Page 78 of Game Misconduct

“Yeah,” Leif said hoarsely, his pulse picking up as he pictured it. “Yeah, okay.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The following weekflewby. Tanner went on the road with the team, and so far they’d won every game they’d played and had a blast. As awesome as the North Atlantic tournament had been, there was nothing like being a team where everyone was super tight because they’d been playing together for a long time.

This was the third season Tanner had played with the Harriers, and he felt like they’d settled into a solid unit. Yeah, there were times when guys were out and the call-ups filled in, but it really seemed like they’d found theircoreand that he was part of it.

It made him excited about what they could maybe do in the postseason.

He started talking to Leif on video chats a lot too on nights when neither of them had games.

It was fun. It wasn’t usually about anything superimportant, just them talking about practices and game stuff. That usually turned into jerking off, which Tanner was not mad about.

Tonight was the Harriers last night on the road. They’d play a game tomorrow, then head home. Leif didn’t have a game tonight either so as Tanner got comfy on the bed, a surge of excitement went through him.

It had been a few days since they’d talked. The Harriers had gone out to dinner a few nights ago and then a few of them had walked over to a nearby bar to listen to live music. He’d had fun with the team and flirting with a smoking-hot couple he met there at the bar. He’d gone back to their place after, had a great time, then headed back to the hotel.

Leif had been asleep by then and since both of them had played last night, it felt like it had beenwaytoo long since they’d gotten off together.

Tanner had bought one of those little travel phone stand things recently, so he set that up on a pillow now and settled against the headboard.

They’d agreed to talk at nine tonight and Leif was the one who was supposed to call because Tanner was really good at remembering the call about fifteen minutes before it was supposed to happen, being really proud of himself for that, and then somehow losing twenty minutes of time and ending up being late after all.

After the second time Tanner did it, Leif just gave him a blank look and said, “Or I could be the one to call you?” and that had pretty much fixed their problems. Except, tonight, Leif was the one running late.

Tanner checked the time again. Had he gotten it wrong? Nope, it was ten after nine. Had they messed up the time zones or something? Tanner was no good at time zone math. He wasalways adding hours when he was supposed to be subtracting and vice versa.

But a moment later the call notification lit up his phone.

“Hey,” Tanner said gleefully when it connected. “So it looks like I’m not the only late one around here.”

Leif rolled his eyes and tossed his hair off his forehead. “Dad called and wanted to talk. I couldn’t exactly tell him I needed to get off the phone because I was about to get off withyou.”

“Yeah, fair,” Tanner agreed with a laugh. “How is Papa Coach Rasmussen?”

“You see him more than I do,” Leif said, shrugging. “And it’sweirdyou call him that.”

“Yes, but you talked to him last. And I think it’s an adorable nickname.”

“You would. You’re obsessed with nicknames.”

“It’s the best part of hockey!” Tanner said, even though that was totally a lie. “I dunno why you and Crawford are so against them.”

“Maybe we hate them because the ones you come up with are dumb.”

“They are not!” Tanner protested.

“Anyway,” Leif said with an annoyed sigh, “Dad’s fine. Why?”

“I dunno. Just wondering.” Tanner shrugged. “Great game last night, by the way.”

“Fuck off.” Leif huffed, clearly annoyed. “At least we lost in overtime and picked up a point. We weredefinitelythe better team too. The refereeing was shit and if we hadn’t had that call against us in the third …”

Tanner grinned because it literally took nothing to get Leif worked up about shit like this. He could go on for hours though and that was annoying when Tanner had more fun things in mind.

“Hey, speaking of refereeing,” Tanner broke in. “Did you know August Manning is probably coming back?”

He belatedly realized he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone and winced. “Uhh, don’t pass that along or I’m in deep shit.”