Page 17 of Knocked Sideways

“You consider yourself one of the old guys, I take it? I guess you are, like, a living legend.” Remy’s eyes were starting to sparkle again now.

“I’m a what now?” Jed put his fork down. Christ. This Remy—eyes dancing, mouth stretched wide in a smile—was the most unsettling yet. If they’d been in a bar, Jed might’ve thought Remy was flirting with him. His pulse started to speed up until he replayed the words in his head and realized that Remy was basically calling him ancient.

Remy was chirping, not flirting. Get a fucking grip, Jed told himself. And he’d been silent for too long, because the grin was starting to fade from Remy’s face.

“Um, a living legend? You must have seen the video.” Remy raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Jed shook his head.

“It’s just, like, these clips someone put together of some of your saves. With captions. And music and stuff. You know. It turned up in my feed. I wasn’t searching for it, obviously. I guess I looked up the Blizzards roster on my way down and—you know how the algorithms work, right?” Remy shot him another smile that could only be described as cheeky. “Because if not, living legend doesn’t seem wrong.”

“I know how algorithms work. Even though I’m apparently old enough that fans are surprised I’m not dead.” Jed wasn’t going to be grumpy about it. He was a goalie, for fuck’s sake. Thirty-four might be old for other positions, but he had years left, if he wanted them. Even if his shoulder sometimes suggested otherwise.

“I mean, the legend part is good, right?” Remy was still smiling as he nudged Jed’s foot under the table. “I hope someone’s calling me a legend if I get to play as long as you have.”

“See how you feel about it in a decade.” And with that reminder that he was a veteran who was supposed to be making things not weird with the team’s newest rookie, Jed turned the conversation to Utah, who they were playing the next day. Remy was smart and interested and listened carefully to Jed’s thoughts about Utah’s offense, and before Jed knew it, they’d been sitting there for half an hour after finishing their food.

It didn’t feel weird at all, unless Jed thought about the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation this long with any of his teammates. Or the last time anyone had teased him with a smile like that on their face. Watching Remy light up as he described playing against one of Utah’s forwards in college, Jed was hit with the feeling that even if he’d fixed the weird, he’d also made a huge mistake.

Remy was far too easy to be with. Jed didn’t want the lunch to end, which meant he absolutely needed to end it now.

“Hey, I guess I better get you back to the hotel so you can pack up,” he said as Remy finished up his story.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so.” Remy pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. “I didn’t realize how long we’d been here. Thanks again for lunch. This was really nice.”

“No problem.” Jed stood up and started stacking the trash from Remy’s tray onto his so that he could return both to the counter.

The drive back to the hotel was as silent as the drive to the restaurant, but Remy seemed more relaxed, looking out the window and humming to himself a little. Jed thought he could tell Hal with a clear conscience that he’d done what he could to make Remy comfortable.

“Thanks again, Monty,” Remy said as Jed pulled up to the hotel’s front door and hit the brakes a little too abruptly.

“You can call me Jed off the ice.” Jed wasn’t going to think about why “Monty” sounded so wrong coming out of Remy’s mouth. Hal and Bakesy called him Jed. There was no reason Remy shouldn’t, too.

“Okay. Jed.” Remy shot Jed a final smile, opened the door, and was off with a wave before Jed recovered.

Jesus. That smile was going to be the end of him unless he got a handle on himself real soon.

Remy’s words echoed in Jed’s head as he let himself into his house.

This was really nice.

Yeah, it had been nice. More than nice. Remy was both gorgeous and fucking sweet. Jed could see himself doing that again, sitting across from Remy and talking about everything and nothing. Letting Remy tease him and maybe teasing him back. And just like that, Jed’s pulse was speeding up again enough to bring back the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

Well, he didn’t have a reason to keep hanging out with Remy one-on-one. But he could still keep an eye on Remy as a teammate. He knew that even if Remy looked at him like he didn’t hate what he saw, it didn’t mean anything. Remy had made it pretty clear in their conversation that he saw Jed as an old-as-fuck mentor type.

And that wasn’t a bad thing. Jed could see Remy going places. He had the mind for it, as well as the work ethic. He was on his way up, for sure, with so much still ahead of him. It would be satisfying to help him out.

Jed was making himself a cup of tea and trying his best to think less about Remy and more about preparing for the game the next day when Hal texted.

Hal

So?

How was food with your new guy

Jed stared at the phone. Did Hal even know what that sounded like?

Grant