The Long Game: A Gay Sports Romance (Game Changers Book 6)

“I fucking love hockey,” Max said with a big grin. He tossed his camp-issued bagged lunch on the coaches’ table and slid energetically into the seat opposite Ilya.

“It shows,” Ilya said, because Max had absolutely thrown himself into coaching this camp.

“I just—” Max glanced at the tables of kids all around them. “This is seriously the best. I’ve been mad at the game for a while, and I needed this.”

“I get that,” Ryan said quietly. “I mean, not for the same reason. Your situation is unfair and awful, but I kind of hated hockey until I, y’know, quit.”

Unlike Ryan, Max always spoke loudly and confidently. He pointed a finger at Ryan and said, “The NHL did you dirty, Ryan. I never liked how you were treated, and I like it even less now that I’ve met you and know what a sweetheart you are.”

Leah dropped into the seat next to her husband. “Are we talking about how much we love Ryan?”

“No,” Ryan mumbled to his sandwich.

“We’re talking about how fucked up hockey is. And how we love it anyway,” Max said.

Leah smiled. “Yep. That’s the problem right there.”

Ilya glanced at the end of the table, where Shane was sitting. As Ilya had suspected, Shane looked confused and uncomfortable. Hockey had never made Shane sad for a minute of his life.

Ilya couldn’t pretend to know how it felt to be let down by the game he loved—not in the way Max or Ryan had been—but he was more aware of hockey’s flaws than Shane was. He’d been paying more attention, over the past few years, to the darker side of his sport.

“Hey,” Max said to Ilya, “what do you think of your new coach?”

Ilya shrugged. “Haven’t met him yet.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty interesting hire, right? I mean, how old is Brandon Wiebe these days? He must be in his thirties still.”

“He’s forty-one,” Shane said, because of course he knew. Brandon Wiebe had been a forward in the NHL for eleven seasons, before he’d retired nearly a decade ago. He’d never been a star, and had earned himself a reputation as a “difficult” player to manage, though Ilya had never known why. Wiebe had still been playing when Ilya had started his own NHL career, but Ilya had never interacted with him.

“He’s cute,” Leah said. “Like, I watched him being interviewed on TSN. He’s aged well.”

Max placed a hand dramatically over his heart. “I can’t believe you’d say that right in front of me.”

Leah laughed. “Well, he is. Ryan will back me up on this, right, buddy?”

“Nope,” Ryan said. “No comment.”

“There is no way Wiebe is hot enough for Ryan,” Ilya said. “Have you seen his boyfriend?”

“Uh, yeah,” Max said. “Leah and I Googled him last night. What the heck, dude? He’s, like, an actual angel or something.”

Ryan crumpled his empty lunch bag in one giant hand. “You guys are weird.” He stood to leave, but paused and said, with a small smile, “But yeah. My boyfriend is super hot.”

Max slapped the table. “Love it. Be proud of your hot man, Ryan.”

Ryan walked away, shaking his head but probably smiling.

“So besides being cute,” Shane said in a somewhat clipped tone, “what makes Wiebe a good coach?”

“He played in the NHL,” Ilya said. “Might make him good.”

“No offense,” J.J. called from his end of the table, “but Ottawa probably didn’t have a lot of coaches to choose from, y’know?”

“Hey,” Wyatt protested. “Just because we’re bad, and in a city that no one wants to play in, and we have no fans…”

J.J. laughed loudly at that. “See? Your goalie gets it.”

“Just wait,” Ilya warned. “We are turning it around this year. You will see.”

“Sure,” J.J. said. “I believe in you. One hundred percent.”

Ilya was going to say something snarky back, but at that moment Hayden rushed up to the table clutching his own bagged lunch. “Sorry if I missed anything,” he said. “Had to deal with a family emergency.”

“Did your wife have another baby?” Ilya asked dryly.

“Is everything okay?” Shane asked with far more concern.

Hayden waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah. No big deal. Just a missing stuffed alligator.”

“Wow,” Ilya said. “Did you call the police?”

Hayden sat across from him and glared at him. “I know you don’t, like, care about other people, but Arthur fucking loses his shit without Chompy.”

“Did you find it?” Leah asked.

“Uh. Yeah. In the back seat of my car. Here at the rink. So I had to, like, do a FaceTime call so Arthur could see him and, y’know. Talk to him.”

Ilya grinned. “What does Chompy sound like?”

Hayden ignored him. “Anyway. Crisis averted. But I’ll have to check my back seat before I leave from now on.”

“You’re a good dad,” J.J. said.

Hayden sighed as he poked a straw into his juice box. “Sometimes. I barely know what I’m doing most days, but I love them and would do literally anything for them, so that’s something, I guess.”

