Page 116 of Cheap Shot

But it was mostly women who grabbed books out of the library and he thought maybe one of them would like it.

Now, as he stood in front of his house, he surveyed the snow still coming down and groaned. He was going to be out here in a couple of hours to do this all over again.

He tossed down a little salt to keep things melting, then headed into the house.

He stripped off, leaving little puddles of snow in his entryway.

A quick shower washed the salt from his skin and he dressed in shorts and a tee before making himself lunch.

He ate, watching a sports channel, and leaned forward when he saw them discussing a New York Rockets press conference.

Holy shit, it was Nicholas Calhoun holding it too.

Luke turned the volume up as he ate, shocked to hear that Calhoun was announcing his return to the team. Luke had assumed it would be a statement about his official retirement.

Throughout the three years of being out with concussion issues, he’d tried to come back a couple of times, but every time they’d returned with a vengeance.

Calhoun had remained captain of the team, even though he’d spent huge chunks of that time away from it. Luke respected their loyalty, but damn, that was a long time for a team to be missing the head of its leadership group.

Still, as Luke shoveled food in his mouth, he was happy for Calhoun. The dude was in his early thirties now and Luke didn’t blame him for not being ready to throw in the towel on his career. It sucked that he’d missed as much prime playing time as he had.

Luke listened as reporters asked questions about his recovery and what treatments had finally worked. Calhoun was pretty vague about it, and so was New York’s head coach and general manager.

The reporters sounded almost doubtful that it would stick and privately, Luke agreed with them.

If it hadn’t worked the previous times, why would it now?

After he was done eating, Luke set his food aside. The press conference had ended and he watched some game highlights from around the league.

He pulled out his phone and thought about texting Sebastian about Calhoun. He was a New York Rockets fan. He must bepretty happy to have the team captain and previous points leader back.

Of course, that begged the question, would they have Leif Rasmussen relinquish his role as top line center to put Calhoun in? Or would Calhoun be slotted in on the second line, riding shotgun to a younger, faster, more promising player than him?

Luke was glad to see Calhoun was back. It had been a long, rough road for him, but it was going to be interesting to see how the team handled it. And Luke wasn’t looking forward to facing the one-two punch of Rasmussen and Calhoun together, that was for damn sure.

He typed out a text to Sebastian before eventually deleting it.

Things had gotten kinda … weird with Sebastian while Luke was out on IR. And the shit at Brie’s house and whatever the fuck that moment in the car had been … But nooo. It was better to keep it to sex and nothing else.

Even if he liked talking hockey with Sebastian.

Even if he had liked sitting around Brie’s old kitchen table and hearing Sebastian laugh at something Harper was doing and … fuck, he needed to stop thinking about this shit.

At this point in his life, he didn’t want or need anyone around. Why had he let himself think otherwise?

As the city streets were cleared and life returned to normal, Sebastian found himself texting more with Nicky.

Great first game back,he’d sent at first.How’d it feel?

Surreal, to be honest,he’d gotten.

They’d kept texting, and Sebastian had learned that Nicky was struggling a little with his place in the lineup.

Look, this is just between you and me, okay?he sent.Because I don’t want to be that guy. Rasmussen has earned his spot as 1C and it’s just sour grapes on my part that I’m 2C. He deserves to center the top line. But it still feels like I got fucking demoted.

I get it,Sebastian said.Or, as much as I can when I’ve never been in your shoes at that level. I think envy is normal. Not that you’ve ever been normal …

The chirping had helped. It had seemed to lift Nicky out of the little funk he’d been in and Sebastian had been glad.