Page 63 of Home Ice Advantage

“The reporters?”

“Yeah.”

“I won’t let them. But even if they did, you know you can’t let it get to you too much.”

Williams nodded. “I’m working on it.”

“Good kid,” Ryan said, and squeezed his shoulder. “If you want to come to the office to review tape tomorrow before morning skate, we’ll all be there. We can talk about that one goal against in the third.”

“I’d like that, Coach,” Williams said, and finally smiled.

Ryan watched him go and thought about the way he accepted the weight of the world onto his shoulders, the way Ryan had always done as a younger man. That was a leader: that was the kind of kid you wanted as the backbone of your team going years forward. He was lucky, to be coaching, and to have a few of them so early in his own career. The team was a good group, and Williams was the fulcrum.

The questions from the press started immediately after the game: “Are you disappointed in the team, Sully?”

He was frustrated. He couldn’t lie; it killed him watching the team dig themselves into a hole with mistakes that he had tried so hard to drill out of them. But he never threw individual players under the bus and wasn’t about to start now. “I’m disappointed in some of the lapses. But a young team, it’s like potty-training toddlers, you know? They might piss on the carpet because they’re having too much fun to remember to go, and it’s up to the parent to teach them. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love him. You just have to work with him.”

Afterward, Petey clapped him on the back. “All-time metaphor with that one, man,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t worry. We’ll get out the training pants and get those defensemen using ’em this weekend.”

“Thank you, Peter,” Ryan said dryly.

“You ain’t the only one with metaphors, Coach,” Petey said, with all of the immense satisfaction that only he could manage.

It was late by the time they finished with the media availabilities and talking to the players who had been particularly disappointing and getting ready to head home. It wasn’t even a question that he would head back to Eric’s afterward, and it was late enough that Ryan risked just getting into Eric’s car with him.

“Hey,” Eric said, as he was circling his block looking for a spot, “I wanted to, uh...tell you something.”

“What?”

“I’m going home to Montreal for the All-Star weekend. I do every year, but since we’ve been spending so much time together, I wanted to warn you. I know I probably waited too long to do it, I just—there was so much other shit going on.”

It was weird, like a shadow of the way he’d felt when Murph had made his confession. Felt it like a physical blow, a hand pushing hard against his chest. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. Of course you don’t get to see your mom very often, that really makes sense that you’d want to go home and visit her.”

He wasn’t sure why it felt so bad, but it was probably the prospect of the whole weekend alone. Ryanlikedbeing around other people, even if his family was shitty; it was part of the reason he’d gotten into coaching. He was always around other people that way.

The way the All-Star breaks worked, the guys who would be playing went, and the rest of the team would be scattered, too. Williams had been picked by the league, and Cook had won the fan vote, so they would be gone. Some of the rest of the team would go to show support for their buddies. Some of them would go home, like Eric was planning to do, to visit their families. And some of them, like Laurent Martel, loudly proclaimed their intensions to do absolutely nothing except enjoy a quiet beer and play some video games. There weren’t any practices and there weren’t any team events.

He’d probably have to spend most of the weekend dodging his family.

Eric parallel parked his car at about 40 mph, something he did regularly and that always shocked Ryan when he did. When he turned off the ignition, he looked sideways at Ryan. His eyes were uncharacteristically nervous. “Unless.”

“Unless what?”

“It’s kind of last minute, I know. I’ve had my tickets booked since they announced the dates, but...if you wanted to come with me?”

Ryan stared at him. “Come with you? Like, to your mother’s home?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Eric said. He wasn’t looking Ryan in the eye anymore. “I know it’s kind of a weird thing to ask.”

It was risky, but Ryan’s body was moving without his brain’s input. He leaned across the center console and took Eric’s chin in his hand. It was a quick kiss, a messy clash of mouth on mouth, and Eric made a surprised noise into it.

“Shit, of course I’ll go,” Ryan said.

Eric pulled away. The corner of his mouth tipped up in a smile, for once, no sarcasm hinted in it. “You’ll like it, I promise. I have so many places to show you. You’re going to love the food. My mother will—well. She’ll like you.”

“You told her about me?” Ryan asked, momentarily stunned.

“Not yet. I didn’t want to do it unless I knewyouwanted to do it, but I’m going to do it tonight. Okay?”