Page 85 of Seal the Deal
“I was, Captain. Only for a few years then my mom made me pick because scouting and hockey practice overlapped. It was too much for her on her own.”
“I knew it,” Tony grins.
“Teach me to tie knots,” Davey, one of their defensemen, yells from a few lockers down.
“Why, you gonna tie up your lady?” Sergei, their usually quiet goalie, bellows.
The hooting and hollering is drowned out by Davey flipping Sergei off and the guys dissolving into some kind of weird half-wrestling, half-undressing thing that Nicholas is not included in. Not that he wants to be. He’s perfectly happy being left alone.
“Hit the showers, then meet us for a drink. Or in Anders' case, a cheeseburger.”
Across the room, Anders blushes while he’s hit on the back by anyone within reach. Anders joined when Nicki did, the two of them new to the team, and to wildly different receptions. Everyone likes Anders, he’s impossible not to like. Nicholas, on the other hand, is best appreciated from afar or through a screen.
“What part of no did you not understand?” Nicholas frowns.
“The part where I’m tired of you being a grumpy fuck. You’re part of this team.”
“I pull my weight on the fucking ice,” Nicholas grits out.
“You do,” Tony says, unruffled by Nicholas’s anger. “But a team isn’t just a group on the ice. You need to stop acting like we don’t matter off the ice. So you’re coming, Captain’s orders.By the way, feel free to invite your boyfriend. The guys with partners usually invite them after a loss. It’s good for morale to be reminded that none of us are alone.”
“That sounds like sentimental bullshit.”
He doesn’t bother asking how his captain knows he’s dating someone. After Andrew went up to his room to sleep the night before, he’d stayed up all night scouring social media and sending the most intrusive articles to Amanda to see if she could do anything to get them taken down. He didn’t care about himself, he is used to being the fodder of celebrity gossip, but Andrew deserves better than having his home and workplace leaked. That, at least, couldn’t be legal. According to Amanda, it’d all been found through public records, or so the fucking rags claimed, so there was nothing they could do.
The next morning, Andrew was gone for work before Nicholas woke up, and he’d been in a bad mood since. The idea of going to a bar tonight is the last thing he wants, which is weird since usually Nicholas loves going out for a drink and finding someone to pick up. Except he can’t pick anyone up now that this whole fake relationship is public. Worse, he doesn't want to. Somehow the only person he wants is a khaki wearing control freak who likes to boss Nicholas around.
“See something you like, Tony?” Nicholas asks when he realizes Tony hasn’t wandered away.
Maintaining eye contact, Nicholas shoves off the rest of his clothes so he can shower. After spending his formative years in boarding school and nearly a decade playing professional hockey, he doesn’t have an ounce of modesty left. Not that there’s anything to be modest about. Nicholas is even better looking naked than he is in uniform.
“Not fucking likely,” Tony laughs. “I’m straight, but even if I wasn’t, I’d pass on your chiseled ass. I prefer a little more squish on my partners. That, and for them to not be assholes.”
Several nosy fuckers who are clearly eavesdropping, including Davey and Pavel, holler with laughter. Nicholas grabs the closest thing he can find, his discarded gloves, and chucks them at Pavel’s head, which only garners more attention and more laughter.
“Thought you were supposed to be lifting team morale,” Nicholas gripes to Tony.
“I am.” Tony leans in close and winks. “At your expense. That’s what you get for declining the last half a dozen invites to hang out with us.”
“I declined them because I don’t need fucking friends. I was traded here to win.”
“And how’s that going for us?”
“Are you fucking implying we lost tonight because I don’t braid your fucking hair or something?”
“First off, I would look great in braids, second of all, I’m saying we’re good, but we could be better. And if you want me to say it as your captain then I’ll say it. You missed two golden opportunities out there tonight. Can I prove it’s because you don’t trust your teammates to have your back? No, I can’t, but I know you hogged the goddamn puck, so either you didn’t trust us, or you’re a fucking show off. Which is it, Whitmore?”
“Bit of both,” Nicholas acknowledges unhappily.
“Right, so call your boyfriend, shower then meet us at the address I text you.”
“I never agreed,” Nicholas points out, unsure when things so rapidly turned around. Usually Tony lets him be an antisocial fuckhead, coming around to smile and pose for the interns who run the team social media accounts and on PR days but otherwise allowing him to ignore everyone.
“And I’m not asking.” Tony does a two finger salute before sauntering over to Anders and Sergei.
On the way to the showers, Sergei smiles at him, Anders blushes, and Davey makes a dad joke so bad Nicholas feels certain he should be arrested for crimes against comedy. Nicholas is pretty sure he liked it better when no one talked to him.
Taking the world's most perfunctory shower, Nicholas makes his way back out to his locker to change. Most of the guys are in the shower or decompressing with music or their phones, so Nicholas grabs his, shooting off a text to Andrew.
