Sugar and Ice - RJ Scott Page 0,56
even when he’s being a jealous asshole.” I must have frowned. Talking to others about personal things did not feel right to me. “Think on it while you try to be less of an a-hole.”
“Ugh, yes, I must work on that as well. One would think when you were in your mid-thirties you would have fewer personal flaws to grow out of, not more. You make me crazy, Tate. What I feel is…I cannot put it into words but it is strong…so strong. It is love so strong. So damn strong.”
He kissed me then. It was fire and wet tongues. There was no denying the man when he came to me hard and wanting. I stood, his ass in my hands. With a grunt he grabbed my neck, his lips coming back to mine. The trip to the bed was short but our passion burned for hours.
October raced by as did the first half of November. Where the time went I wasn’t sure. It seemed to be a whirlwind of travel, hockey, and a massive pre-Halloween party at Colorado’s sprawling mansion. He and the younger players performed, in costume and on film, two songs from a movie that I’d only just seen two days prior, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had a small part as a man in suit with a pointer and a paper on a board with dance steps. My lines were about stepping left and right and making your knees come in tight. I felt moronic but then I saw Colorado in a corset and fishnet stockings belting out a song about being from Transylvania. I felt less silly after seeing that performance. The man had great legs for stockings and high heels. The team released the video on Halloween and it trended within an hour. All of our social media pages gained new viewers, or so Sebastian kept telling us via text. I did little on social media, preferring to keep my life private for obvious reasons.
Not only were our social media pages scoring, we were doing so on the ice as well. Over the past month we’d slowly and methodically clawed our way to being well within a wildcard slot, if the playoffs were held now, which they were not. April was a long way off but we’d started clicking as a team. Perhaps I was biased but I credited much of it to Tate. He’d been that missing link, that final puzzle piece that we’d been searching for. With two big top lines and respectable third and fourth lines, we were chalking up the offensive stats. The defense was also doing well. Eli and I had second place in the standings for blocked shots, an honor that was obvious whenever we stripped off our clothes. We also were racking up high hits and a low PIM/G—penalty minutes per game—rating. Spending less time in the penalty box made Coach happy. I’d manage to sock in two goals in six weeks, bringing my grand total of goals to three for the season so far. As much as I would have loved to be one of those flashy offensive defensemen like they had in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Washington, my cloth was a different fiber and I was happy being that big Russian everyone tried to avoid but few could. Although I would confess to enjoying the rush of scoring when it happened.
With Thanksgiving looming on the horizon, Tate and I decided to have a small gathering with the men who we were closest to on the team. We’d been able to keep things between us hidden but wished to let our friends know, swearing them to secrecy. It was much easier to light a small containment fire which we could control than to have someone say something offhandedly and ignite a roaring wildfire. With that philosophy in mind, we all decided to spend our last free day before the big American holiday together. Tate had arranged for one of his neighbors to tend to Obi as we’d be gone all day, the same person who checked in when the team was on the road.
Thankfully, we were not slated to play on Thanksgiving. That honor went to the Railers who would be in New York City playing what was touted as a “showdown game”. Big city, big teams, big ratings. The Raptors were none of those things. Yet.
With two Jeeps packed with food, beer, and rowdy hockey players, we roared out of Tucson early in the morning