Ilya glanced down at the remains of his own sandwich. He made fun of Hayden a lot—for a million different reasons—but he secretly admired his ability to parent four young children. He was a good dad, as far as Ilya could tell. His kids were great; his wife, Jackie, was awesome. Ilya probably envied him, but he would never admit it.

“I’m pumped for this afternoon,” Max said. He pointed at Shane. “Our team is gonna destroy you guys.”

Shane smiled. “We’ll see, pal.”

The kids were being divided into four mini-teams, each led by two of the coaches. Shane and J.J. had one team, Ilya and Max had another, Ryan and Wyatt had one, and Leah and Hayden had the last group. They would be playing half-rink scrimmages, and, while officially the coaches weren’t supposed to play, they probably all would. Ilya was looking forward to it.

“Hey,” Max said, leaning over the table and dropping his voice. “Do you think it’s a good idea, putting Glencross and Tremblay on the same team?”

Jordan Glencross and Ben Tremblay had been clashing with each other all week. There always seemed to be two kids who had a history at these camps.

“Sure,” Ilya said easily. “It will bring them together.”

Max put his hands up. “All right. I’m just saying, those two kids are ready to choose violence.”

“Will be fine.”

It wasn’t fine. Less than halfway through the game against Ryan and Wyatt’s team, Jordan had Ben pinned on the ice, and was punching his facemask with his gloved hand.

“Seriously?” Ilya said.

Max reacted more quickly, and usefully, by calling out, “Hey!” and hauling Jordan off the other boy.

“He started it!” Jordan protested.

“You’re such a lying little bitch,” Ben spat back.

“Yo!” Max said. “We don’t use that language at all.” He glanced at Ilya. “Want me to take them to the locker room, maybe?”

“I’ll do it,” Ilya said. “Come on, ding-dongs.”

He heard Max calling out instructions to the remaining kids as Ilya left the ice, shifting their attention from Jordan and Ben being disciplined. Ilya kept his body between the two boys as they walked to the closest locker room. Once they were inside, he made them sit on opposite sides of the room, facing each other.

“What is going on?” Ilya asked.

“He’s mad because I made the A team and he didn’t,” Jordan said.

“No I’m not!” Ben protested. “I’m mad because your dad fixed it so you’d get my spot.”

“He did not! You weren’t good enough!”

“I’m way better than you.”

Good god. What had Ilya gotten himself into? He knew he should assure the boys that nothing unfair had taken place and maybe talk to Ben about being a sore loser, but he was curious. “What does your dad do, Jordan?”

Ben snorted. Jordan mumbled something that Ilya didn’t catch.

“Sorry?” Ilya asked.

“He’s the coach.”

Ilya laughed. He couldn’t help it. With this new information, he started to suspect that Ben might have a valid argument.

Jordan stood. “I’m on the team because I earned my spot.”

Ben snorted. “As if.”

“Okay,” Ilya said, calmly, “there is only one way to decide this.”

Both boys looked at him with wide eyes, as if they’d forgotten the NHL superstar in the room.

Ilya somehow managed to keep a straight face when he said, very seriously, “Both of you balance on one foot. Whoever does it longer is the best hockey player.”

“What?” said Ben.

“That’s stupid,” said Jordan.

Ilya folded his arms. “Three, two, one…go.”

Both boys immediately stood straight up, and lifted one foot each. Jordan wobbled slightly at first, but they both remained balanced. After a few minutes of the boys glaring at each other from across the room, Ilya said, “Hmm. You are both good at this. Maybe try hopping.”

It took even less time than Ilya had expected for the boys to start laughing. Ben broke first, and Jordan quickly followed, grinning broadly and snickering as they hopped.

Finally, Jordan stumbled and had to put his second foot down.

“Wow,” Ilya said. “I thought a coach’s son would be a better hockey player, but okay.”

Shane entered the room when everyone was laughing. He looked confused. “I saw you guys leave the ice,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” Ilya said. “We are heading back now.”

The boys left first, shoving each other, but in a playful way, not an aggressive way. They were both still laughing.

“What the hell?” Shane asked, when he and Ilya were alone.

“They are rivals,” Ilya said, grinning. “Jordan made the A team. Ben did not.”

Shane wrinkled his nose. “Then Ben needs to be a better loser.”

“Ah, but listen. Jordan’s dad is the coach. So maybe skill was not the only thing that helped Jordan.”

Shane shrugged. “Anyway. We need to get back out there.”

“Did everyone see the fight?”

“Probably. But we’ll get everyone focused on the right thing. This isn’t Camp Ben and Jordan.”

“Not yet,” Ilya said, nudging Shane. “But maybe they will be the new us, one day.”

“Then I’d better warn Jordan not to fall for Ben.”

“Oh, are you Jordan?”

