Save of the Game (6 page)

Neither did Riley. He just stayed there for a moment longer and then moved, letting Ethan up. Ethan stayed on his back for a few moments, then carefully got up, walked out of Riley’s bedroom, and pulled the door closed quietly behind him.

Riley had no idea why that had just happened, but Ethan seemed to feel better when he left. So there was that.

Riley got himself off, quietly and almost frantically, imagining Ethan in his room doing the same thing. When he came his eyes were closed, but his head was turned to the side, facing Ethan’s room.

When he opened his eyes, all he could see was the wall.

THEY DIDN’T
talk about what happened.

The next morning Riley went running without waiting to see if Ethan was going to join him. When he got back, Ethan’s door was still closed. So he assumed his roommate was asleep.

Later that afternoon he finally came out of his room and asked if he could borrow Riley’s car.

Riley gave him the keys, and Ethan came back with some beer, a piping hot pizza, laundry detergent, and fabric softener—something Riley didn’t know about until he moved into his first apartment, because he’d had to look up how to do laundry on the Internet.

They ate pizza, did their laundry, played
Grand Theft Auto
, and watched hockey. Sometimes Riley looked over and caught Ethan watching him, and vice versa. They both pretended not to notice. It was clear, unspoken guy language that meant “If we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.”

And Riley assumed that meant it wouldn’t happen again. Which Riley had to admit bummed him out.

He thought about texting Lane, but it was hard to think of what to say.
Does it make me gay if my roommate kissed me when he was drunk?
Besides, it’s not like he really had to ask. It wasn’t the part where Ethan kissed him. It was the part where Riley liked it. A lot.

But he still liked girls too. Didn’t he? It didn’t work like that, where you went from one to the other. Right? In hockey, if you decided to go from being a right-handed goalie, you had to turn in your equipment and get a new stick before you could switch.

That was maybe not the best analogy. Still.

Riley wished he knew Lane’s boyfriend, Jared, a little better. He shot with both hands, or whatever the equivalent would be in Riley’s poorly thought-out hockey metaphor. He always assumed people were talking about baseball teams when they used the expression “played for both teams,” though he didn’t know why.

Riley didn’t have much time to think about it, though. He had a lot on his plate with practice and their first meeting with their rivals since last season’s game seven of the conference finals. And he liked helping out at the hockey camp, even if he wasn’t nearly as good with kids as Ethan was.

The road trip was a long one, a Wednesday through Sunday, and the whole team was ready to beat the Savannah Renegades in both of their games. First they had to go and play the Spitfires in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They had a cool logo, an old World War I fighter plane. But they were the absolute worst team in the league, and their goalie, Isaac Drake, spent most of the game yelling. At his
own team
. The Spitfires only managed sixteen shots on goal during the entire game, and Riley was bored stiff by the time it was over.

Their next game, against the Athens Ice Dogs, was a little harder. They were a surprise, coming out of nowhere and going on an impressive winning streak. The Storm pulled out a win in a shoot-out, and Riley was impressed as hell by their team. But he wasn’t impressed by the attendance, which was abysmal.

“This is Athens, Georgia,” their goalie told Riley. “It’s college football season. There’s a reason we don’t play on Saturdays. There would literally be no one here.”

While on the road, Riley was roommates with his new backup, Vazov. They would talk about the game, and Sasha would tell him things in his broken, halting English and teach him some Russian.

Ethan got in a fight in every one of their games, but Riley saw him by the busses, laughing and comparing black eyes with his opponent from the Ice Dogs. Ethan told him later they were both Rangers fans, and it made Riley smile. Though Riley got off thinking about how hot Ethan looked when he fought.

Riley watched Ethan a lot during games. He was always the first person to clap or cheer when someone scored a goal, and he never complained about his ice time or lack thereof. He never complained about anything. But Riley noticed that the longer the road trip went on, the more strained around the edges Ethan looked. His eyes were almost too bright, his laugh a little too loud. He also couldn’t sit still. His hands were always twitching, his leg constantly jostling on the bench or in his bus seat.

