Page 3 of From A to Us

“And engineer my carbs around fate?”

“You could just not eat bagels.”

Eli gasped so hard that Nolan thought he’d choke on his own spit. “Rude, Nolan. Don’t get between a hockey player and his carbs.”

Nolan laughed. “Duly noted.”

“Hey, guys.” Their server appeared between them and placed the bill on the table. “We’re closing in a few minutes, so you can settle up at the bar.”

Nolan checked his watch. Almost midnight. Damn, they’d shut the place down. He hadn’t done that since his university days.

“You can pay.” Eli slid the bill Nolan’s way. “Since you invited me.”

“Sure,” Nolan said, laughing as he stood. “Be right back.”

He’d invited Eli out tonight because Eli was the only person he knew in Burlington aside from his dad. He was friendly with a few of the Trailblazers—had even attended a Trailblazers event or two in the four seasons Dad had been head coach—but he didn’t know them enough to call them up to hang out.

Eli, though? Nolan didn’t know him well enough either, but he had been a familiar face from his past. Nolan hadn’t expected to enjoy getting to know him as someone other than Michelle’s little brother as much as he had. Hadn’t expected to have this much fun or to wish the night would last longer. Hadn’t expected an Eli who was both funny and smart and wiser than Nolan would’ve given him credit for.

Eli tripped his way out of the bar a few minutes later, and Nolan caught him by the elbow before he face-planted on the sidewalk.

Wiser in some ways, anyway.

“Do you always drink this much?” Nolan asked.

Eli shook his head as Nolan steered him toward his rental car. There was no way he was letting Eli behind the wheel of his own car.

“No,” Eli said. “No, siree. Nope. But you make me nervous ’cause you’re all . . .” He waved in Nolan’s general direction.

Frowning, Nolan glanced down at himself. Jeans, boots, a winter coat over a long-sleeved T-shirt. He’d dressed for the bar, not to match Eli’s post-game suit.

“I’m all what?”

Eli didn’t answer. He dropped into the passenger seat of Nolan’s car and slammed the door. By the time Nolan got in on the other side, Eli was fast asleep, his head resting against the window.

Booze and exhaustion combined to shut his body down, no doubt. Nolan had never played much hockey, but he knew the kind of hours professional players kept on game days.

He studied Eli briefly and couldn’t help but note the contradictions. Tough on the outside—he had to be in his line of work—but gooey on the inside. Thoughtful in his responses yet impulsive in his decisions, as evidenced by the number of beers he’d consumed like they were water. He asked smart questions but then went on about existential dread as though he were a philosophy professor.

Somehow, those contradictions made sense with Eli, balancing him out.

Shaking his head at the thought, Nolan plugged Eli’s address into his phone—which he’d gotten from Eli earlier just in case—and drove him home.

chapter

one

TEN MONTHS LATER

A sharp whistle cut through the meeting room and Nolan winced at the sound.

“Settle down, assholes,” Roman Kinsey shouted over the chatter of conversation and laughter. As a former Vermont Trailblazer who’d captained the team for eleven seasons and led them to two Stanley Cup championships, he obviously held a lot of sway, because the players found their seats around a long conference table, although with chirpy rebuttals like “Who are you calling an asshole, asshole?” and “Whistle at me like a dog again and see what happens.”

Roman didn’t appear all that intimidated. To be fair, he looked like a badass with his full sleeve of tattoos, shaved head, piercing olive-green gaze, and eyebrow ring. There’d been a stud in his nose, too, when Nolan had arrived for his job interview last week, but he wasn’t wearing it today.

Nolan stood against one wall next to Assistant Coach Friedle. This short team meeting was a great opportunity for him to observe the Trailblazers’ legendary culture, which was exactly what he’d been hired for.

Discreetly, Roman had stressed, so he didn’t get in the way, which left Nolan feeling like a sociologist-shaped fern tucked into a corner of the room.