Page 31 of Dangle

“Sir, did you want another drink?”

I nodded, still locked in a staring contest with a beautiful man whose mere presence turned my guts inside out, exposing all the deep, dark innards of me to his purview. I should have minded, but I didn’t.

“Sir?” The voice, louder and more clipped, sounded frustrated and insistent. I finally broke the hold his brown eyes had me in as they turned from whiskey to molten chocolate.

Whiskey…drink…right. Turning to the bartender, I glanced at his chest. “Sorry, Tristan. I’ll…umm…I’ll take a Boston Irish Sour, if possible?”

He nodded, his mouth doing that thing mouths do when they’re impressed. “Nice,” he said, pouring out the liqueur and mixers.

Soft carpet dampened my feet shuffling to angle my body so I could watch the bartender, but I did so in such a way that Slone sat just out of my direct line of sight. Through my periphery, I watched him watch me.

“The egg white?” Tristan asked.

“Hmm?” I muttered, but nodded at the heavy sigh.

The slosh of liquid moving in a metal shaker, first without ice and then with, harmonized with the static in my brain. A soft, shushing quietness, and then the rattle of the ice. Notdistracting, just there in the background with the game, our friends, forks on plates.

The combination of sound did something nothing else ever had…it drowned out the disappointment of my father, the silence of my mother, the criticism of hockey analysts who’d been comparing me against Donald and Donnie Malachek and Victor Petrov since I’d stepped on the ice.

I couldn’t comprehend what it meant. How staring into this man’s eyes made standing here in this arena, in this box, surrounded by hockey, a sport I had been born to play, my destiny, my family’s legacy, feel less…less burdensome, less overwhelming, less of an obligation…just less everything.

“Sir?” My drink appeared, held out by a bartender who most assuredly thought I had a staring problem or possibly even a psychopath on the prowl for a victim. Or was that a sociopath? I could never remember.

I forced myself to turn to the guy who just wanted to make drinks, not deal with my ridiculous obsession with this guy who I couldn’t shake from my head. I dropped an obscene amount of cash in the tip jar, took my drink with a smile and a nod of thanks. Then actually said, “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

He smirked, then leaned forward, his sculpted forearms lined up parallel on the bar to support his weight. “Thanks for the tip. Even if it’s too much.”

“Nonsense,” I said, taking a sip of the drink he’d just made me. “Damn, that’s good. The tip was well deserved before I tasted the drink, because I can’t imagine standing behind a bar all night dealing with craziness.” And by craziness I meant idiots like me who were so focused on a virtual stranger that I couldn’t focus long enough to order a drink normally. “But after a taste, it’s nowhere near enough.”

Still leaning toward me, he threw his head back and laughed, exposing the long column of his neck. Before the man behindme caught my eye, I would have made a move. I’d be persuading him to sneak off to…

But the thing was, I’d not gotten laid since that night. Jerked off? Yes. Abso-fucking-lutely. Multiple times a day.

“You’re a flirt,” he said, pulling me out of my head again, “but I have a feeling that’s all I can hope for tonight.”

My chin moved to my shoulder—the game centered in front of me, the bartender moved to the corner of one eye, and the man behind me came into view, and I sighed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. If there were a man whose eyes tracked me the way his has you tonight, well, I’d count myself the luckiest bastard.”

“Oh, how I wish.”

“Dude, I’m surprised you don’t have a hole in the back of your head from the way he stared at you all night. He scowled at the two teammates who checked in on you, and the murderous looks he gave the sexy twins who arrived with you terrified me, or at least they did until he turned that gaze on me. I think he’d gut me given the chance.”

The urge to look at Slone, to see if Tristan’s assessment was accurate, grew too hard to avoid, and I finished turning my head. My chin rested on my shoulder, and my back twisted so I could see behind me. See him.

I smiled at him softly, and he…did he just…his buddies laughed, he shook his head, rolled his eyes, and the fairness of his skin told me he probably did say what I thought he said.

“Like I said, you’re one lucky bastard, Trey Malachek,” Tristan muttered.

Heat climbed my face, and my lips curled over my teeth. Using the glass to cover the blush coloring my cheekbones, I focused on the game, but then I realized he’d said my name. “You know who I am?”

He laughed. That throaty, full-bellied one he did earlier. “Oh, yeah. I’m a Minnesota boy who got a much better scholarship offer from Grafton than I did from The U.”

“You play hockey?” I asked, trying not to act incredulous that he was working during the season.

Another laugh. I was starting to feel like I was being punk’d. Then he said, “I love hockey, but my edges sucked so bad. So, yeah, no hockey for me. I play football for Grafton, but you can’t be a Minnesota kid or an MU fan without knowing the Malachek name.”

Unsure how to respond, I nodded and chewed the soft tissue in my mouth. The nervous habit left my mouth a torn-up mess, like raw ground beef. Had he only been nice because he knew who I was? Did he expect or want something?