The Saturday-night game against the Renegades was electric, the crowd filled to capacity, and the game fast, furious, and full of the best kind of emotion. The Renegades were good and kept Riley on his toes for the whole game. If he’d been just a little slower, his flashy, highlight-reel saves would have been flashy, highlight-reel goals.

Even Riley got into the trash talk in that game, and he yelled cheerfully at the defensemen from the Renegades who were trying to screen him. The Storm won the game 4-2. Riley got booed by the home crowd and it was
great
.

Right when the road trip seemed to be on the way to a four-game winning streak, Sunday’s matinee game happened.

Ethan skated up to Riley during warm-ups while Riley was getting settled in goal. “Who are you talking to?” he asked, rocking on his skates. “You’re saying stuff. To the posts?”

“Lane asked me that once,” Riley said, calmly. He squirted his water bottle three times, then took two drinks, and scratched his left skate on the ice to make a triangle. There. “I’m not talking to anyone. And I’m centering myself. You know. Going from Riley Hunter to the goalie. Make sense?”

Ethan blinked at him. “Maybe? No. I’m pretty much the same person all the time. On the ice. Off. Always Ethan.” He rocked on his skates again. “I wonder if I should try that too.” Before Riley could say anything, Ethan kicked with his skate and made a mark next to Riley’s on the ice. The buzzer sounded to send the teams to their bench for the anthems, so there wasn’t time for Riley to start his pregame ritual again. Riley grabbed his water bottle from the top of the net, and when he dropped it, he knew it was going to be a bad game.

Thirty seconds into the first period, Riley let in a goal.

One minute and thirty-five seconds after that, he let in another one.

By the time Spence finally pulled him in the second, Riley had let in five goals and was serenaded off the ice to the chant “Lose-er, lose-er, lose-er.”

The coach came to talk to him during intermission. “Happens to everyone, Hunter. Shake it off. It’s going to be fine. You played three games before this, and this schedule is insane. What the hell do they think we are? Robots? Are you a robot, Hunter?”

“No, Coach.”

“Me neither, Hunter. Me neither. Now you’re gonna put on one of those ugly-ass teal hats with that stupid, angry water thing, and show your support to Vazov, since this is his first professional game. And our team is gonna go play like tired motherfuckers who are not—who are not what, Hunter?”

“Robots, Coach.”

“Right. Robots. If we were, we’d be killer robots, and they’d all be in trouble, ’cause we’d have badass space guns. With lasers.” Spence gave him an encouraging slap on the back. “Let’s go.”

Ethan moved down to sit next to him the second the teams were back on the benches to start the third period. “That was my fault, huh,” Ethan said, eyes wide. “I messed up something. Didn’t I? Oh man, Hunter. I’m sorry.”

He looked so sincere that Riley wanted to tell him it was okay. But he couldn’t, because it wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. It would be. That’s how the game went, and that’s how Riley
was
. He’d get over it. He’d be back on the ice, and it’d be a learning experience. Just not yet.

It wasn’t Ethan’s fault. But Riley was superstitious for a reason, and clearly it was a sign he needed to change up his pregame ritual. That was last year’s, and they were playing last year’s champions. He should have known better.

The Storm lost, 6-2. It was a rousing defeat, and the bus was quiet for the three-hour trip back to Jacksonville.

Vazov handed Riley his headphones. “In Russia one time. The goals, of nine I gave up. This is part of game. I know.”

Riley took the proffered headphones gratefully, giving his backup a tired smile of gratitude. “Sorry I left you with that hole, though.” He was too. No one wanted to make their professional debut down by five. It sucked.

“Is okay. I see before game. The one who has fists, the loud one. He kicks at your marks. This is not good.” Vazov nodded, his icy eyes determined. “I will tell him. You are goalie. The crease. This is yours.”

Riley watched as Vazov made his way up the aisle toward Ethan’s seat. He leaned his head against the glass, closed his eyes, and let the music wash over him.

Except it was Russian techno music, so it pelted over him instead.

ETHAN FELT
horrible.

Horrible.

He should have known better. This wasn’t his first hockey team, for fuck’s sake. Goalies were superstitious, every single one of them. What was he thinking? Riley was his
goalie
. Riley was his friend, and Riley—

Riley was a good kisser. Ethan kept remembering that, being flipped on his back and
do you feel better now?

