Page 107 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
“Eurgh, I don’t want to know what the Cup has seen.”
“Or touched.”
Emilio mimed throwing up in his mouth, jerking forwards with his cheeks bulging.
“Media chewed you guys up a little after summer, though, right?” Auston asked.
Emilio shrugged. “Those fuckers make a big deal about everything. Not that I have to tellyou—but it’s not worth listening to that shit.”
Auston had experienced the media in all its forms—from claiming he was the best Captain of the NHL, that he had carried his team to the cup wins, to saying he was washed up, that he should have retired when his hip first gave in.
That was hockey, though. That part of him was calloused by the acid touch of the limelight.
This—what he was building with Chase—felt far more vulnerable, the kind of underbelly only shown to people he could truly trust.
“Yeah,” Auston agreed anyway. “You guys doing good, then?” He wouldn’t ask how a random mated pair were fairing usually, but he was giving himself permission—Emilio had brought the topic up first.
“Yeah,” Emilio replied, gaze slipping to Beau. His whole face transformed into something softer, the edges of his lips ticking up. “We’re doing good.”
***
Playing the Baltimore Beasts was always going to be strange. As if he’d tripped into a dimension just to the left of his, slipping into the skin of a man who looked like him but wasn’t quite playing his role correctly.
The team had changed a lot since their cup-winning years, of course. Mark was retired now, Bunji, their goalie, was in Atlanta, a middling team who could still use a veteran goalie as the starter. The only main guy still in Baltimore was Lee Hux, the star defenceman, grinning at Auston from across the ice.
Then there were all the other guys he didn’t have as much history with but had made up his career in Baltimore—the oneshe’d taken under his wing as rookies, the teammates he’d battled with after the cup runs, trying to regain the old glory.
It was a cosmic fucking coincidence that Auston’s 1400th career game was against the Beasts. The Spirits had set up a whole ceremony before the game, his old teammate Hux and new captain Noah presenting a gold-plated stick to him on centre ice.
The thing was fucking heavy and cold in the icy air. He patted Noah and Hux on the back, said thank you, stood still and watched the overhead screens as they played a video of people around the league congratulating him for his long career.
He kept his face impassive. His emotions were pressed against a hard, glass pane. He could see their misshapen forms—the clawed creature of fear, the big-eyed piece of longing with its sticky fingers leaving trails wherever it went. He could see the joy and the sorrow and the hope, but they were right where he couldn’t reach them, just far away enough to survive the moment.
He had a whole fucking hockey game to play afterwards. He needed to shake out his trembling hands and get on with it.
Chase bumped him as they sat on the bench, waiting for the first whistle. “That was a nice stick, huh?”
Auston snorted. “Yeah.”
“I’ll get you one of those hooks people hang swords on. We can put it on the wall.”
“Swords? You mean guns? Like, shotguns?”
“No. Like those guys with samurai swords. I mean, I guess you could hang a shotgun the same way.”
Auston laughed, but the drop of the puck cut off any response he might have come up with.
He got through the game, swallowing the OT loss with as little bitterness as possible—at least it was one miserable point. Not that the Beasts were doing any better in the standings.
Chase kissed him goodbye as Auston left to hang out with his old team—the guys had asked him to take Chase along, but he didn’t want his mate to be hounded. He was about to get enough shit about getting surprise-bonded as it was.
“There’s the new groom,” Hux said as soon as Auston got to the bar.
Auston rolled his eyes. “We’re not actually married.”
Hintz, who seemed to have grown two inches since his rookie days, shook his head. “Living in sin.”
Auston turned to Hux. “Remember when this idiot ate a worm on a dare?”
