LOGINPOV: GunnerGunner rolled through the door of the locker room with an unnatural quiet for someone of his size. And his level of excitement. One corner of his heavy bag clipped the frame on his way through with a dull thud.Beyond that, he didn't announce himself. He purposely hadn't meant to. Because he wouldn't need to. He knew the moment he showed his face in the locker room after a couple of weeks MIA he'd be met with.. . .. . . nothing?The room was as quiet as Shane's bedroom on a Friday night.Most of the team was here, but all the players were in various states of folded-over. It seemed like every one of them was hunched forward to either lace their skates or pick at their gear in some sort of strange tandem.He slowed.A couple of guys looked up. One gave him a brief nod almost devoid of recognition.Gunner's head tipped slowly into a shallow, quizzical lean as he braked and really took in the entire room. He was hardly ten feet inside the doorway, black winter jacket still
POV: GunnerNot cleared to play.Not even practice.That was what the team physician had told him.So what that it had been ten hours ago and he was still processing the news, reclining on his couch. Shirtless, solo, and scowling.Okay, truth was, he wasn't processing anything. He was long done with that. Now he was just sulking and rather comfortable about it at the moment as he watched the Reapers tie their latest away game on the ice that he should be skating on right now. Except no. He'd missed what was supposed to be his first practice, and now he was watching the team play his game tonight on his drop-down flat screen. Again.It wasn't like he didn't have ten different invitations to hang out tonight. Either at his place, or at someone else's pad. Okay, maybe five. But it wasn't like he couldn't walk into any bar in the city and instantly have a fuss made over himself. But he didn't feel like being social tonight, and he sure as hell didn't feel like being fussed over.He was a
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThey pulled up to the quiet curb in front of Gunner's apartment. The car came to a soft stop, and Khyle looked at him thoughtfully.The enforcer had been half asleep in the passenger seat once they hit the highway, long legs stretched out and seat reclined. At one point he heard a soft snore, and it made him smile. He was so sweet when he was asleep. Features boyish and innocent. It was almost a shame he spent so much of his time conscious."Hey dickhead, we're home.""Huhn?" Gunner flinched as he roused himself awake, his sense of awareness visibly snapping back into place. He smacked his lips a few times and blinked before he casually stretched, back arching fully out of his seat, languid and panther-like, the gravel rough hum in his throat rumbling through the car in what was to Khyle turning into a most pleasurable display of contentment. He liked Gunner when he was waking up too, it seemed."Hell, I'm gonna sleep good tonight.""You're welcome," Khyle
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerHe ducked his head back under the water and closed defiant eyes. He jerked when something thumped against the side of his foot. Khyle wiped his eyes free of the remnants of soap and water and looked down. A shampoo bottle.His body and brain seemed to be at war, once fighting as kin, now traitors on two separate sides. And once again, without thinking, he looked over at the enforcer.The water sluiced across the smooth, extensive terrain of well-defined sections of muscles. The man attached to them was back to lathering and rinsing, blithely unaware as he lifted one arm and rubbed conditioner suds up his side and across his armpit.For softness? Khyle snorted. Prima donna. But it reminded Khyle that they both smelled, a complicated mix of body heat and greasy sweat, cold arena air and damp skin. They stunk. Except that Gunner didn't really. Khyle had gotten a nose-full of him while being bear hugged across the room and dumped into the waiting showers. And t
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerAt least they were black.They clung to his skin like glue, everything underneath modified and magnified, tight wet material like fast groping hands against his skin. On reflex, he caught the bar of soap that Gunner tossed at him."Here."Khyle muttered something underneath his breath, but only scowled and turned away. There was no point in fighting about it now. He was wet and stuck. He peeled his black workout pants down, palming the wall for balance as he struggled to roll the sodden pants past his ankles. He tossed them to the side, and they collapsed in a dark, wet lump where they landed with a squelch.He wet his hair first, tipping his head forward, using the soap Gunner had tossed him. It would do. No way in hell was he asking to borrow Gunner's shampoo. That would involve talking, and maybe looking.The water turned hot, the air around them muggy. He held his face outside the spray as he lathered his body and underarms. The water ran down over his
POV: CooperThe office of one honest, handsome, humble, and sometimes perverted coach, Cooper Daniel, was a bit of a tip. A tall jagged pile of paperwork, which sat to one side of his large office desk, had started to develop a mean disposition. He'd been meaning to get to it. Rather, he'd meant to have his assistants take care of it. That was, after all, what he'd hired them to do.He pulled the drawer to his desk open and watched as the slanted skyscraper of paperwork teetered like jelly. He smiled. Just about ready.A computer screen bathed one side of the desk in a black and white glow. He glanced again at the small article, the blurb about a hockey player who had lost a parent. Just over a year ago now, only a month before Christmas. There were no details. The passing of Cooper's former acquaintance had been kept close to home. Cooper was sorry he hadn't been able to attend the funeral. Though he didn't know him well, he knew he'd been a loving father, and a kind and generous man
POV: KhyleHe woke up to the sun in his face.Not gently. Not the gradual brightening of a room coming to life around a sleeping person. The full, direct, unambiguous commitment of mid-morning light that had been working its way across his bed for hours and had finally arrived at his face with the
POV: GunnerThe locker room after the game had the specific quality of a space where something significant had happened and everyone present was still processing whether it was over.It wasn't over. Gunner knew that. The fight had been real and the ejection had been real and the suspension was real
POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerHe came in like weather.The door didn't slam because he didn't slam it. He didn't need to. The quality of his arrival filled the room without requiring any additional punctuation, and the players who had been in the general vicinity of the door dispersed to either side
POV: KhyleGunner Jäger moved through the locker room the way certain animals moved through their natural environment. Not fast, not slow, but with the complete physical confidence of something that had never once had to consider whether it belonged somewhere. He slipped through the cluster of jost







