Page 52 of Delay of Game
Zach, rather than answering, gulped down the remainder of his espresso and considered how he was going to board Jammer without getting a penalty later. And then, as they walked and caught up on the rest of the Royal, he thought about Dallas and how weird it had felt, in a good way. To be out on a date with Nate Singer. Even if no one had said the word, he’d been out on a date with Nate Singer.
Granted, maybe it was his dick that would get them to the finals, but also... His brain kept turning over the details, the way his stomach flipped when Nate did shit like cook for him, specifically for him. He could do romance, right? He’d never tried it before, but he’d never had to try it before. And Nate was absolutely worth it. They just had to beat Montreal tonight, show the asshole twins who the best damn team on the East Coast was, and then he’d figure this out.
Not understanding something had never stopped him before, and it wasn’t about to stop him now.
Nate, Bee, and Mäkelä took a cab from the airport to Bee’s parents’ house in Côte-des-Neiges. He almost chickened out, told her he wasn’t feeling well, anything to get out of having to be in front of cameras when he didn’t have to. But once he caught her eye outside the plane and saw the hopeful, nervous look on her face, he couldn’t have done it and lived with himself, particularly after they caught sight of the camera crew waiting by the baggage claim. If they all hustled a little faster to get into the cab, who could really blame them?
The ride itself wasn’t particularly comfortable either. Mäkelä and Bee were settled in the back, and Nate could only look at them from the corner of his eye. And all three were taciturn, at best. It was a silent ride, for the most part.
“Nervous, mussuka?” Mäkelä asked, breaking the silence.
“No,” Bee said, but Nate knew she was lying.
“It’ll be fine,” Mäkelä said, to which Bee only muttered darkly, “Calisse, it’ll be fine.”
At least it was a short ride, only half an hour in traffic, before they were pulling into the neighborhood where Bee grew up. It was a pleasant-looking area, with more green lawns and trees then he’d been expecting. Bee’s house was a modest brick affair hidden behind towering rhododendron bushes. A stone path led from the street to the front steps, and the camera crew followed along behind them as they went. Bee let herself in with a key she still had on her keyring, and Nate and Mäkelä trailed after her.
Inside, the house wasn’t exactly what he had expected. It was warm and cozy, with a lot of plants hanging in the windows and arranged on shelves, the kind of lived-in clutter that came along with people who had priorities other than cleaning. It made him itch, just a little bit, with the urge to neaten it up. Bee’s parents and brothers were already there, sitting around the kitchen table and having tea.
He’d met her parents before. Her mother had Bee’s height, a tall, striking woman with eyes that bored right through you and skin a few shades darker than Bee’s, and her father a bit shorter, a bit older, a bit plumper, with flyaway sandy-gray hair. He had a ruddy face and rosy cheeks that reminded Nate a little bit of a Christmas elf. And he’d met the twins, of course, on the ice and off. They looked a lot like Bee: all three of them were tall, strapping individuals. Except where Bee was serious and contained, the twins were always smiling the kind of smiles that instinctively put Nate on edge. It was weird, because Zach smiled just as much, and he was just as cocky, but it was different.
“Welcome to the homestead,” Bee’s mother said, dryly, in English. He’d been around Canadians often enough to peg her as Nova Scotian, which was unusual, given Bee’s hometown and heavy Quebecois lilt.
“Thank you for having us,” Nate said, shaking her parents’ hands, and then the twins’. Both of them did the thing where they squeezed too hard in an effort to prove something, and he just sighed and let them crush his fingers, because really, he had nothing to say that could be settled here rather than on the ice.
The actual documentary proved to be just as insufferable. The twins took over the conversation, their competitive jabsjuston the right side of rude, just enough plausible deniability that Bee didn’t say anything back because if she did, she would have looked likeshewas the one being weird about it. She looked at them sideways with a withering stare that Nate imagined the camera couldn’t miss. Watching her dealing with her brothers, for once in his life, he didn’t feel any regret that he was an only child. And he felt only admiration for her, again.
“Marde,” Bee said, when they were alone on the back porch.
Mäkelä was inside, helping Bee’s parents with dinner, and the camera crew had shooed Nate away despite the fact that he’d asked to help. The captain and the star player’s parents didn’t make for juicy television quite the same way her boyfriend would.
“I’m sure they are fine with their team members, but Jesus Christ, sometimes I wish I could punch one of them. Both of them.”
“You’re doing a great job. You didn’t even punch either of them once.”
She exhaled sharply through her noise, as disdainful a noise as he’d ever heard her make. “If I punched them, that would just give them what they want. Attention, and to be the victim.”
“I still don’t think I could have that kind of restraint.”
Bee patted him on the arm. The sun was setting in the distance and bathed the neighborhood, with its pleasant little brick houses, with a warm red glow. He nursed a Dieu du Ciel Mrs. Morin had shoved into their hands before they’d left the kitchen.
“Ifyougrew up with them, you would.” She snorted. “And you have plenty of restraint. For example. You have been wanting to ask me a question for the last hour and a half, but you haven’t asked it.”
“It’s not really my day for questions.”
“Mon capitaine...” Her eyebrow was eloquent.
Nate looked down at the small back yard of Bee’s parents’ house. Her father had planted a vegetable garden in the back. Across the street a group of children was playing football in the cul-de-sac, pretending they weren’t spying on the news crew. His hands felt clammy and the words caught on his tongue.
“Whatever it is, it bothers you.”
He blew out a short breath. “How do you know what’s normal—a normal amount of times to, uh, have sex with someone? Who you’re fucking?”
Bee choked on her beer.
Nate clapped her on the back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you do that.”
“That is not what I was expecting,” she said, once she had managed to swallow.