Page 59 of Offensive Edge
“No you didn’t.”
“Well, obviously, I didn’t know. But I believed.”
“In us?”
“In you. Even when I could barely look at you, I knew we were fucking lucky to have you here. I was jealous, obviously—”
“Of what?”
“Of the fact that I finally carved out my place in this league, and in comes Rowan Foley, and I’m just the other guy again.”
“Teddy—”
“Obviously I’m not mad about it now,” Theo said, nudging the Cup gently with his toe, “but last summer I thought it was just your goal in life to fuck up whatever you possibly could for me.”
“I think it was inevitable that we ended up together,” Rowan said. He had never been a particularly superstitious hockey player, and he didn’t believe in God, but being in pro sports made him believe in…something. The universe wanted him and Theo to be together.
Theo pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Maybe you’re right. You came home to me. And then we won this trophy. Doesn’t feel like an accident.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Rowan felt his phone buzz and pulled it out of his pocket. His battery was almost dead. It was a video from Vic.This is from Julia, the caption said. He opened the video and hit play, and he and Theo watched an extremely embarrassing two minutes of Rowan blathering on and on about how much he loved Theo, and how perfect Theo was, and while he agreed with himself, he would never live this down. He nearly had to shield his eyes from embarrassment when he pulled Theo into a kiss.
“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath. In the background of the video, he heard Aaron’s voice yell, “Those are my dads!”
Well, at least the kids weren’t weirded out by them.
“You are so cute,” Theo said, stealing one more kiss. “However, my phone is completely dead, and I need to wash beer out of my hair. Call Felix, then come find me, alright?”
Theo’s warm brown eyes were soft and kind as he got up from the couch and stretched, wincing about his shoulder. They would need to get a lot of healing done this summer. He was still close enough for Rowan to press a kiss to his stomach, and he got the most adoring look he’d ever gotten from anyone in return.
He had a million notifications on his phone, but he found Felix’s thread fairly quickly. All of his texts were in caps lock, all to the tune of, “HOLY FUCK I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT.” He smiled and hit the call button by his contact.
“Is a Stanley Cup Champion finding time in his busy drinking schedule to call me?”
Felix’s voice made Rowan’s heart immediately sink. As happy as he was, he had spent years dreaming of sharing this moment with Felix.
“Sometimes I really hate hockey,” he said, feeling that unhappiness spike inside of him. “I’m sorry.”
“Rowan fucking Foley, don’t you dare apologize to me. I’d rather one of us have a Cup than both of us be back in Texas.”
“I wish I could share this with you, too. I wish you were here, too.”
“I know, babe. But you were meant to win it with Theo. We both know that.”
“It felt like my heart was going to rip out of my chest when I passed him the Cup last night. I didn’t know I could feel that much of anything at once. But Theo and the Cup? God.”
“You two sure were giving each other eyes the entire post-game. I saw a clip of him laying one on you.”
“What?” Rowan didn’t think the video from their private celebration would have leaked, but who knew? Anyone could have recorded them.
“In the locker room. I mean, kisses were flying pretty freely between all the guys. But he planted a wet one on your cheek.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What did you think I meant?”
“Well, first of all, I came out to the team last night in the most embarrassing way, but also there is…a lot about last night I don’t remember.”
