Chapter Three
Jamie paced in a hallway under the Moncton Arena and tried to shake his nerves. He’d had a great night hanging out with Tim and Chris at their place, but he’d woken up in a sweat an hour before his alarm and hadn’t calmed down yet.
It was his first official day as an Ice Cat. Sure, the paperwork had been signed yesterday, but today they had practice. A new coach, a new team, a new locker room, and a new culture.
Tim and Chris had nothing but positive things to say, but they were trying to help him get settled, so it wasn’t like they were going to lay the whole truth down on his first day.
He’d been dismayed when they’d insisted he drive himself in, coming up with a total bullshit reason why they had to take a separate car. Jamie had no idea what that was about, but it didn’t bode well. He told himself it was cool if they needed some time alone now that Jamie was going to be around so much, and that it shouldn’t sting at all.
He didn’t recall Alexei Belov’s legendary reputation as a prankster until he’d stepped through the door to the locker room and a gallon—or possibly ten—of cheap, foul-tasting lube dumped over his head.
There was a moment of ringing silence before everyone in the room burst into applause and laughter. Jamie cracked up, too, trying to shake the nasty shit from his hair and wipe it off his face. When he could see again, he found Tim and Chris standing well back, grinning. Even Olle, hovering by a locker with his name above it, chuckled. It was nice to see Olle’s smile again but Jamie couldn’t help but notice the conspicuous lack of lube all over Olle’s head.
How did he get so lucky?
Not that Jamie was complaining. He was perfectly aware the league’s rumor mill worked fast when it came to spreading juicy gossip, so at least some of these guys had to have heard what had happened in Edwardston.
But he had still gotten the same reception as everyone else on the team. He remembered, ten minutes too late, that Chris had been subjected to the same welcome. And he’d said most of the other guys had, too.
For the first time this season, Jamie felt normal—which wasn’t something he thought he’d ever say while bathed in sexual lubricant.
Olle caught his gaze and grinned. Jamie smiled back for far too long, lost in how much he’d missed seeing this side of Olle, until Tim cleared his throat loudly from right beside Jamie. He jerked his eyes away and ignored Tim’s delighted smirk.
Jamie’s new coach came in, took one look at him, and rolled his eyes. “Gallagher, get your ass in the showers. You’ve got five minutes to get back to your locker to hear all the interesting shit I’m going to tell you. The rest of you, suit up now!”
Jamie met his deadline. Barely. He yanked on his base layers while Coach ran the team through the plan for practice, and didn’t single out Jamie or Olle once. Jamie had just managed to pull his jersey on when the team stood to grab their remaining equipment and head out to the ice.
Olle planted his helmet on his head and was promptly lost in a huge cloud, a white, powdery substance bursting into the air or cascading down his hair and over his shoulders. For Olle’s sake, Jamie hoped it was just flour and not itching powder.
The team howled, leaning on their lockers to steady themselves on their skates as they doubled up with laughter. Olle smirked good-naturedly, pulled off his helmet, and shook out his long hair. An even larger cloud of white dust filled the air and Jamie, along with everyone else, hobbled down the tunnel towards the ice at top speed, their coach leading the way and repeatedly muttering, “For fuck’s sake, Belov.”
Jamie couldn’t remember when he’d last smiled so much, let alone while he was at work.
The next two days of practice were amazing. He hadn’t played more than a game of shinny with Chris in years, but it was like they were back in school all over again. Like they hadn’t stopped practicing passing and reading each other’s moves on a daily basis. And Jamie was shocked to learn Tim would be centering them. Chris had told Jamie that management was cool they were dating, but it was more than that. They supported it. Hell, they took full advantage of it, since it translated to an almost preternatural connection on the ice.
And Jamie got to be a part of that. The reversal of fortunes was enough to give him whiplash.
He was practically giddy by the time he lined up for his first shift in a game as an Ice Cat. They were playing the Halifax Bears, the same team he’d played as an Eagle just last week. He knew a bunch of these guys were friends with some of the Eagles, but he wasn’t expecting their right-wing to say, “You suck your way onto this team? I bet management loves those pretty lips of yours.”
Jamie jerked upright, and the referee who had been about to drop the puck backed off and scowled at Jamie. Jamie cursed himself, not sure why this had shocked him. Apparently, it had only taken a few days in Moncton to make him soft.
Shoulders slumped, he bent to line up again, but before he could put his stick back on the ice, an Ice Cat jersey blew past him and slammed into the asshole who’d mouthed off.
Punches flew, most of them coming from Mike Erdo, Jamie’s new teammate. A teammate who Jamie had spent maybe a total of two minutes speaking with since he’d arrived, and who couldn’t possibly have heard what the asshole had said to Jamie.
Maybe there was bad blood between Mike and this guy already?
They went down on the ice in a tangle of limbs and landed with a thump. Jamie could hear the air wheeze out of the asshole’s lungs when Mike landed on top of him.
Good.
Mike climbed to his feet, a big, satisfied grin on his slightly bloodied face.
“What was that about?” Jamie asked.
“That was notice,” Mike said as he settled his shoulder pads and jersey back into place and made very direct eye contact with a few of the Bears within earshot.
“Of what?”
Mike pointed in the face of the Bears’ captain and spat, “Zero tolerance of ignorant bullshit,” before skating off to the penalty box like it was nothing.
Jamie looked around the ice, as if someone might explain to him what the hell had just happened.
He found Olle standing at his side, looking just as confused.
Olle could barely wrap his head around the kind of loyalty every single member of the Ice Cats displayed.
Olle knew Tim and Chris were in a relationship, and while they were seriously not subtle, they weren’t out to the team. And he knew Alexei and Mike had been together for a long time, but they also had never made that known. Olle guessed most of the guys had no idea, and was honored to have been trusted.
