Page 61 of Cheap Shot

“Thanks,” he said gruffly.

The burrito was too hot, but he took a few bites anyway, then tossed back a pill with some water and hoped for the best.

“Sure.” Sebastian took a seat next to him with another plate and burrito. “So, what did they give you for the pain?”

“Toradol, nothing too crazy.” It always made him dizzy once it hit though. Hopefully he’d make it home before then. It took about an hour.

Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “Do I wanna know what you were on when you played with broken ribs?”

“Nope.” Hell,Lukewasn’t even sure he remembered everything they’d given him. It had worked, that was all he’d cared about.

“Got it.” Sebastian took a bite of burrito, then looked him over. “So do the tatts have any stories behind them?”

“Sure,” Luke said. “You wanna hear them?”

“Well, maybe not all of them. You have a lot and I don’t have all night.”

Luke huffed and took another bite of burrito. He did have a lot of ink. His entire chest and stomach were covered. Both arms. His back. His legs …

Pretty much the only places without them were his face and his dick.

“Tell me about the first,” Sebastian offered.

“Well …” Luke pointed at the bird just above his hip. “I got this one when I was about sixteen.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had to be eighteen to get them.”

“Sure, but a fake ID works just as well.” He grinned.

“Why doesthatnot surprise me? What did your parents say?”

“Took ’em a while to notice. My dad worked in construction. He was a foreman for a big company that did commercial work, so he traveled a lot. Hell, he worked on most of the major sporting arenas in the southwest actually.”

“Impressive.”

“And my mom, she, uh, she did her best, but I don’t think she really wanted to have kids. She was poor growing up, my dad was the guy with the cushy bank account who could get her out of that, so …”

Sebastian winced.

Luke shrugged, already regretting he’d said anything. His mom had never said anything outright to him but it didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. He cleared his throat. “Look, don’t get me wrong, they were good to me. They both were, they just weren’t superthere, you know?”

His dad had been gone a lot for work and once Luke was old enough to stay home alone, his mom had gone out a lot with her friends. Cocktails at the casino with the girls and all that shit. Had his parents been faithful to each other? He had no idea.

But he hadn’t been surprised that as soon as he was done with high school, they’d gotten divorced. Less than a year after the ink was dry on marriage number one, they’d both moved on to marriage number two. And, in his dad’s case, that had turned into a third.

“So, how’d you get into hockey?” Sebastian asked. “I mean, it wasn’t that big of a sport in Nevada when we were growing up, right? And if your parents weren’t into it …”

“Well, my dad was,” Luke corrected. “He was originally from North Dakota and he made it as far as Juniors before he quit. Like I said, he was gone a lot for work, but when he was there, we did shit together. He taught me to skate and shoot and came to my games when he could.”

“Yeah, but how’d you get to practices and games?” Sebastian asked. “I mean, I remember how crazy that was. How much time my parents put into my hockey.”

“Oh, my cousins played too so it was my aunt and uncle who did a lot of that for me.”

“That makes sense.”

Luke set his empty plate on the coffee table. “Let’s see how this getting dressed thing goes.”

There was no way in fuck he was letting Sebastian help dress him.