Page 13 of Bro Code

“Non, Nic,” he murmured, squinting at his monitor, “I do not have time for dinner.” He highlighted a row and deleted it. “With you and Mr. Zamboni.”

Immediately, he winced and chided himself in French. That was mean. He shouldn’t say that about Liam. Liam was nice. He just wasn’t always a great conversationalist because of his autism. Dinner with him was sometimes…awkward.

Plus, Louis was starting to feel uncomfortable being complicit in his secrets. Secrets, plural, because not only did no one in the Canadiens organization know Liam was gay, they also didn’t know he was autistic. Louis only knew because Nic was Louis’ best friend, and Liam had apparently said it was okay for Nic to tell him.

Louis was flattered to be trusted with that, but sometimes it felt like a lot to keep quiet.

Then again, Louis hadn’t told anyone here he was gay yet, either. He was getting to it. It just hadn’t come up naturally in conversation, and he’d been very busy getting settled in. Anyway, it wasn’t like he was obligated to share that.

He took a break and picked up the phone to text Nic a polite No thank you. Reply dots bubbled immediately, and he waited for Nic’s response.

Did you meet Riley Webb yet?

Louis frowned. Did Nic not remember he’d introduced them that night after the gold medal game in Italy six months ago? They’d all done a celebratory shot together at the bar. Afterward, Louis had hunted Riley down on the dance floor and used every sexy librarian move in his arsenal to get him into a taxi.

Figuring Nic probably didn’t need to know about that part, Louis sent back, I ran into him in the lobby.

What do you think?

What do you mean?

A shrug emoji. IDK. You’re an analyst. What’s your read?

Louis laughed shortly. For the team? I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Do they have you looking at his stats?

Sort of. But I don’t do a ton of analysis: I’m just the guy who makes the data easier for the important people to read.

In a meeting today, he’d been informed that Riley was now the sport science team’s top priority. The suits had paid a lot of money for Webb and they were eager to get him fixed. Data would be a crucial part of that.

Ah, Nic replied, and sent a thumbs up. Well good luck. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

Merci mon gars, sent Louis, and the prayer hands.

He set the phone face down on the desk and went back to the computer, where the morning’s practice data was streaming into the database. It was much easier to read it when he didn’t have Holly breathing down his neck. He had time to notice patterns. He was slowly trying to learn what Holly looked for so he could have a conversation with her without feeling like he was in an episode of Star Trek.

While he waited for that to finish, he ran a search for Riley’s inputs. Holly’s theory was that Riley had a “subclinical tear in his labrum”, which translated to “a problem with his hip”. To confirm this, they would need to look for microscopic fluctuations in the data. Louis figured he may as well start trying to see if he could spot them now. Holly seemed confident they’d find the injury. Louis wasn’t sure why: how were they going to figure out what was wrong when New York hadn’t?

Then again, what did he know? He was just the data guy. And Montreal did have a reputation for doing this kind of thing.

The phone buzzed again. He blinked and realized he’d just spent ten minutes doing a completely irrelevant deep-dive into Webb’s metrics instead of working on the dashboard he was supposed to be building. Putain! Why couldn’t he get the asshole out of his head? Getting sucked into looking at Riley’s data was basically the nerd equivalent of scrolling Instagram for pictures of him in his briefs.

“You are not hung up on Riley Webb,” he reminded himself, picking up the phone and swiping it open. “You’re just mad that he doesn’t remember how good you sucked his cock that night.”

He read the message. It was the guy from Grindr again, with another sniveling attempt to get into Louis’ pants. Mr. Fleshlight.

“See,” Louis said to no one. “This is a man who understands what Louis Debonnes is capable of.”

CHAPTER SIX

Riley

Clack. Click clack. Tak…tip tik…tap. Clack-ta-tik-tap-clickity-clackity-click clack. Tippy tak. Clack. Tik tik. Tap.

Riley’s second day as a Montreal Canadien started on a plane. He’d been part of the team less than forty-eight hours and was already on a charter jet with them. Seven hours in an air-conditioned tube, with nothing to do but ruminate and listen to that nerd’s God. Damn. TYPING.

Tap clack tip tak. Tik. Tiki-tiki-tak. Click clack. Tap.