Page 60 of Slew Foot
Toogood, but that was for Mickey to deal with.
“Let’s shower and we can leave in half an hour?” Mickey said his brain stuttering when he realized he’d made it sound like they would be showering together.
Ifonly. It was bad enough at the arena. In the privacy of Mickey’s bathroom, crowded up against Rafe …
“Perfect.” Rafe gave him a big smile. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” Mickey said with a wink and then immediately regretted it because it was very much Relationship Mickey behavior.
But Rafe’s smile got wider, and he dragged off his damp T-shirt, tossing it toward the laundry basket on the far side of the room like they were in the locker room and not Rafe’s new bedroom. “Sounds good.”
Mickey fled before he did anything stupid. Like lick a stripe across Rafe’s sweaty neck, then bite down and suck a mark to show the world Rafe was his.
Since he was not, Mickey would have to make do with getting off in the shower like a civilized person.
An hour later, they were seated at a booth in a restaurant not far from the apartment building.
Their server arrived and they both ordered water—sparkling for Mickey—and let her know they’d need a few minutes before they decided on food.
The restaurant and bar had a vintage look and was located on the site of an old railway station. Mickey had learned that muchwhen he’d made their reservation on the website earlier. He told Rafe about it, and he looked impressed.
“Cool. It’s nice.” Rafe glanced around. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“You haven’t seen much of Boston yet, have you?”
“No, not really,” Rafe admitted, frowning down at his menu.
“Well, the weather has been miserable here, and you’ve only been here a little over a month, right?” Mickey pointed out.
Rafe looked surprised at the reminder. “Huh, I guess that’s true. It seems like longer.”
“Yeah, January is always like that,” Mickey agreed. “It takes forever. And then you kinda speed through the rest of February and March and don’t know where they went.”
“Every year,” Rafe agreed. “Hey, so how was your trip?”
“Good. It was nice to be somewhere warm and relax. We slept in, swam, golfed, drank too much …” Mickey made a face because evenhehad made some bad decisions about alcohol while on vacation. Though fewer than Tanner and some of the other guys, so that was something.
Rafe laughed.
The server arrived with their waters, and they placed their orders for shrimp cocktail and short rib sliders to share as an appetizer.
Were short rib sliders on Mickey’s diet plan? No. But Rafe had looked at him with those big eyes and yeah. He was useless at resisting.
“How was Ontario?” Mickey asked when the server left.
“Well, the weather was about the same as it was here,” Rafe said with a laugh.
Mickey laughed too. They’d returned from bye week to find more snow had landed on the city. Mickey hadn’t minded but a lot of guys had been very unhappy.
Rafe smiled. “But it was good to see my family. I miss them during the season.”
“I bet,” Mickey said.
“That’s probably way harder on you though, right?” Rafe asked with a frown. “Since they’re all the way over in Germany?”
“Yeah.” Mickey had made time to do a video chat with his sisters while he was in Mexico, which had been nice until Tanner came over and started flirting with them. Not in agrossway—they were still very young and Tanner wasn’t that kind of guy—but he’d been his usual friendly self. They’d started giggling a lot, probably thinking he was cute and funny, and that was enough ofthatfor Mickey.
He’d talked to both of his parents and his stepmom as well. He liked his stepmother but wasn’t incredibly close to her, so their conversation had been nice but not overly long or personal.