“Obviously. He made the A team.”

They smiled at each other, and Ilya leaned in a bit. He couldn’t help it. They hadn’t had sex all week because Shane didn’t want his mom to hear, and Ilya was crawling out of his skin.

Shane dodged him. “No way. We’re not making that mistake again.”

“I like making mistakes with you.”

“You can make mistakes on the ice. As usual.”

“Damn, that was a fun week,” Max said to Shane on Friday afternoon. “Thanks again for inviting us.”

The Montreal camp was over, the kids were gone, and it had been, Shane was pretty sure, a success. “Of course. Thanks for coaching. You ready to do it again next week in Ottawa?”

“For sure. I had a blast. That surprise appearance by the Stanley Cup was great.”

“That was all J.J., just in case he hasn’t made that extremely clear.” Shane was teasing, but he was touched that J.J. had used his day with the cup to share it with the camp kids. Shane was using his own day next week at the Ottawa camp, and he was grateful that the Montreal kids hadn’t been left out.

Max laughed. “He mentioned it. Invited us to a party tonight too.”

“You gonna go?”

“Sure. How often do you get invited to a Haitian street party with the Stanley Cup?”

“Every time J.J. wins one.”

“Are you going to be there?”

“Um.” Shane glanced to his left and saw Ilya approaching. “Maybe. I have other plans but I’m going to try to do both,” he lied.

“Are you talking about J.J.’s party?” Ilya asked.

“Yeah. You wanna go?” Shane hoped not.

“And celebrate Montreal’s cup win? Yuck. No.”

Shane made a show of rolling his eyes, which made Max laugh.

“You guys are kind of adorable,” Max said.

Ilya waggled his eyebrows at Shane. “Adorable.”

Shane’s cheeks heated. Had they been too adorable? Maybe they should tone it down.

He took what he hoped was a subtle step away from Ilya and said, “Have a good night, Max. We’ll see you and Leah in Ottawa.”

As if summoned by her name, Leah appeared at the end of the hallway with Ryan. When she reached her husband, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “Ready to roll, babe?”

“Yeah. Let’s get a nap in so we can party all night, okay?”

Leah rested her forehead on Max’s shoulder. “I am way too old to party all night.”

“Until midnight, then.”

“Deal.”

They smiled at each other lovingly, and Shane felt a hot flash of jealousy, followed by the urge to kiss Ilya in front of everyone. Would anyone here even care? Ryan already knew…

“Your mom is looking for you,” Ryan said. “She’s in the office.”

“Right,” Shane said, shaking off the absurd ideas that had momentarily clouded his brain. He turned and walked quickly toward the office. He was surprised when Ilya caught up with him a few seconds later.

“Okay?” Ilya asked.

“Yep,” Shane said tightly.

Ilya hummed softly, then, as soon as they were around a corner, grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward an open door. It was one of the locker rooms, dingy and kind of gross and a whole lot like the one they’d first made eyes at each other in, over a decade ago when they’d filmed a commercial together.

Ilya closed and locked the door, then pressed Shane against it.

“Oh,” Shane said, and then Ilya was kissing him, hard and with purpose, as if this was a form of physical therapy.

“Better?” Ilya asked, when they finally pulled apart. Both men were breathing unsteadily. Shane’s fingers were digging into Ilya’s hip and his shoulder, and Ilya had one hand tangled up in Shane’s hair.

“Yeah,” Shane whispered. “Fuck, I want you so bad.”

“It has been a long week,” Ilya agreed.

“Mom’s going back to Ottawa now. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

Ilya kissed him again, this time in that filthy way that made Shane’s toes curl.

Jesus, what were they doing? He broke the kiss and said, “Later. Not here.”

“Okay.” Ilya stepped back and began to smooth out Shane’s camp polo.

“This room remind you of anything?” Shane asked as he traced a finger along Ilya’s forearm.

Ilya’s lips curved up. “When you were very unprofessional, making that commercial with me.”

“Me? You were the one who propositioned me.”

“After you pointed your boner at me.”

Shane’s mouth fell open. He closed it. Then opened it again. “You were showing off.”

“Showing off?”

“Yeah. With all your naked muscles and ass…flexing.”

Ilya laughed. “What?”

“You knew what you were doing.”

Ilya kissed his forehead. “Maybe.”

Shane rested his head on Ilya’s shoulder, breathing him in and trying not to wonder how things would be different if Shane hadn’t been unable to control his dick that day in the showers. Would Ilya be holding him now, more than a decade later, with a tattoo of a loon on his arm?

“I’m glad you’re such a show-off,” Shane said.

Ilya patted his back. “I am glad you get hard so easily.”

“Shut up,” Shane said, but smiled into Ilya’s neck, relieved that they were both thinking the same thing.