Page 16 of Game Misconduct

Leif sighed, his expression turning sour. “Clayton.”

Leif always had a combo of resting bitch face and resting ice princess face. He always looked snooty, like he thought he was better than the rest of them.

And well, hewasbetter than a lot of NHL players, Tanner had to admit. But in this group? He was just one of the boys. The best of the best were taking part in this tournament and Tanner was psyched to see what they could do together in the next few days.

There was a mix of countries at the table, of course. Leif was from Norway and would be playing for the Nordic team along with a bunch of super talented guys from Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.

“So, are you psyched for the tourney, dude?” Tanner asked, elbowing Leif. “We are gonna smoke you guys.”

Graham Pennington, Dustin Fowler, Matt Carlson, Shane Hurst, Trevor Underhill, and Kelly O’Shea would all be on Team USA with Tanner. The Nordic team was good, but they couldn’t beatthatlineup.

Leif snorted. “Sure. So you say.”

“Oh, come on,” Tanner argued. “We’ve gotelitelevel talent, especially on the blue line.”

Nico Arents—who sat across the table a few chairs down, hooted. “That’s cute that you American guys think you can beat Team Canada. I mean, c’mon, look around.”

Tanner did, eyeing the Canadians: Rafael Moon—his other roommate and Mickey’s boyfriend—Gabriel Theriault, Felix Hale, and Jonah Brewer.

“Oh, I’mlooking,” Tanner said with a wink.

Nico laughed and Tanner felt himself go warm under the collar.

“Yeah, Iknowwe look good,” Nico teased, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes, his blue eyes sparkling.

Nico was stupid hot. Like … kind of ridiculous with that gorgeous face of his and an earring glinting in his ear. He was also happily married to former NHL referee, August Manning. Tanner had thought about being the filling inthatsandwich a time or two.

It was kind of a shame that Tanner hadn’t really gotten to know Nico before he and August locked shit down. Because Tanner had a feeling they’d haveburnedup the sheets.

In his single days, Nico had been an absolute menace, fucking his way through, well, everyone. Especially in Canada, where he played for the Toronto Fisher Cats, and Dutch-land, or whatever they called the place with the tulips and windmills. Nedderlands? Something like that. It had too many names for Tanner to keep track of, honestly, and he’d never been any good at geography.

Or, like, school at all. Why did he care about musty old books when he could beplaying hockey?

“Hey, why are you playing for Canada anyway?” Tanner asked Nico with a frown. “Aren’t you Dutch or some shit?”

Nico shrugged. “I was eligible to play for the Central European team too, but I was born in Canada and lived there most of my life, so …”

Tanner nodded. That made sense.

Mickey sighed and muttered something in German into his beer. Probably whining about the fact that his team would have been greatly helped by having Nico on their roster.

“Besides,” Nico said with another laugh, “I wanted to win.”

Mickey scowled and tossed a balled-up napkin at Nico, which led to hooting noises and trash-talking as conversations turned to discussing their chances at the upcoming tournament.

Tomorrow they’d have team meetings and practices, and Tanner was psyched about it. Tonight, though, he was really fucking happy to just be sitting in a nice bar with a drink and talking hockey with a bunch of queer dudes.

Life didn’t really get better than that.

Well, maybe if someone was sucking his dick or he was bouncing on theirs while he did all that. That would be even better. But most of these guys were taken, unfortunately. All happily settled down.

Except Leif. He was single.

Not that Tanner wouldn’t suck his dick or give him a handie again—he was totally up for that, given the chance—but why did it have to beLeif? Ugh, of all the people!

Tanner glanced over to see him deep in conversation with Shane Hurst.Second line center for the Evanston River Otters,Tanner’s brain helpfully supplied. He was fucking useless at remembering to take out the trash or fold laundry but he knew the leagues rosters inside and out.

Unfortunately, despite being bi, Shane Hurst was definitely not single. He was living with some dude who worked for the Otters’ stats department and Tanner hadn’t heard anything about them being open to outsiders.