Page 153 of The Long Game
When they were on the ice, waiting for practice to start, Troy approached Ilya. “Hey.”
Ilya nodded at him. “Barrett.”
Troy snatched a puck that was against the boards and began moving it around with his stick blade. “So, I want to, um, thank you.”
“For what?”
“Giving me the push I needed, I guess. Being...supportive.”
Ilya stole the puck from him. “It is called being a friend.”
“Yeah, well. Not in my experience.”
Ilya passed the puck back to him. “How has it been? Being out?”
Troy smiled. “Amazing.”
There was a twist of jealousy in Ilya’s chest, but he ignored it. “Good.”
“And also, Harris was wondering if you...” His voice dipped to a nearly inaudible mumble.
“What?”
Troy sighed and straightened his shoulders. “Harris wants you to come to dinner at his family’s farm this Sunday. As a thank-you.”
This was completely unnecessary, and possibly more than Ilya could deal with right now, emotionally. He was ready to politely decline, but something occurred to him. “Will Chiron be there?”
Troy’s lips curved up a bit. “Yeah. And a bunch of other dogs.”
Well. Ilya could probably make time for a bit of dinner.
“Aah! Harris, who is this good boy? He is even bigger than Chiron!” Ilya was crouching in the driveway in front of the Drover family farmhouse with an enormous brown dog’s paws on his shoulders.
“That’s Mac,” Harris said. “He’s trouble.”
Ilya rubbed Mac’s face with both hands. “He is not trouble. He is very good.”
Ilya had been to Harris’s family’s apple farm once before, but not to the house. He’d gone to the grand opening of Harris’s sisters’ cidery, which was also on the property. That had been nice, but the farmhouse looked fucking adorable.
And there wereso many dogs.
“Why do I have a house?” Ilya joked as a second, smaller dog bumped its nose on his thigh, looking for attention. “I could live in a tent here and be so happy.”
“You should come inside,” Troy called from the front porch. “It’s freezing out here.”
“I have not met everyone yet,” Ilya argued as he twisted around to greet a third dog. “Who is this one?”
“Not sure yet,” Harris said. “She just got here.”
The unnamed dog was medium-sized with long hair that was a mix of brown and white and gray. She had floppy ears, big brown eyes, and the sweetest face Ilya had ever seen.
“You are new!” Ilya said to her as he scratched her soft ears. “You will love this farm.”
“She was found by one of our neighbors,” Harris said. “People tend to bring strays here because my parents are good with them. Mom took her down the road to see Linda to get her checked out.”
“Linda is a vet,” Troy supplied.
The dog licked Ilya’s fingers, making him laugh. “Not shy at all, are you?”
