Page 62 of Goalie Interference

“Come on, Ander,” I say as he crouches into his stance. He’s tracking the puck as it’s being skated towards him. “You have this. Make the stop.” I hold my breath as the puck is released towards the net from their forward. Ander reaches with his left leg and blocks the puck. It bounces off his leg away from the net.

“Yes!” I yell out. “There it is! That’s my boy!”

“Your what?” Brandon asks, his voice full of confusion.

My skin goes cold. I can’t believe I just yelled that out loud. And more so, for no reason. No matter how much I’d like him to be, Ander isn’t my boy. Even if I suspect he might be interested. He’s still my friend and I’d do better to remember that.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryan says to Brandon. He then places his plate back on the coffee table and rises to his feet. Brandon does the same. Their eyes are glued on the screen as we all watch Connor collect the rebound and pass it down ice to where Tavish is waiting in the neutral zone.

Tavish takes control of it and now it’s the Blizzards who have the breakaway. He flies toward the Journeymen’s net and chips it past their goalie.

“Thank you,” I say quietly to the hockey gods. That was a close one.

SEVENTEEN

Nikolai

Brandon turns around in the front passenger seat of Ryan’s car to look at me as we merge onto the expressway heading north. “I’m still confused,” he says. “Why did my brother invite you to Christmas again?”

“Because he’s Ander,” Ryan says, “and that’s what he does.”

“Sure…” Brandon says, narrowing his gaze at Ryan before he looks back at me. “But why you specifically?”

“We are friends,” I say as it’s the only answer I can come up with. It’s been a month since Thanksgiving when he invited me and nothing has changed between us since then for me to suspect otherwise. Well, nothing except for near daily phone calls. Ander has taken to calling me even when he doesn’t have a game. And I have made a habit of calling him after his games to either congratulate him on a good game or talk him off a ledge after a bad one.

“Yeah, Brandon,” Ryan says. “They’re friends.”

Brandon turns his head and narrows his eyes at Ryan again. He pokes him in the shoulder. “You’re hiding something. This feels like a trap.”

“I’m not hiding anything.” Ryan laughs. But his eyes briefly lock onto mine through the rearview mirror.

I’m honestly surprised Ryan hasn’t clued Brandon in on there being something, at least confirmed from my side, going on between Ander and I that might be deemed as more than friendly. This weekend is likely going to be a big testament to that. After not physically being around each other in four weeks, finally sharing space again is likely to push whatever is developing front and center. My hope is that by the time we’re heading back to St. Louis, I’ll have a definitive answer to the question. Ander and I are either simply friends, or on our way to being something more.

My dilemma now is whether or not I should bring it up with Brandon. I don’t like lying to him, or hiding that there might be something more between his brother and I. But then again, if Ryan hasn’t mentioned it to him yet, there has to be a reason. Maybe it’s as simple as if there is nothing more developing, and Ander and I truly are just friends, Brandon never needs to know that for a few weeks of my life I wanted something more.

Brandon turns back around. “I swear to God, if you two have some elaborate prank plotted against me with my brother, you’re not getting your Christmas morning blowjob.”

“Does that include me?” I ask as Ryan quickly turns to look at Brandon with outrage written all over his face.

“You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaims then takes his eyes back to the road.

“I would dare,” Brandon says. He looks at me. “No. That doesn’t include you. You’ll have to sort out your own blowjob.” He then turns his attention back to Ryan and smirks. “And you forget what it’s like at my parents’ house. Cramped quarters with zero privacy. The likelihood of anyone getting any action in these next three days is slim to none.”

Ander

“Don’t get me wrong, Ander,” my mom says to me as she avoids stepping on Shutzie who is barking below her and circling around her feet. She hands me a large stack of sheets. “I’m thrilled to have Nikolai for Christmas. But is there a reason you didn’t mention it to me until today?”

“Or why you’re the one who invited him and not your brother,” my dad says. He pauses the pump filling up the inflatable mattress to scratch the top of Shutzie’s head. He’s stopped circling my mother and has decided that climbing onto the air mattress is a better idea.

“Good point,” my mom says and points at my dad. She turns her attention back to me. Her lips scrunch to the side as she takes me in, then tipping her head, she adds, “You have always been full of surprises.”

“So many surprises,” my dad grumbles as he turns the pump back on and finishes filling the mattress with air while my dog bounces across it, looking for the perfect place to lie down. My dad picks him up instead, flopping him into his arms to give him a belly rub as Cole, one of the billets staying at the house, comes back after moving a few of his things out of Brandon’s old bedroom into mine.

“Where do you want this?” Cole asks, pulling the air mattress onto its side. He rests his forearm on it as he waits for direction.

“In your room please,” my mom says, then turns quickly to look back at me. “Or is that weird?”

“Is what weird?” I ask.