Save of the Game by Avon Gale Read Free Book Online

of chicken and vegetables, and went to find his roommate. Riley was on the sofa watching the game, his plate balanced on his knees. There were two beers on the low table in front of the couch. “I got you one,” Riley said, nodding toward the beer. His eyes were on the game.
    Ethan sat next to him and started eating, aware of Riley in a way he hadn’t been before. The game was Rangers versus the Flyers, broadcast on the MSG network. Ethan’s brows knit in confusion, briefly distracting him. “How come we can see this? Didn’t think they had this channel down here.”
    “Oh, it’s… our satellite came with Center Ice,” Riley said, avoiding his gaze. “Always trying to sell the game to the southern US. You know how it goes.”
    Something about that didn’t ring true, but Ethan went back to worrying about the possibility that he was a hypocrite and let it go. Then the game came on, and he alternated between being worried, being angry at the Flyers, being angry at Riley for cheering for the Flyers because he was a goddamn Devils fan, and being angry at the Rangers for not scoring more goals.
    He also had two more helpings of chicken and vegetables, then did the dishes during the first intermission and brought them both a few more beers.
    Ethan studied Riley when the game went to commercials, trying to work out what he was feeling. Riley was cute, wasn’t he? He was a good-looking guy. Yeah. That’s how Ethan would say it. Good-looking and good at hockey. Very stretchy. Quiet and a good roommate. Made them dinner. Had totally signed up for Center Ice and was lying about it so Ethan didn’t feel obligated to pay for half of it.
    After the fucking Rangers lost to the goddamn asshole Flyers, they watched a Kings versus Coyotes game. And when they ran out of beer, Ethan was no closer to figuring the whole thing out than he was when he sat down for dinner.
    So he got out the whiskey, which was what any good Irish-American boy raised in New York would do when confronted by a problem. Never mind that very often whiskey was the thing that created the problem in the first place. No. This was an emergency. A Jameson emergency.
    Or, because Ethan was a poor, broke hockey player in the south, it was a bottom-shelf emergency. Ethan had found a cheap Irish whiskey in the liquor department of Publix, the local grocery store. He put some in his Pepsi, and that would have to do.
    Whiskey made some people mad, some people happy, and some people cry. It made some people sick, made others feel like they were flying, and some feel like they were invincible. Regardless of how it manifested, what it really did was make people dramatic.
    And Ethan was already dramatic without the whiskey. He should have known better, especially when he decided to just drink it without any Pepsi—which was what he did after Riley went to bed and Ethan was still as confused as he had been, only drunk on top of it. Great.
    Finally he had one glass too many, tipped over the point of “thinking too much about things,” right over to “I should just be brave and confront my fears.” Which meant he went barreling into Riley’s room at one thirty in the morning, full of liquid courage and whiskey-fueled determination to end his mental torment.
    His mental torment, which had lasted for all of four hours. It was unthinkable, and something had to be done.

Chapter Four
     
     
    RILEY WAS half-asleep when he heard someone trying to open his door.
    Normally this would worry him. But the door wasn’t locked, and the person who was trying to get in was having so much trouble that they had to be drunk. Meaning it was just his roommate. Something had clearly been bothering Ethan all night.
    Riley knew what it was too. Ethan had figured out about the checks.
    Ethan had been so intent on paying rent, and Riley couldn’t avoid him forever. So after Ethan got a bank account set up, he started writing Riley a rent check every month. And Riley, who knew how much Ethan