Page 11 of Delay of Game

He’s straight. Right?

Zach wasn’t straight, of course. He’d known Nathaniel Singer going on three seasons now, and previously he would’ve said he knew the answer, and it wasn’t one that was compatible with all of Zach’s stupid daydreams. Of course Jammer had guessed what this was about. It was too late now. Zach thought about the way Nate’s chapped lips had pressed softly against his mouth. The way they fit like they were meant to be there. The hungry look in his eyes as he watched the exhale.

Yesterday he would have saidof course.

Today, he hesitated. It wasn’t a kiss. Itwasn’ta kiss. It was just shotgunning. Zach had done that a million times before too. It hadn’t meant anything then either. Right? Finally:he’s fucked up

Healthy. Boundaries. Bro.

ughhhhhhh i know im gonna get him some water and a sandwich

Attaboy. Deep breaths. I believe in u, buddy.

Instead of throwing his phone down the stairs, Zach took his feet carefully down them. Nate’s house had a lot of stairs. It was four stories, not counting the roof deck. Zach was as familiar with every inch of it as he was with his own house, and lately he’d been spending significantly more time here. It was just—if they were hanging out late, and they both had to be at practice in the morning, it didn’t always make sense for him to go home, unless he needed to feed Hank and Dolly. He didn’t do it often, but he basically had his shit situated permanently in the guest room on the third floor anyway. That was just the kind of guy that Nate was. Just in case. Ready for any eventuality.

He knew every inch of the house, including the kitchen, although he usually wasn’t allowed to do much down there. Nate was a fucking excellent cook, which was one of the benefits of having him as a best friend. Zach was mostly good at bringing beer or ordering shit off of Caviar.

Even without Rachel, Nate had probably the most adult kitchen of anyone Zach had ever known. He had fruit in bowls on the counters and the lemons weren’t just for show. The lemons weren’t even brown or moldy. Fresh bread that only sometimes came in a plastic bag. In the fridge, there were leftovers in little glass containers, labeled with the date and what was in them. He had, like, actual vegetables in the crisper.

Zach rooted through some of the leftovers and found grilled chicken breasts and sliced cheese (actually stored in the drawer, who even did that?) and made Nate a sandwich. Because he was a good bro and he knew Nate would appreciate appropriate condiments, he also put some mustard on it, and some of the spinach he’d found in the crisper. He went back up the stairs, with a cup of ice-cold water in one hand, another tucked in his arm, and the plate in the other.

When he managed to get the door open, he saw Nate was sitting on the chaise, his head down. For a second, Zach took the opportunity to stare at him. His blond hair was sweaty and tangled and hanging in his face, his clear blue eyes were still red-rimmed and distant. His distinctive, prominent nose was hidden, along with his full mouth, in the crook of his elbow. He hadn’t put on his shirt, and Zach could see every single inch of his broad shoulders, his sturdy chest and barrel torso—the thick, soft blond hair on his chest.

Zach took a deep breath. “Hey, buddy.”

Nate looked up, still fucked up but smiling when he saw it was Zach, and Zach thought about what Jammer had said.

Healthy boundaries.

Jammer didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

Chapter Two

August

Nate had been born and raised in Philly, so it wasn’t unusual that he spent his offseason there too. Zach had his Philly residence, but usually returned to Surrey, BC, after the season ended and stayed there until camp started. The fact that he was back early was unusual, and Nate didn’t know how to adjust to it. They normally spent most of their free time together during the season, but the way Zach had just shown up on his doorstep and his own stunningly poor, fucked-up decision-making had rattled him.

It wasn’t that he was avoiding Zach,per se.

He was just...not answering his phone or texts.

It wasn’t like it was that unusual. Nate was busy.

Rookie camp was gearing up to start in a few days. Older players didn’t usually attend, but since Nate was always in Philly anyway, and because he was the captain, he usually stopped by and helped the coaches out on the ice. He liked to get to know the prospects, to have an idea of what their potential was and what their personalities were like. It was important to have a feel for what was going on with the team and in the room: if you didn’t, you risked the kind of shit that had gone on there right under his nose a few years ago.

He still felt guilty thinking about how he’d missed one of the players trying to bully Bee off of the team. Nate hadn’t been able to tell that Kyle Hill—now the Long Island Railers’ problem—had that kind of a nasty streak in him. He had been too wrapped up in his own head about a captaincy he hadn’t deserved to notice the rot in the locker room. A rot that washisresponsibility to eradicate.

So Nate had a lot on his mind when he was meeting the rookies. He couldn’t afford to miss anything like that again. So if Zach’s calls and texts didn’t get answered as immediately as they normally would have been, that was, like, not really Nate’s fault.

After everything that had happened over the summer, it felt good to get onto the ice again around other people. Nate never felt like himself unless he was in skates, on the rink. Off the ice, he was huge and awkward, looming and lurking. On the ice he could fly; on the ice he was weightless.

On the ice, the nasty little voice in his head was too busy to speak up.

This year’s crop of rookies was a motley bunch. Until about two seasons ago, the Cons had been a lottery team despite his best efforts, so they had a mix of head-scratchers from the previous regime mixed in with the kind of high-end prospects that had columnists onThe Athleticsalivating despite a historically bad track record when it came to development.

Nate watched them milling around by the boards, listened to the hum of nervous, excited chatter that melted into the other noises of the rink. The raised voices of the coaches and trainers, the swish of blades on the ice, the occasional bang of a shot hitting the boards, the hum of the crowd already in the stands. Only in cities like Montreal and Philly did you get crowds like this just for rookie camps. He remembered what it had felt like his first camp, the swell of pride knowing he’d be playing for his hometown team, the anxiety that had had him puking before each day, also because he’d be playing for his hometown team.

There was Joshua Gagnon, an undersized, redheaded monster of a puck hound, a fifth-round pick like Nate, already nicknamed Gags even though his name wasn’t pronounced like that at all. There was Pavel Tarasov, a slick, puck-moving defenseman, really too old for rookie camp at twenty-four, but freshly freed from his contract with CSKA Moscow and technically still a rookie. Juha Korhonen, already six feet tall but with the kind of permanent baby face that made people assume he was shorter than he was. He’d put on quite a show at the World Juniors earlier in the summer and Nate would have to find the time to congratulate him personally for Finland’s gold, since it had been almost entirely his personal accomplishment. Owen Lee, their most promising goalie prospect, freshly eighteen and so tightly wound the springs were about to snap.