Breakaway Goals, page 34
“I’ve got a real good one for you today,” Morgan said, looking laid-back and relaxed if you weren’t looking closely, but Hayes was always looking closely and he could see the excitement brewing in his hazel eyes. “The question I keep asking myself, over and over, is why the Sentinels are hesitating to give Montgomery the contract he wants.”
“You’re always so high on him,” Anderson, one of the other commentators, complained. It almost made Hayes want to look up what Morgan had been saying about him over the years. Almost.
“Nobody else is his age and playing at that elite level right now. He’s leading the whole team and third overall in points, fourth in goals. He’s going to drive the Sentinels to a second Cup. Why aren’t they falling over themselves to give him a five-year contract?”
“’Cause he’s thirty-one,” Reilly retorted.
“He’s not falling off,” Morgan argued. “He’s a freaking star. A stud. If you look at his numbers, he’s brought it every year. I’d actually argue that sure, he’s a hair slower than he used to be, but his vision is better, his IQ has never been stronger. I’d take him over any of those young guns out there right now.”
“I meant it too.”
Hayes looked up and flushed guiltily.
Morgan sauntered in. Mimicked Hayes’ lean against the counter. “You didn’t watch it?”
“I . . .” Hayes pressed pause as Reilly and Anderson started analyzing his last five years of stats. “I didn’t. I knew you’d say what you needed to.”
Morgan chuckled under his breath. “You really think I said all that because you needed me to?”
“Well . . .yeah?”
“Angel, I meant every fucking word.” Morgan tugged him into his arms. “I’d have said more, if I thought it would make a damn bit of difference. It’s so shitty what they’re doing to you. I hate it.”
“Because you’re crazy about me,” Hayes said. He’d almost said, because you love me, but that was a step further than he felt quite comfortable with. Morgan could say he loved him, but there was still a half a second of hesitation when Hayes thought about just casually assigning him those feelings.
Morgan pulled back a fraction, frowning. “Seriously?”
“Well, you wouldn’t lie on TV, I guess.”
Morgan laughed.
“Okay,” Hayes said, poking him in the side and unable to help the smile that blossomed across his face. “You’d totally lie on TV.”
“But I didn’t today. If anything, I downplayed how I felt about it.” Morgan sounded painfully earnest now.
Hayes decided this was a good time to change the subject. “Barty says they asked for another meeting. Them this time, not him.”
“A good sign,” Morgan said. “My phone’s been blowing up all day. They want me to do some more interviews about it. I didn’t commit to anything else yet—didn’t want to before I talked to you.”
“What does Barty think?”
Morgan made an exasperated noise. “Hayes, I don’t give a fuck what he thinks. I only care how you feel about it.”
“Oh.”
“I know too much praise makes you weird.”
Hayes wet his lips. “Not exactly.”
“Oh, angel, it absolutely does. You were hiding in the bathroom to watch the good stuff I said about you.”
Hayes was annoyed. He didn’t want to admit the truth and Morgan was going to make him do it anyway. Zach would probably have told him this was what love really was; knowing someone so well you wouldn’t let them get away with crap.
“Okay, fine, yes, I was hiding in the bathroom.”
Morgan ruffled his hair. “You showered at the rink. You always do.”
“Here I thought you were too distracted by Filip Forsberg to think about when I showered,” Hayes muttered.
“Are you kidding?” Morgan laughed. “Forsberg doesn’t have shit on you, angel. You gonna tell me about it?”
“It’s . . .it’s hard to watch you praise me,” Hayes admitted. “It was hard six years ago. And it’s still hard, now.”
“Not because you don’t believe me, right?” Morgan looked worried.
“No, of course you mean it. I know you mean it.” Hayes squirmed. “Maybe it’s that you mean it too much. I don’t always know that I deserve it. Feels like I haven’t earned it, yet.”
Morgan cupped his cheeks in his palms, gaze deadly serious. “You’ve earned every single bit of it, angel. Take the compliments, okay?”
