Page 75 of Goalie Interference

But it’s also possible I’m over-complicating this. We’ve spent two nights together. Why am I feeling like this is somehow catastrophic? We’re not Romeo and Juliet. We’re two men who spent the last forty-eight hours secretly wrapped up in each other. We’re two men who have our regular lives to return to. We’re two men who have the same goal of helping our teams win the Stanley Cup.

Okay. That last one is complicated. And it’s why I have to tell him, “We go back to our teams and finish out season.”

“Yeah…” he says, palming my cheek. “But what about us?”

“There is no us,” I say, as much as it kills me to say it. My heart clenches in my throat at the sad expression that has just washed over his face. If I could see mine, I think it would look the same. But this is how it has to be. Maybe not forever. But definitely for now. “There cannot be.”

TWENTY-TWO

Nikolai

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Brandon says to me from the front passenger seat before we are even outside the city limits.

“Excuse me?” I ask. I’m already heartbroken. Being insulted by my rookie out of nowhere seems astronomically unfair.

“You heard me.” Brandon takes a long sip of his coffee.

I lock eyes with Ryan in the driver’s seat through the rearview mirror, looking for some support. “He’s right, Ivanov. You’re an idiot.”

“Could either of you explain to me why I am idiot?”

“You know what? Yes, I can,” Brandon says, turning around in his seat to look to where I’m sitting behind Ryan. “I cannot believe you and my brother are apparently a thing. Or… at least you were before your dumbass decided to crush him.”

I don’t know when Brandon caught on to what was going on between me and Ander, or if Ryan finally told him. But even if he didn’t know, there was no mistaking how utterly destroyed Ander was when we all left their parents’ house not even fifteen minutes ago.

To be fair, I felt it too. I just did a much better job of hiding it.

“I did not wish to hurt him,” I say. There’s an unbearable weight in my chest.

“Well, you did,” Brandon says bluntly. “As much as I don’t want to think about the two of you being together, or whatever, because fucking gross”—he shudders—“I have to admit that I think the two of you make sense.”

“We do?”

“Yes. Idiot,” he snarls at me.

“It’s true,” Ryan says, reaching over to run his hands through Brandon’s hair. “You and Ander are good together.”

I avoid looking at Brandon and instead gaze out the window. I can’t help but agree with them. Ander and I do make sense. I calm him and bring him back down to earth, and he brings me out of my shell. I laugh more with him than I do anyone else. Both of us are capable of being vulnerable with each other without it becoming weird or overly dramatic. Plus, the chemistry is there. Also, I’ve never come so hard in my life as I have over these last three days.

“It does not matter.” I let out a heavy sigh. “There is no way for us to be together.”

“Why not?” Ryan asks.

“How would relationship work? We play on different teams. Both are vying for Stanley Cup. And worse, when would we see each other? The season is not over for another six months.”

“I don’t want to be the one to point out the obvious,” Brandon says, “but the two of you have managed to see each other a lot already.”

“Yes, but that was only as friends,” I say around the lump in my throat. What if me denying a relationship between us also managed to ruin our friendship?

“I don’t see the issue,” Brandon says. “I mean, okay. I do see the issue. You make some valid points, especially when it comes to the whole Stanley Cup thing, but…”

“The two of you exploring a relationship together isn’t impossible,” Ryan finishes for him.

“How is it not?” I ask.

“To start,” Ryan says. He catches my eyes in the rearview mirror again. “We play the Blizzards in three weeks back in our barn, so you can see each other then.”

“Plus,” Brandon says, “there’s the all-star break in February. That’s an entire week you two can spend together.”