But it wasn’t just those guys wading into the fights and scuffles. Mike had gone first, but then it was everyone. Relentlessly. Like they’d been told it to do it. Like it was the plan. By the end of the game, there would be over a hundred minutes of penalties, no less than a dozen scuffles, and two more fights—all of which happened after someone gave Jamie a hard time.
During a stoppage in play, Olle looked up at the box where Rupert and Callum sat with their children. Oliver and Christian waved, and Olle waved back.
Did their dads do this?
To protect Jamie? To protect him?
Olle didn’t think it was normal to feel such strong affection for his bosses. Especially not after just a few days.
But there it was.
While chaos reigned, Olle stuck close to Jamie in case someone tried to say or do anything while everyone’s attention was elsewhere. He didn’t drop his gloves, or try to wade into the fights, which was a nice fucking change, but he didn’t let his guard down, either.
It didn’t take long for Jamie to notice the pattern.
Somewhere between the seventh scuffle and third fight, Jamie turned his back on the excitement and lifted his eyebrows, silently asking Olle what the fuck he was doing there.
Olle watched Alexei try to trip someone who drifted too close to his net and pretended he didn’t see the question on Jamie’s face. When it was time to line up for puck drop again, Jamie was still there, watching him. He hoped he didn’t image the little smile as he skated past.
The game ended with a solid win for the Ice Cats, and Olle with two assists. Having contributed, and accepting lots of pounding on his back and excited praise, was a nice change from the coach telling the room they’d won in spite of Olle’s penalties. The team was jubilant as they stripped down, shoving and laughing as they moved between their lockers and the shower room. Towels were snapped, hung around necks, and occasionally tucked discreetly over hips, but almost no one seemed to notice or care who was naked and who wasn’t.
The Eagles had practically showered fully clothed after Jamie had been outed, and Olle had taken to covering up, too, simply to avoid yet another annoying or offensive conversation. That was probably one of the many ways he’d let Jamie down.
Particularly since Olle didn’t understand people’s weirdness about nudity. More than one North American had accused him of being an exhibitionist, but Olle always shrugged it off.
It wasn’t a kink. He was just Swedish.
Olle was pulling on his boxer briefs at his locker, grinning at the chirps and insults being slung around, when Rupert and Callum came into the room, smiling and laughing at the comments thrown their way.
Other than Jamie, these were the openly gay men in the Ice Cats organization. Olle looked around the room at the men in various states of undress, and noted the one or two guys who yanked their clothes on a little faster or hesitated to drop their towel, but most were utterly unfazed.
He also saw how Jamie watched the couple with ill-concealed hero worship. It was kind of adorable.
“Great game, guys!” Rupert called out, lifting his voice to be heard over the raucous room. He quickly had everyone’s attention. “Just a reminder, the bus leaves tomorrow at three. Please be here by two-thirty. Also, as you’ve probably noted, we’ll be on the road for Canadian Thanksgiving this week—but, we have the night off for American Thanksgiving.”
“Fake Thanksgiving!” someone yelled.
Rupert rolled his eyes. “Right. So, the team will be providing a proper holiday meal on the road this week, and then, as has become our team tradition, you are all invited to our house to celebrate American Thanksgiving with our family.”
A cheer went up. Olle was going to have to figure out what any of these Thanksgivings were about.
Rupert smiled and waved off the noise to finish up his announcements. As soon as he was done, Callum came straight to Olle’s locker.
“We’re going to invite Jamie, Tim, and Chris over for brunch tomorrow before the road trip. We want to check in with them. Make sure Jamie is doing okay.”
“Okay. Great,” Olle said, wondering how he could get out of being there. Not that he didn’t want to be, but…
Callum watched him and waited. Olle wondered when he’d become so transparent.
“Jamie might…” Olle paused, hating what he was about to admit, “Jamie might be more comfortable if I’m not there. I can go out. Or stay in my room.”
“What makes you say that?” Callum asked curiously.
“I…I don’t know. Just a feeling, I guess.”
“Would you feel more comfortable if you weren’t there? Would you rather not spend time with Jamie?”
“What? No. That’s not it at all,” Olle said, rather too vehemently. “I like…I like Jamie.” It was supposed to be a simple declaration of fact, but ended up sounding far more plaintive than he intended.
Callum arched an eyebrow. Olle could practically see the gears in his head spinning, and where this would normally be the point at which Olle would start deflecting like crazy, instead he just shrugged and said, quietly, “A lot. I like Jamie a lot.”
Callum blinked, his surprise hidden as quickly as it had appeared. He smiled sympathetically. “Maybe that’s a good reason to stay for brunch tomorrow, then. Who knows what could happen.”
Olle nodded, but he did know what could happen—and that was nothing. Jamie had made it pretty clear that whatever had been growing between them before hadn’t been what Olle thought. Hoped.
Callum squeezed Olle’s arm, then went to Rupert’s side to congratulate various players on their games and to chat with Coach. Olle trudged through his routine and out of the arena, the busy day catching up with him. He was grateful for Callum’s arm around his shoulders as they made their way to the bright red minivan. He would never admit he was growing fond of the damn thing—and Callum’s enthusiasm for it.
He was pretty fucking fond of the entire family, honestly. Christian had started talking to him like a normal person, though he still glowed a horrifying but adorable rosy pink at seemingly random intervals. Oliver was funny and way too smart for his own good. Even Mike and Alexei’s constant teasing was starting to feel like home.
Olle passed out on his face the second he hit the pillow that night. He had barely moved by the time he woke up to the smell of bacon from the kitchen, and Alexei’s voice booming out instructions to the children.
Then the doorbell rang.