Page 81 of Playing His Game

If anyone could match his energy, it would be Shauna. Mo could already tell.

“You two are not allowed to play on the same hockey team!” Adam tried to complain, but his smile gave him away.

“I can have Ted, though, right?” Mo fluttered his eyelashes.

After the unceremonious tree-topping, it was time for the cursed event. Mo gave up trying to count the number of Murphys and Murphy-adjacent people present. Someone had dragged some battered wooden benches that looked like they’d been stolen from a church circa 1942 out next to the rink, and they all piled on to lace up.

Duncan, apparently, had the enviable task of refereeing this catastrophe in the making; he wore a fluffy black-and-white striped hoodie so large, it fit easily over his winter coat and still hung to his knees and sported a bright copper whistle around his neck.

“All right, I want a nice, clean game,” he said cheerfully, and his family booed him. He pulled two knitted hats from the pocket of the hoodie, one in red and one in white. “By popular request, this year’s team captains will be Adam”—uh-oh—“and Mo.”

They played rock-paper-scissors to see who’d choose first. Adam won and picked Chuckie.

Foiled, Mo straightened his spine and picked Ted. He might as well follow through on his threat.

The game was hockey only in the loosest sense of the word. No one bothered to rotate on or off, and there were easily sixteen people on the ice at once. The rink didn’t have lines to call offside, or dots for face-offs, or boards to crush anyone into—more than once, someone found themselves cursing as they stumbled right off the ice and into the snow. No one played goalie; instead, they used mini nets to limit the score.

Also, if Mo remembered right, in regular hockey, it was illegal for your fake boyfriend to pick you up and throw you over his shoulder so he could get the puck.

Mo wasn’t even sure what Duncan’s function was until half an hour elapsed and he blew the whistle. Play stopped as he yelled, “Game’s over, get your grog!” and Mo realized he’d been making some kind of hot boozy punch over a propane burner.

He held back as everyone crowded forward. The kids had a hot-chocolate version, complete with a drink-doctoring station made of a sawhorse topped with two-by-fours and that hosted whipped cream, sprinkles, and cookie bits.

Was it always like this? Loud and happy and warm despite the frigid outdoor temperatures that chapped Mo’s skin regardless of how much fancy moisturizer he applied? These people didn’t just love each other, theylikedeach other.

And they liked Mo and noticed him holding back. It made sense for Adam to come out of the fray with an extra mug—but then his mom did the same, laughing when she saw Adam had beaten her to it, and then Shauna came next.

A whole family full of people like Adam, who Mo had written off as stuck-up and ashamed. He’d assumed Adam’s reserved, almost-conservative presence had been a reaction to the same type of parenting environment Mo had suffered—he had to behave to keep his parents happy. He’d just decided to lean into that instead of buck it, as Mo had.

But no. Adam was like this because he didn’t have to be any particular way for his parents to love him. They just did, and he trusted that they would, and in turn, he was a son they could brag about to the whole damn country.

You’re good for him, Mo heard in his head, an echo of Jorts’s voice.

Mo raised his rum punch to his lips and wondered why that made him feel so fucking sad.

Christmas Eve wasn’t a late night. Once Chuckie passed out—after picking ten cookies for Santa and making sure they were laid outjustsoand checking on them twenty times—and the adults added the Santa presents to the piles and the stockings, they all shuffled off to bed.

Warmed from a day of hockey and family and snow and Christmas and eggnog andMo, Adam locked the bedroom door behind him and moved in close. “I’m not sleepy yet.”

“No?” Mo arched an eyebrow. “Whatever shall we do to pass the time? Gin rummy?”

“Don’t have any playing cards.” Adam settled his hands on Mo’s hips and slipped his fingers under his sweater to touch skin.

Mo wrapped his arms around his neck. “Charades? Shadow puppets?”

“I was thinking,” Adam said into Mo’s neck, nuzzling, “I could fuck you how you like.”

“And I’m thinking that railing me against the wall might be too loud for the circumstances.” Mo raked his fingers across Adam’s scalp, encouraging.

“We’ll have to be quiet, but doesn’t mean I can’t still give it to you right,” he promised. Just because they’d never had to worry about volume before didn’t mean they couldn’t adjust.

“Mm, you can still follow directions, even at a whisper.”

Adam kept his face buried, knowing his cheeks were turning red. No one had ever gotten to know him so intimately. True, he hadn’t known before Mo how much he liked clear direction in bed, and the ease at which Mo could talk about sex still made Adam feel bashful. Not enough to back away, of course. “That, and hard doesn’t have to mean fast.”

“You make a very persuasive argument, Mr. Murphy. Take off your pants.”

Chuckling, Adam pulled back so they could strip. Trying to do so with their lips attached like they normally would wasn’t on the menu tonight—they’d garnered a few bruises and once broken a lamp doing that.