Save of the Game (13 page)

If they took Riley’s car, they could spring for a hotel room or two and not have to sleep at a rest stop. His mom wasn’t pleased to hear Ethan’s plan, and told him about a show she’d watched about teenage runaways who were kidnapped and had their fingers cut off. That was the plot of the last season of
The Killing
, but Ethan didn’t bother pointing out that he knew that. It didn’t even seem to make Maura Kennedy feel better to know that Riley would be there, too.

Despite never having met Riley, Ethan’s mom thought of Riley as the responsible one. But she still hated the idea of them driving. Ethan hadn’t told his mom that Riley was his boyfriend. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing you should spring on your mom over the phone. Much better to do it when you were home for Christmas, in front of your whole family. Way more dramatic—which was the Kennedy way.

Two days after springing the “we’re driving home” plan on his mom, Riley skated up to Ethan at practice and said, “Hey, Kennedy.”

“Hey, Hunter.” Ethan tapped his stick on the ice. “I’m going to score three, four goals on you today. Ready?”

“You’re not scoring a goal on me.”

“Now that you said that, I’m totally going to.”

Riley crossed his arms and looked fierce and hot in all his goalie gear. “You can say it all you want, but you won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you never score on me.”

Ethan leaned in and said in a low voice, “I did last night.” He winked.

Riley rolled his eyes. “Not twice, though. Do better.”

“I’m about due for a hat trick,” Ethan agreed. “What’s up?”

“I did something and you’re going to be mad about it,” Riley said. “I’m telling you now so you can’t hit me.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What?”

“I bought us two round-trip tickets to New York.”

“No,” Ethan said immediately. “Fuck you. You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can.” Riley’s chin went up, and he looked as stubborn as he did in goal. “That’s not all.”

“Fucking hell. Really?”

“I called your mom and told her.”

Ethan was speechless. “Low. That’s
low
, Hunter.”

“She called last week and told me she’d rather talk to you on Skype on Christmas Day than worry herself sick about us driving. She sounded so upset, Ethan.”

“Of course she did, idiot,” Ethan growled and banged his stick on the ice. He liked hockey. There were plenty of ways to throw temper tantrums and lots of useful equipment with which to throw them. “She’s my mother. Where the fuck do you think I get it from? I bet she told you all about the kidnappings and the missing fingers, huh?”

“Yeah. But that was the plot from
The Killing
last season,” Riley said, and Ethan remembered he was in love with Riley and hit the ice harder with his stick.

“Those aren’t free, Kennedy,” Spence yelled.

What was the problem? Couldn’t a guy have a heated argument with his secret-billionaire boyfriend at hockey practice without an audience?

“Look. I did it, and we’re going.”

“I didn’t want you to do that.”

“Yeah. But I don’t want to spend all that time in a car with you either. So it’s really for me. Merry Christmas.” Riley skated off before Ethan could yell at him anymore.

That night at home, Riley pinned him to the floor and teased the fuck out of him until Ethan was panting and tried to buck up against him with all his strength. He was completely unable to make Riley do what he wanted.

Riley stared down at him and waited.

Finally Ethan called him a litany of foul names and gave up. “Fine. Fine. Thank you. That’s going to mean a lot to my family. I hate you so much. Would you please get me off now?”

Riley kissed him and then sucked him off. Which was great. But it wasn’t until they were boarding the plane that morning that he casually mentioned, “Oh. By the way we’re flying first class. They were the only seats left.”

Stupid Riley.

Who wants to fuck me.

Every time Ethan thought about that, it made him all hot and flushed. Riley hadn’t brought it up again, but Ethan couldn’t stop thinking about it. The other night when Riley had him pinned to the floor, Ethan was so tempted to say “Do it. Go ahead,” because he kept thinking maybe he’d like it.

But that was not what he should be thinking about when they were about to go meet his family. “Oh, hey,” Ethan said. He grabbed Riley’s arm as they made their way off the plane and toward the baggage claim. “I forgot something.”

“Like I forgot to tell you how they were first-class tickets?”

“We’re not all manipulative assholes, Riley,” Ethan muttered, but he smiled and bumped Riley’s shoulder with his own to show he was teasing. “I’m gonna tell them. My family. About me and you.”

Riley stumbled a little, which made it the first time Ethan had ever knocked him off-balance.
Success.
“You are?”

