relief when the final buzzer sounded, home crowd cheering at the Manatees’ win.
Beau got second star of the game so he had to hang around, doing a small little lap with his stick in the air, spotlight on him, before rushing off to find Emilio.
Pavel caught him as soon as he made it to the locker room. “He’s in training room 2C. He’s fine, just a sore shoulder. Needs someone to drive him home, though—you up for it?”
“Yeah,” Beau responded immediately. “Absolutely.”
