Page 90 of Slew Foot
He’d thought it would be hard, being back here in Minnesota and it was, a little bit, but not for the reasons he’d thought.
He wassoover Logan Walker.
The problem was, he was pretty sure he was in love with Mickey Krause.
Fuuuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Boston was down 2-1 at the halfway point of the game and it was getting chippy. Weirdly enough, a lot seemed to be between Logan and Mickey, Rafe realized.
Logan hadn’t done anything outright to antagonize Mickey but as they skated back out to the bench after the second goal for Minnesota, Rafe couldn’t help but feel like Logan was definitely getting under his skin.
The cool, calm Mickey Krause who Rafe was used to was nowhere to be found and in his place was a guy who seemed on edge.
It was the exact opposite of what Rafe had expected.
A part of him liked it. It was sort of …thrillingto see Mickey snarl at Logan and bark something at him in German that didn’t exactly sound like a love note. Because he was pretty damn sure whatever Mickey said aloud, he was jealous.
Or at least pissed at Logan because of the way he’d treated Rafe in the past.
And it was sort of … unexpectedlysweetseeing Mickey get all protective of him.
But Rafe was a little worried Mickey was going to get himself in trouble.
The crowd and the music had been too loud for him to hear most of what Coach Rasmussen had said to Mickey earlier, but he was pretty sure whatever Mickey had been doing in the past few shifts was the opposite of what Coach wanted.
It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
“Dude, what are youdoing?” Rafe asked as they skated back to the bench.
Mickey had never been an agitator or a pest like Tanner was. Mickey didn’t slyly go after guys, whacking their shins or knees with the blade of his stick or getting the end of it up in their armpits to throw them off their game.
But he had tonight. Andonlyagainst Logan.
“Nothing,” Mickey said, but he didn’t look him in the eye.
He glanced away from Coach Rasmussen’s glare too and Rafe sighed. Yeah, he definitely needed to talk to Mickey during the next intermission.
Except, Mickey avoided him when they were back in the locker room. Which was actually pretty impressive since they were stall mates.
But every time Rafe tried to corner him, he suddenly was out of stick tape or had an urgent question for Tanner or … or …
“Dude, your boy is tightly wound tonight,” Crawford said with a snort a few minutes into the third period, as they sat on thebench watching Connor tear up the ice with the puck, Mickey and Logan jostling shoulders as they raced after him.
Rafeshouldhave been on the ice with him and Mickey, but his skate blade had come loose and Rusty, the equipment guy, was fixing it.
Frustrated, Rafe chomped on his mouthguard while he leaned on the boards, foot up on the bench while Rusty swapped out his blade.
A ref blew his whistle because Connor had iced the puck and as Mickey skated past Logan in the offensive zone, he clipped Logan’s shoulder with his own. Logan shoved at him and the linesman skated over, sliding between them, his hand planted on Logan’s chest as he said something to both of them.
Rafe shook his head, but he wasn’t sure if it was to what was going on with Mickey and Logan or to what Crawford had said a minute ago.
“He’s notmine,” Rafe protested, feeling a weird hollow thump in his chest as he thought about the words Mickey had said earlier. What the fuck were they evendoinganymore?
Crawford shrugged. “Well, he acts like he wants to be. This is why I’m a big believer in you don’t shit where you eat, but you do you, man.”
Rafe made a face because that was such a gross mental image. Seriously,eww. But he got where Crawford was going with this.
