Page 137 of Slew Foot
“Hey,” Rafe said, nodding toward them. “Did you arrange for that?”
“Arrange for what?” Gavin asked, sounding confused as he stepped closer and peered out.
“Tom talking to Mickey,” Rafe explained.
“Oh, no. But Tom has a concussion history so maybe he took it upon himself to talk to him? I’m not sure, but that would be my guess. Why? Are you jealous?”
“No,” Rafe said truthfully. “It’sgoodif he’s talking to someone.”
Okay, maybe he was alittlejealous because he wanted Mickey to talk to him too, but maybe this was a good sign. Maybe it would help.
Rafe thought about offering Mickey a ride home, but he didn’t want him to think he was, like,stalkinghim or something. So he went out to his SUV instead.
He was halfway home before he remembered they were getting low on toothpaste and body wash, so he headed to the market. Mickey usually kept track of that stuff, and they often went shopping together after practice but he hadn’t been driving since the concussion.
As Rafe wandered the store, he realized they were low on a lot of things, because again, Mickey had taken care of it. Well, Rafe was going to have to take care of it until Mickey was feeling up to it again.
They were pretty okay on food, thankfully.
Between the meals from the team chef and the stuff Catherine O’Shea and her daughter-in-law had brought by, they were doing great. But maybe a few snacky things would be good. And some milk. They were always out of milk.
Mickey was back home by the time Rafe got there, lugging in a bunch of bags because he shouldn’t be left in charge of shopping. He’d madeverybad decisions. There was a reason he didn’t usually do this.
He shopped like an unsupervised toddler.
“Hey,” Mickey said, meeting Rafe in the hallway after he’d lost a fight with the plastic bag that had wrapped itself around the doorhandle. “Need some help?”
“Please.” Rafe looked Mickey over. He’d learned to look for the signs of Mickey having a good day or a bad.
He usually did better after yoga, and right now he didn’t have the squinty look in his eyes he got when the ringing and dizziness were particularly bad, so that seemed good.
“Feeling okay-ish right now?” Rafe guessed.
“Yeah. Not terrible,” Mickey agreed as he finally got the bag unhooked and took a couple of them from Rafe. “What on earth did you buy?”
Rafe groaned. “Umm, too much. But we were low on shit, so …”
He hesitated, not sure if Mickey would be upset by the reminder he wasn’t able to do what he normally did, but he nodded. “Thanks. I’ve been meaning to place an online order but hadn’t gotten around to it.”
They carried the bags into the kitchen and worked together to put them away.
“I saw you talking to Tom at the rink,” Rafe blurted out after a few minutes. He was very bad at keeping secrets and he didn’t want to keep them from Mickey anyway.
Mickey squinted at him. “Okay?”
“I was having a meeting with Gavin,” he admitted.
Mickey leaned a hip against the counter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. How’d your meeting with him and Hoyt go?”
Mickey shrugged. “It went. They know where I’m at and it’s anybody’s guess when I’ll be back. How did yours go?”
“Uhh.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. “So don’t be mad at me but I kinda told Gavin about our, uh, kinks.”
Mickey’s face squinched up for a moment before he gave Rafe a shrug. “Tom guessed about it too.”
“I guess it’s not exactly a secret then.”