Hayes swallowed hard and nodded.
“Now, you really want to shower?” Morgan raised an eyebrow, gesturing towards the shower.
“With or without you?” Hayes asked in a teasing voice.
“With me,” Morgan said, curling a hand around his wrist and tugging him in the direction of the water. “We can be late for dinner.”
Morgan had been waiting in bed for Hayes to come home for almost two months now.
There’d been a time when doing this, just lying here, waiting, would have been enough to make horror and resignation crawl along his skin, but he’d made his peace with so many things. Maybe if he’d shown up when he’d initially intended, six months out from retirement, still fucked up about it, even though he’d known it was time, he couldn’t have done this. Couldn’t have been chill about it.
But three years after retirement, Morgan had learned a lot of tough truths about himself, including, but definitely not limited to, that he’d carried the burdens of being Morgan Reynolds for much of his life, and that it was not only okay to put them down now, but it was encouraged.
Right now, he wasn’t Morgan Reynolds, the chosen one, but just Morgan, waiting for his boyfriend to get home.
He still had the rental house, and when Hayes went on longer road trips, he often retreated to it, still not quite comfortable in Hayes’ space when he wasn’t around for days at a time. But he had a feeling that when next season rolled around, he’d let the lease expire.
Honestly, Morgan had spent so many years traveling, even when he’d been living in New York, nothing ever felt like home. Not until he’d gotten together with Hayes.
Turned out home wasn’t a place, but a person.
A person he was currently missing.
Morgan shifted in bed, glancing over at his phone. Still dark. No texts. Hayes was pretty good about telling Morgan when they’d landed and when he’d be home. It should be soon. He’d watched them beat Columbus, and with the time difference and the flight time, Hayes should be getting home soon.
He’d just about given up waiting and reached for his phone to text Hayes and make sure everything was okay when he heard a noise—the garage door opening and then closing.
He sat up, suddenly alert.
A second later, Hayes was walking into the bedroom, hair messy like he’d just taken a hat off, eyes tired, but the brightest smile on his face.
“Hey,” Morgan said. “Is that smile all for me?”
Hayes flushed and set his bag down on the floor, next to the laundry hamper. Then wasted no time crawling into bed, wrinkled suit and all. “Not all of it,” he murmured softly, leaning in and pressing a hot kiss against Morgan’s mouth.
“Then what is it?” Morgan hoped it was the news they’d both been waiting for. The final contract between Hayes and the Sentinels—everything he’d wanted, that he deserved, finally within grasp.
Hayes inhaled and then let out a disbelieving laugh. “It’s all done,” he said earnestly. “I can’t believe it, but it’s done. Barty had to tell them to not post until tomorrow because I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“Yeah? Angel, I’m so proud of you.”
Hayes grinned. “Not as much money as we’d initially discussed, but it’s for the five years, option for a sixth.”
“You’re gonna retire a Sentinel.” Morgan wound an arm around Hayes and pulled him more fully onto his lap. Not caring that he was naked and Hayes was still clothed in his suit pants and white button-down. He’d lost his jacket and his tie somewhere, but Morgan reached up, tucking his other hand in the open neck of his shirt, tracing his collarbone.
“Yeah, I am,” Hayes said, dropping his head to Morgan’s shoulder. “God, I am.” He let out a long, unsteady breath. “Can barely believe it.”
“Believe it, angel,” Morgan said.
“I listened to what you said,” Hayes said after a long pause.
“Hmm?”
“Barty wanted to hold out for more money, and I told him not to. I told him to take it.”
“You feel good about it?”
Hayes wiggled closer, nearly giggling, and said, “What do you think?”
“Pretty damn good,” Morgan said, laughing too now.
He was half-expecting Hayes to crawl down into his lap and do something about his half-hard cock, but instead, Hayes went limp in his arms. Just breathed in and out and in and out again.
“Did you mean it?” Hayes murmured into his neck.
