جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 140

POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerThey took a quick break.Elbows out and head resting on his wrists, Gunner was slouched forward against the boards in the player's bench, the position allowing a deep stretching of his back and shoulders while giving his body a chance to rest and recharge. But the man down the bench, noticeably parked just out of his reach, was still keeping his mind as busy as ever.The guy was next level.He turned his head to the side to study him."How come you ain't playing?""Who, me?" Cooper let out a shrill, long-winded howl, the very nature of the sound offensive to Gunner in every imaginable way. "Oooooh! With my back the way it is? I couldn't possibly!" Gunner's back teeth gritted against each other."Your back looks fine to me.""You're too kind, Grim-san!" Gunner sat up and eyed him further."Grim-san?" he muttered to himself, the slightest twitch around one eye. He'd been calling him that all morning. And he didn't like it."But I'm not as young and spry as I

POV: Dual, Khyle and GunnerKhyle finally found his voice."Gun-""No, Khyle," Cooper said pleasantly, "This is up to Gunner." Even as the bluenet snorted heated air against his mask like an enraged bull and twisted away in an embattled effort to leave yet again. "You cannot teach a man what he thinks he already knows."Gunner's entire body went rigid, and he turned slowly, bringing into view a dangerous curl of his lip, and sharp fangs that glinted under the arena's bright lights. The expression on his face said he'd had about enough of squaring off with Cooper. And as Khyle knew, that usually meant trouble.Not a single thing in the empty arena dared move. The air between them nearly blistering from the enforcer's intensity. Remember what Khyle had said before? Well, now Khyle just hoped Gunner wasn't contemplating Cooper's swift demise, that he was instead coming to some sort of conclusion that wouldn't involve violence, or charges."You're on, old man." Gunner's challenge was a lo

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: 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: 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