“Yeah.” They followed the crowd into the loud, noisy baggage claim area and searched for their carousel. “I can’t not tell them. Okay? They’re my family. And they know me. Also, it’s a small apartment. What if someone catches me kissing you?”

“Blame it on the mistletoe?” Riley cleared his throat. “Please never tell anyone I just said that.”

Ethan snorted, but his face was serious when he asked, “Is it a problem, if I tell them?”

“Not for me,” Riley said. “Just don’t do it unless you want to. You don’t have to, I mean. For me.”

Ethan spotted his sister a few seconds later. He immediately jumped up and waved his arms so madly he almost knocked over a sullen-looking teenager who was wearing giant earphones.

And people thought tattoos made you look like a punk. Geez.

“Wait. They’re here at the baggage claim?” Riley asked, looking a bit pale and shifting his bag to his other shoulder as Ethan’s family made a beeline for them. “Why?”

Ethan stopped his frantic signaling. Something sad twisted inside him at the genuine confusion on Riley’s face.
You gave me a Christmas present. Now I’m going to give you one.

Holy shit. Being in love was seriously damaging his tough-guy cred. He better get a pair of those earphones and a few more tattoos, just to be safe.

RILEY THOUGHT
he was prepared for the onslaught of the Kennedy family, but he totally wasn’t.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, though. He always felt that he had Ethan kind of figured out and knew what to expect—or was accustomed to his behaviors. Like getting to know a shooter on the ice, or learning what asinine tricks his stupid teammates were going to try in practice to get a shoot-out move nailed down. Ethan threw him for a loop more often than not, and Riley didn’t think there was any way to prepare himself for a holiday with the Kennedy clan.

But his teammates still scored on him (except for Ethan, and Bennett Halley, because Riley didn’t like him), and Riley had no idea what it must be like to have someone miss you as much as the Kennedys clearly missed Ethan. And Ethan looked so
happy
as they hugged him and asked him a thousand questions all at once. Happy in a way Riley didn’t understand but wished that he did.

He went from passive observer to participant when Ethan’s mom turned to him and said with a bright smile, “And you must be Riley. Look at you! What a gorgeous young man you are. So tall.” Before Riley could hold his hand out to shake hers, Maura Kennedy had wrapped him up in a fierce hug. “We are so glad you came home with Ethan. And that you didn’t let him drive.”

Riley remembered his manners and hugged her back. “Thank you, Ms. Kennedy, for having me.”

“Oh, none of this Ms. Kennedy stuff, Riley. You just call me Maura. Brittany. Stop showing your brother that mermaid tattoo and say hello to Ethan’s friend. Riley, this is my daughter Brittany.” She hooked her arm through Riley’s as they turned toward Ethan’s sister.

“It’s a siren, Ma. I told you. Not a mermaid. Hi,” Brittany Kennedy said as she turned Ethan’s smile on him—and oh wow. She was Ethan with tits, which was a completely disrespectful thing Riley would not say out loud. Ethan and Britt looked alike. They were the same height and had the same eyes. But it was more than that. She was as boisterous as her brother. Her laugh was loud, and she couldn’t stand still either. “Call me Britt.”

She was also really hot, covered in tattoos with her blue black hair rolled up in the front, making her look like a pinup girl from the sixties. And she was wearing bright red lipstick and matching cat-eye glasses.

Riley had a mental image of Brittany Kennedy and Zoe Mays making out. It was a very, very nice mental image, and he was sad that he couldn’t share it with Ethan. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you, Britt. Ethan talks about you a lot.”

“Yeah?” Britt beamed at her brother. “Everything he learned about fighting, by the way, he learned from me,” Britt said as she flung herself at Ethan again. “Tell him, big brother.”

“Oh yeah.” He looked at Riley over his sister’s head. “I let her win,” he whispered, and then his sister punched him in the stomach.

“My God. Children, this is an airport. What will Riley think of us?” Maura waved her hand. “Ethan, stop encouraging your sister to be violent. She’s in a customer-service profession.” Maura beamed. “I’ve got an artist for a daughter, a professional athlete for a son, and soon my youngest is going to be a scientist going to the moon. Kelsey, come here and meet Riley.”

