Page 41 of Bro Code

Louis looked up with a brief smile. “Okay! Well…thanks. That was fun.”

Riley nodded, trying to return the smile. “I guess that really was the last time, huh. We said we weren’t doing that here.”

Louis got a kind of cagey look, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Or…you could say we broke the seal…so now…it’s fine?”

Riley laughed. “Uh huh. Okay…”

“I mean,” Louis shrugged, “if you want. We don’t have to put any pressure on it.”

“Fine. Sounds good.”

“Oh! I came out to my boss, by the way.”

“Oh. Okay…”

“Yeah. I just – wanted to let you know. Because you said you felt like the only one sticking your neck out. So…” Another shrug. “Anyway.”

A small tug of gratitude pulled at Riley’s heart. He nodded. “Okay. Thanks. I guess I appreciate that.”

Louis nodded. Riley nodded. They both nodded. It got slightly awkward. Finally, Louis said, “Okay!” again, and turned to the door. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”

He opened the door and Riley said, “Hey, uh–”

Louis paused, turning in the doorway. He met Riley’s eye across the room. The air seemed to go tight between them, and Riley swallowed again, swallowing what he’d been going to say with it. “Drive safe.”

Louis smiled. He held Riley’s gaze a moment longer. “Thanks. I will. Goodnight, Riley.”

Riley watched him walk out and close the door behind him. “Goodnight.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Louis

When he booted up the computer the following morning, he found the analysis he’d been running on Riley’s practice data still up on the screen. Operation: Riley.

A little thrill went through him as he sat, remembering what they’d done last night. More like Operation: Fuck Riley.

He clicked through a few lines, trying to push that out of his head. He kept remembering the warmth of Riley’s hands on his hips, the hot tickle of his breath against his ear that sent shivers down his spine.

Doing it against the window…with all those people maybe looking in…

Fuck, okay, he definitely did not need to be getting hard at work. It was only nine in the morning for fuck’s sake.

Data, data, data. Focus, Louis!

He closed the Riley side project and opened up yesterday’s data from the game with Tampa. Stick angle, forearm tension, velocity of passes…yes, this was boring enough to kill his boner.

His eye snagged on a line about halfway down. Frowning, he leaned in.

There was a major change in Riley’s data halfway through the game. Something had happened during second period.

Up until that point, Riley had actually been playing pretty well. There were a few blips, but nothing serious. Then, halfway through second period, everything went out the window. Stick angle changed, speed on passes decreased, stride all over the place… There was even a brand new problem popping up in his proximity data.

Louis pushed back from the desk and clasped his hands on his head. He remembered a guy had put Riley into the boards at some point and taken a penalty for the hit. Was that during second period? It would be in the data. Louis searched and found it: Okafor was the name of the player. Boarding penalty.

As far as Louis knew, a penalty like that was pretty normal. But that was the moment all Riley’s metrics went haywire.

Louis sat stroking his chin. He was definitely starting to feel like whatever was going on with Riley wasn’t an injury. He hadn’t been planning to take any of this to Holly until after the California tour. But surely she’d want to know about if he had a theory that could be useful?