“Did I mean what?” He’d said a lot of shit, so much lovestruck earnestness, over the last two months, and he’d meant every word.
“When you said you’d be around, no matter what. No matter what team I ended up on.”
Morgan pulled back, needing Hayes to see his face when he reassured him. “Absolutely,” he said. “I’m here for you, always. No matter what.”
“When the hockey stuff gets too hard?” Hayes questioned.
It would. They both knew it would. It always did.
Morgan considered how he’d been feeling, right before Hayes showed up. What Hayes himself had told him six years ago.
“Yeah, of course. Of course for the hockey stuff. But also to remind you that hockey isn’t all that matters.”
Hayes stared at him. Tongue flicked out, licked at his bottom lip.
“I’m never going to stop reminding you, telling you, that you can put it down, sometimes. Just like you did for me.”
Hayes squeezed his eyes shut. “God, you can’t keep saying shit like that.”
“I mean it,” Morgan said. “I always mean it—”
“I know, I know, which is why I just . . .ugh. You love me.” Hayes didn’t say it as a question. Just a statement of fact, which it was.
Morgan Reynolds loved Hayes Montgomery.
“Yeah,” he said. “I love you. Always.”
Epilogue
Eighteen months later
It made a weird, twisted sort of sense that when Hayes won his second Cup and Finn won his first, the only person Morgan got to hug and scream incoherently about it with was Jacob Braun.
He never really regretted retiring when he did. Except this one time. Not because he wanted to be the one lifting the Cup—he’d won his own, and he’d never been prouder that Finn and Hayes had just won their first together—but because he was stuck up in here in this stupid suite instead of down on the ice. Couldn’t press his mouth to Hayes’ sweaty neck and taste the salt water of the tears that streaked down his cheeks. Had only Jacob to hang on to. Jacob, who was still on the floor, where he’d fallen to his knees, five minutes earlier as Hayes had scored the winning overtime goal.
“Get up,” Morgan said, dragging him to his feet, laughing. “Come on, we’re gonna have to go down there.”
He and Hayes had talked about this—Hayes squirming the whole time, because he hadn’t wanted to jinx the Sentinels by assuming they’d win—but he’d needed to know what Hayes wanted. Not just what the general expectations were. Neither he nor Jacob were traditional WAGs. They were both ex-players, and them being down there on the ice, after the trophy presentation, might not be what the team wanted. Might not be what Hayes or Finn wanted.
The last thing Morgan was looking to be was a distraction when the focus should be on the Sentinels.
But Hayes had looked at him like he was crazy for asking. “Of course I want you there,” he’d said. “And I can’t imagine Finn not wanting Jacob there, either.”
“What?” Jacob looked at him. His eyes were red, but he was smiling. Maybe even bigger and wider than he had when he’d won his own championships. Morgan understood that because he was pretty sure he was happier now than when he’d last lifted the Cup, seven years ago.
“We gotta go, man,” Morgan said, pushing him out of the suite. “Finn’s gonna want you down there.”
“What?” Jacob repeated.
Morgan laughed. “Are you alright?”
“I think. . .I think my brain is broken,” Jacob admitted with a wry laugh, scrubbing a hand across his face. “God, they did it, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, they sure fucking did.” And Morgan had been there for every moment of it. The good and the bad.
Morgan nodded at the security guy at the elevator. “Oh, Mr. Reynolds, I was just about to radio Dom to find you,” he said. “You and Mr. Braun both.”
“Nicky, you know I told you to call me Morgan, and I don’t even know who Mr. Braun is,” he teased.
“He really doesn’t,” Jacob said, apparently snapping out of his fugue state. They stepped into the elevator.
“Monty told me to make sure you were both there,” Nicky said as the elevator went down towards the ice level. “He stopped me specially the other day. Told me it was my job to make sure you were both there, even if you protested.”
Morgan laughed wetly. Put a hand on his face and realized he was crying now. Of course Hayes had. They’d talked about it, but Hayes had wanted to be sure.