Ethan was always yelling at everyone to stay the fuck away from his goalie, and what had he done? Fucked up Riley’s pregame ritual.

He’d been on edge during the game, and it translated into him playing like a moron. And after he tried to jumpstart the bench with a fight in the second, it ended with him getting his ass kicked.

“Man, I expected better after yesterday,” Jace Wynn said. “That was barely worth the fucking effort.”

It wasn’t, and Ethan knew it.

Then he got a very serious, well-meaning, and utterly incomprehensible lecture from the Storm’s backup goalie on the way back to Jacksonville. For three hours.

And Riley, by himself in the back of the bus, was quietly listening to headphones with his eyes closed.

“You heading home?” Riley asked him when Ethan packed up his gear and went out into the cool, October evening.

“Do you mind giving me a ride?” Ethan winced, aware he sounded like an idiot. They lived together, and Riley might be mad, but he wasn’t so much of an asshole that he’d leave Ethan stranded in the arena parking lot. “Riley, look—”

“Could you be quiet on the way home, please?” Riley sounded eerily calm, almost too polite. “I would really appreciate it.”

Ethan nodded miserably. He tapped his fingers on the door, he shifted in his seat, and he was glad the ride wasn’t longer than it was because he could tell Riley wasn’t in a good mood.

When they got to the apartment, Ethan put his gear away, had a smoke, and then went inside to shower. Then he pulled on jeans and a shirt and went to find Riley.

As Riley stretched in the living room, Ethan went into the kitchen, opened the fridge and got him a coconut water. He held it out like a peace offering. “Here.”

“No, thank you,” Riley said, politely.

Ethan peered at him. “Uh, Riles? We’re not at the game, you know. Right? I mean. You can yell at me for being a moron.” He leaned down and put the coconut water on the floor.

“I don’t want to yell at you.” Riley sank gracefully down in a stretch.

“What can I do?” Ethan asked, still down on his haunches. “I feel really bad about what happened.”

“You don’t have to.” Riley turned his head. “I let in five goals. Not you.”

“But I messed up your goalie thing.” Ethan watched as Riley smoothly moved through his stretches. He wanted to shake him or punch him. Anything to make him angry… like Ethan deserved.

“All right.”

Ethan stood up. “So that’s it?”

Riley looked up at him. “That’s it, what? You don’t have to do anything, Ethan. You
can’t
. I should have had my head in the game, and I didn’t.”

“Because I wouldn’t let you get it there to start with,” Ethan muttered, arms crossed. “You can say it.”

“Ethan, yeah. You messed up my goal marks. Maybe that didn’t help. And fine, maybe it did make me let that first goal in. But the other four? Those were all my fault. I need to be able to get my shit together after that happens. And tonight I couldn’t.” Riley rose gracefully from the floor. “This is what it’s like to be a goalie. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“Cool.” Ethan watched him as he started toward his bedroom. “But what about right now?”

“What?” Riley turned around and sighed. “What do you mean, right now? Right now I feel like shit, and I’ll get over it.”

“How?” Ethan kept thinking about that
bad game
folder and about Riley getting off in his bedroom, alone, in the dark. He didn’t like that idea. It made him restless and agitated. “Because I feel like shit too.”

They stood and stared at each other. “You shouldn’t. I don’t want you to. It wasn’t your fault.”

Ethan just shrugged. He was tense, all wound up, and he felt like he did right before he got in a fight. He took a step closer and he heard Riley suck in a sharp breath. “I just want to make it up to you.”

Riley made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a growl, and it made Ethan feel a low, warm burn in his stomach. “You really don’t have to do that, Ethan.”

Just like on the ice, Ethan knew Riley wouldn’t give an inch. Ethan stopped when he was right in front of him. “I want to, though,” Ethan said, and then kissed him.

This time neither of them were drunk or half-asleep. They weren’t hidden in darkness or shadow, and there was no way either of them could claim they weren’t aware of what they were doing.

Which was kissing, hotly, like they’d done it a lot more than once. It was also rough, exactly what Ethan wanted. Like fighting, but being turned on too.