Page 15 of Slew Foot
But it was either that or relying on ride shares and well, it couldn’t hurt to spend more time with his new D-partner.
“Sure,” Rafe said, turning to his teammate with a hopeful smile. “You don’t mind?”
“Nah.” Mickey’s smile was genuine. “I remember what it was like to get here and be kinda overwhelmed. I’m happy to play tour guide and chauffeur until you get settled.”
“Thanks,” Rafe said, feeling grateful. “I appreciate it.”
“No worries.” Mickey waved it off. “And I already have your cell phone number.”
Rafe blinked at him for a moment before remembering Connor had texted him after the trade went through and he’d asked if he could give Rafe’s number out to his new teammates. Rafe had said yes and had gotten some nice ‘welcome to the team’ messages. He’d also been added to a pretty active group chat, but he’d hardly paid any attention to it, too busy packing and trying not to have a meltdown in an airport.
“Right,” Rafe said, a beat too late. “You do. And I have yours.”
“Perfect.”
“Sorry, I’m fucking useless right now,” Rafe admitted with a sigh, reaching for a plate and piling some food onto it.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Mickey said softly. “I get it. You should have seen me when I landed here in August. I felt like I’d forgotten how to speak English, and everything felt a little bit wrong. Ofcourse, I’ll probably go through the reverse at the end of the season when I go there, so …”
“Really?” Rafe asked, surprised Mickey struggled at all because he was so fluent.
“Mostly kidding about the English part,” he said with a shrug. “Most people are bilingual at least, but I do primarily speak Deutsch—uh, German there—so it takes my brain a moment to switch over.”
“Yeah, well, I flunked outta French in high school,” Rafe said with a little laugh. “And I nearly did the same with English.”
He hadnotbeen a good student.
“You grew up in Ontario, right?” Mickey asked. He nudged Rafe with his elbow, prodding him along, and Rafe saw someone else had gotten in line for food and he’d stopped partway.
“Yeah. Near Windsor,” Rafe said as he grabbed another couple of burgers and put them on his plate. They were sliders, so the first one hadn’t filled him up much.
He piled more food on his plate and stepped away.
“Let’s go over to the bar,” Mickey said.
“Sure.” Rafe reached for some napkins.
He took a bite of the slider just as Mickey nodded toward the bar, and some of the contents spilled out, sliding down his chin.
Whoops.
He probably wasn’t making a very good first impression, was he?
CHAPTER FOUR
“Buy you a beer?” Mickey asked the big man who was mopping at the mess on his chin.
“Sure,” Rafe muttered around a mouthful of food.
Rafe’s messy eating habits should be disgusting, but somehow, Mickey found it oddly endearing.
Oh no.
They settled at the bar and Mickey called over Liam, the white-haired Irish guy who owned and ran the pub. There were other people who worked here, of course, but Mickey couldn’t remember a single time he’d been there when Liamwasn’tpulling pints.
“What can I get you?” Liam asked, the lilt of his Irish accent audible even over the noise of the team and the music playing on the jukebox.
Mickey rattled off the name of a nice hefeweizen Liam kept stocked, then glanced at Rafe.