“See?” Jacob said, his own laugh not very steady. “I think I aged ten years, watching this playoff run.”
Morgan looked over at him. “You look it, with that raggedy-ass beard.”
“Like yours is any better,” Jacob retorted but he sounded fond.
“Can’t wait to shave it off,” Morgan admitted.
Jacob patted him on the cheek. “Now you can. God, they did it. I’ve never been so proud.” He glanced at Morgan. “How do you stand it? Finn and Hayes?”
The truth was, he didn’t. He couldn’t. The pride and happiness was too big to be contained inside him, even when he’d learned to carry everything for so long. He’d never imagined he’d face something that would be too big for him.
But this felt like it.
“Not sure I can,” Morgan admitted, wiping away another tear. “I’m probably gonna embarrass everyone once we get out there. My son and my boyfriend, for sure.”
The elevator dinged. Nicky looked over at them as the doors opened. “You couldn’t, Mr. Reynolds. Hayes is so proud of you. Finn, too.” Nicky’s chin lifted, like he was worried Morgan might argue with him.
Morgan wasn’t going to.
He couldn’t really.
“This way,” Nicky continued, gesturing into the hall. Morgan could already hear the yelling of a celebration going on in the locker room.
But Hayes would probably be the last one out on the ice. And if Morgan knew his son, he’d be with him.
“God, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Jacob muttered. “We shouldn’t—”
Morgan elbowed Jacob in the ribs. “Hayes told me he wanted me there and that Finn wanted you there, too. Did you guys not talk about this?”
Jacob winced. “We didn’t want to anger the hockey gods!”
“Jesus, logistics are important too,” Morgan complained.
They passed by the locker room, doors thrown open, raucous sounds spilling out.
There were still a lot of players out on the ice. Morgan could see them as they walked out of the tunnel.
“There you go,” Nicky said, giving them both a nod.
“Thank you, Nicky,” Morgan said, nodding his approval. “We’ll see you next season?”
“You better count on it.” Nicky grinned. “Have a good night.”
“Gonna be better than good. It’s gonna be great,” Jacob muttered.
Morgan elbowed him again. “Don’t wanna hear about that.”
One of the arena staff was by the entrance. “They’re waiting for you,” she said, gesturing towards the ice. And when Morgan looked up, there Hayes was, holding the Cup, smile on his face wide.
Just waiting for him.
Morgan had never moved faster. They’d put down a carpet to make the presentation easier on anyone not wearing skates, but he would have made it even without that.
They collided. One of them was laughing. One of them was crying. Maybe they were doing both.
“God, angel, you did it,” Morgan said, pressing himself firmly into his boyfriend’s side. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
Hayes set the Cup down, like he, Morgan Reynolds, was the real prize. Gripped him hard, face wet with sweat and tears, and pressed their mouths together.
They hadn’t really been bothering with plausible deniability. The first time Morgan had been caught by a fan wearing his Montgomery jersey had pretty much destroyed that entirely. But this was a different level. This was a declaration, and Morgan’s heart throbbed with happiness.
He’d never thought he’d have this, and now he had everything.
“I love you,” he murmured into Hayes’ mouth. “No matter what happened. If you’d won. If you lost.”
Hayes grinned. “Yeah, but winning is a hell of a lot more fun, isn’t it?”
Morgan couldn’t deny that. “I’m gonna remind you of this in a year, in two years, in ten years.”
“Yeah, you’d better. Remind me that I can pick it up and I can put it down again, okay?”
“Always.”
Hayes nudged him. “Go congratulate your Stanley Cup-winning son, okay? He deserves it.”
“First full year as a starting goalie and he wins the Cup? I’m never gonna stop crowing about that,” Morgan said, and Hayes laughed. “I will. I just . . .I want one more minute with you, first.”
“You can have as long as you want,” Hayes said. “I told the boys I wouldn’t be coming in, not until we were done out here.”
Morgan cleared his throat, emotion clogging it. “How about forever?”
