Page 99 of Playing His Game

“What the?—”

His tone made Adam sit up straight. “What is it?”

Jorts scowled at his phone, frantically scrolled, then typed.

“Jorts.” God, was it his kids? Maddison? Or was it the team? Adam wished he had his phone handy if only so he’d know if his was blowing up too.

“Holy fucking shit, they did.”

“Jorts!” Adam’s skin felt too tight. He might puke.

He was still swiping at his phone screen, clearly trying to get more answers. “They sold us—Fuck, the Du Ponts, they sold the team.”

“What?” Adam croaked.

“Next year, the Canyons are moving to Seattle.”

Adam went cold. “No.”

There would’ve been rumors. Right? That kind of move needed buy-in from the NHL. You couldn’t just pick a team up and move it wholesale. They had to study the new market, estimate its viability, its ability to support an NHL franchise?—

Except the coffee mogul Troy Bernardo in Seattle had already filed the paperwork to start an expansion franchise. The research had been underway for years. Adam had been reading updates about it the whole season. Last he’d read, the wannabe owners had purchased land and filed a permit to build an arena.

Just last week, actually.

Even though the NHL hadn’t approved their application for an expansion team yet.

“Some kind of behind-the-scenes deal,” Jorts said, as though from very far away. “I don’t know, it sounds shady as fuck, but I’m just reading between the lines… Oh my God, why does this article mention your super-fake relationship? ‘Early in the season, problems plagued the Canyons’—you have a verbal disagreement with your teammate in a bar one time and everything gets blown out of proportion, I swear—‘and taking a chance on that team might have been a gamble. But since then, the Phoenix-based team’—I hate when they do that, Jesus Christ—‘has had nothing but glowing press. With a solid record and the feel-good story of the romance between Captain Adam Murphy and boyfriend Moritz Du Pont’…”

No.

Mo couldn’t have done that to him on purpose just for good press. He hated his parents. Having met them, Adam didn’t doubt his sincerity there. He wanted nothing more than to wait out his payday so he could fuck off out of their lives forever.

Then Adam remembered the text.

Hey, can we hold off on public announcements? Parents asking me to keep it on the dl.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

Jorts looked up, alarmed. His phone clattered to the patio. “Whoa, hey?—”

He caught up to Adam in the powder room. Fortunately, he’d managed to keep from heaving, but his body had broken out in a hot-cold sweat. His head swam.

He splashed cold water on his hands and face, his wrists, and the back of his neck. The light-headedness subsided some.

“Tell me what’s going on, bud.”

Adam felt too miserable to protest. Leaning heavily on the counter, he kept his face pointed down. He didn’t want to meet his own expression in the mirror. “He asked me not to make it public. The breakup. Said his parents didn’t want the bad press.”

A beat.

“Do you think he knew they were selling?”

Adam closed his eyes. “What else am I supposed to think?”

Jorts said, “So are we keying his car or do you want us to set it on fire?”

Adam laughed mirthlessly, then regretted it when a stab of pain went through his head. “Fuck. Jesus.” He stood up straight, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So much for the ‘friends, maybe not just friends’ theory. He was just playing the doting boyfriend to get in good with Mommy and Daddy.”