Kelsey Kennedy was tall, with Maura’s auburn hair and striking green eyes. Even dressed casually with her hair up in a ponytail, she was pretty enough to be a model. “Hi,” she said, a little more shyly than her mom and her sister. “We’re so loud. I’m sorry.”

Riley laughed. He definitely liked her. “It’s okay. I live with Ethan, so I’m used to it.”

As they waited for the luggage, Riley was content to watch them and occasionally answer questions about Wyoming, Florida, being a goalie, and being tall.

“Your family doesn’t mind you coming here for Christmas?” Kelsey asked, looking skeptical. “Ethan said they were going on vacation and you couldn’t go because of your schedule. But Ethan told me my hamster went on vacation when I was eight, because Britt locked it in the Barbie Dream House to pretend it was a monster movie.”

“That wasn’t me,” Britt told her sister. “It was Ethan.”

“What? It was not. Britt made me put it in there because she was afraid of it.”

Kelsey laughed. “Afraid of a hamster and she sticks people with needles all day.”

“It doesn’t stick you, Kels, I’ve told you that a million times. How you understand all that math shit—Ma, calm down. Riley’s on a hockey team. I’m sure he’s heard worse language.”

“Not said in front of someone’s mother.” Maura raised an eyebrow at her oldest daughter. “Help your brother with his bags.”

“There better be a present for me in there is all I’m saying,” Britt groused, but of course Ethan wouldn’t let his sister carry his bag. He shouldered it and told her he brought her a lump of coal.

Getting to the Kennedy’s house was another adventure. They didn’t have a car, so they took the subway and a series of busses and hauled their luggage with them. Riley had been to New York before for hockey and on a few family trips, but they weren’t in any neighborhood he was familiar with.

And Riley couldn’t put into words how he felt witnessing the obvious affection the Kennedy family had for each other. It became clear to Riley why three was Ethan’s number and why his family meant so much to him. Ethan might play hockey for the Sea Storm, but they were his real team.

The Kennedys’ apartment was small, but Riley thought it was the coziest place he’d ever seen. At home his parents had a decorator who went through and redesigned Riley’s bedroom suite every few years. It went from cars to some kind of monster theme to a generic, vaguely boyish navy blue and maroon color scheme. The designer must have noticed his New Jersey Devil’s poster, because the last one was red and black.

If there was a theme to the Kennedys’ apartment, it was cheerful chaos. It wasn’t untidy or cluttered. Just lived in.

There were pictures in mismatched frames on the walls, showing the Kennedy clan growing up together in no particular order. Riley was fascinated, and he wanted to look at every single picture, especially the ones of Ethan as a kid. In every one that included his sisters, Ethan looked as fierce as he did when he threw off his gloves. Maybe more.

Riley’s favorite was a picture of the three Kennedy kids with Santa. Britt was crying, mouth open in a wail and her little face covered in tears. Kelsey, a toddler, was on Ethan’s knee and was also screaming. Ethan had one arm around his sobbing sister Britt, and the other wrapped protectively around Kelsey. He wasn’t looking at the camera, but was instead glaring up at Santa like it was
his
fault his sisters were upset.

“My son,” Maura said. She walked over, handed Riley a beer, and shook her head. “It’s a good thing the photographer didn’t give them any props for that photograph. Ethan would have brained Santa with it.” She looked at the picture and smiled fondly. “Some brothers would yell at their siblings for screaming and getting them on Santa’s naughty list. Not Ethan. He just yelled at Santa for making his sisters cry. He could, and I quote, ‘forget the toys, fat man. We don’t want them anyway.’”

Riley took the beer and grinned at Ethan, who was drinking one of his own. “Sure. Now she laughs at that.” Ethan pointed at his mom with the bottle. “It wasn’t funny when it happened.”

“I didn’t want him saying those kinds of things to people,” Maura said and laughed. “I insisted he write an apology in his letter to Santa that year.”

“And Britt threatened to set me on fire if I didn’t,” Ethan muttered. From the kitchen Britt called him a snitch.

“He apologized for calling him fat,” Maura said and shook her head. “He said it wasn’t Santa’s fault everyone left him cookies, and he insisted on putting some celery out on Christmas Eve.”

“I didn’t know you even knew what celery looked like,” Riley teased. “I’m surprised you didn’t leave him Pepsi.”

“Riley drinks coconut water,” Ethan retorted, though that made no sense, whatsoever.