Page 151 of Game Misconduct

“Yeah.”

“I was gonna drop by for an hour max, then bounce and meet up with you. But I got—I got distracted. Jesse wanted me to dance, and I was totally, like, mentally typing up a text to you when, uh … Sebastian interrupted me and I—I forgot to text you. Or, like … my brain said that I’d already totally texted you, but Ihadn’t actually hit Send. Only I didn’t figure that out until a little bit ago. And once I did, I called you right away. You believe me, right?”

“I think so.”

Think so? That didn’t sound very good, but Tanner plowed on.

“But, like, in between then I found out some really big stuff about a teammate, and we had to hash some shit out and?—”

“Do you want to see me or not?” Leif sounded kinda pissy now.

“Yes! Dude, of course I want to see you!”

“Then come over whenever you’re done at O’Shea’s. I sent you the code.”

“It’s O’Neill’s,” Tanner began but Leif was still talking.

“If you show up, it means we’re going to figure out what we’re doing, okay?” Leif said. “If you don’t, I’ll know what that means. That you—that you don’t want to?—”

“I want to!” Tanner protested.

“Then fucking get your ass here, Clayton. Show me you want this.”

Tanner opened his mouth, but the call had actually ended. For a second, he just sat there, his head spinning, a little drunk and a lot worried and very confused.

“Okay,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “Okay. So, I go in there, I say goodbye to everyone, and then I order a ride and go to Leif. I can do this.”

“Wait, no,” he muttered. “I order a ride,thenI go in there, say goodbye, then go to Leif. That way I can’t fuck this up.”

Tanner took a deep breath and prayed to the hockey gods. “Don’t let me fuck this up. Pretty please with a Stanley Cup on top.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Leif’s stomach was in knots as he paced the apartment.

It was the same one as last time, so it allfeltfamiliar, but it also wasn’t his place and he kinda wished they were in New York, at his condo.

Especially if Tanner didn’t show up. Because he didn’t want to hang around here feeling miserable. And the team hotel wasn’t much better.

“He’s going to show up,” Leif muttered as he made another loop around the apartment. But he wasn’t sure Tanner actually was and the rock in the pit of his stomach told him he didn’t really trust it.

No. That couldn’t be true.

Leif’s head swam and he muttered, “Breathe, you idiot,” trying to remember all of the techniques he’d learned growing up.

This was just an anxiety spiral. It wasn’t the first and it probably wouldn’t be the last and he knew how to handle this, he did.

But his vision swam a little and his heart rate was way up—he could feel his pulse in his throat right now—and he forced himself to take another deep breath and hold it.

Okay, he was spiraling. This was a bad one.

Tanner had to show up. Hehadto. Leif couldn’t possibly be the only one feeling like this.

He tried to latch on to the grounding techniques he knew. He could hear his dad murmuring, “Now find five things you can see. Can you tell me those?”

Leif looked wildly around the room. “Okay. Coffee table, generic art, ugly pillow …”

But he suddenly remembered Tanner tossing that pillow aside to settle on his lap and fuck, what if he never had that again?