“No shit? You a fan?”
“I mean, I’m happy to watch it. I had a teammate from there who invited me down for a week one summer.” Joao hadbeen a hoot. Still was, but he’d been traded a year ago to Detroit.
“Cowboys are crazy, right? I’ve been to cowboy weekends in Steamboat and Crested Butte. Those folks are nuts.”
They compared notes on all sorts of experiences only guys like them could have, and when Hawk looked up and realized they were at the Olympic village, he felt a real pang of regret that he was out of time.
“Well, this is me,” Caleb said when they reached the residence halls. “I need to go get changed and run on the damn treadmill for like, an hour to make up for all the carbs…”
“Yeah. I have maybe two hours before I have to gear up for practice at the rink.”
Still, they just stood there staring at each other. and Hawk tried to take in every detail in case he didn’t see Caleb again. Green eyes. Honey-colored hair worn a bit too long. Scruffy gold whiskers. The scar next to Caleb’s gorgeous lips.
God, he was really, really interested in this guy, which was pretty unusual for him.
“So, hey, I have until after the opening ceremonies to hang out here,” Caleb blurted out. “Did you want to, like, get together tonight? Maybe hit one of those sweet little restaurants and have supper?”
Hawk blinked. “Hell, yes. How do I get a hold of you?”
“Just meet me out in the courtyard at like, six?”
He grinned, because that removed the awkward phone number exchange and shit for the moment. “I can do that.” And if something happened, he’d get someone to tell Caleb for him that he couldn’t make it.
But he was going to do his dead-level best to be there, though. Caleb was easily the most interesting guy he’d ever met.
Two
Caleb Lancaster wasn’t used to flirting with somebody while he was at a work event.
And this wasn’t just any work event. This was the fucking Olympics in South Korea. While it seemed super safe to wander, he wasn’t sure how wise it was to go out and eat on the economy when he had so much training to do. If he got a stomach upset from eating some crazy food, it was going to affect his performance in a few days.
But he didn’t want to go eat dinner with Hawk Montineau in the dining halls. He wanted to go someplace where they could have a quiet, intimate little meal and where he could suss out whether he really thought Montineau was jonesing on him like he was on Hawk, or whether it was his imagination. Wishful thinking.
Caleb thought Hawk was like a jungle gym he wanted to climb on and do all sorts of athletic activities on. He was six-two of solid muscle, probably weighed in at two hundred and twenty-five pounds. And his butt, oh my God, his ass. Caleb just couldn’t even. Hockey butt was real.
And while an Olympics hookup was not in his plans for this year because he had intended to be all serious, it was something he could totally get behind now. Even if they just had sex a couple of times before he had to go start his prelim events, he would be perfectly happy.
So he waited in the courtyard at the dorms and tried not to pace. He should have given Hawk his phone number, but that had seemed too much like a planned hookup, like exchanging numbers so early in an acquaintance.
He took a deep, deep breath and wiped his hands on his soft fleece team jacket. He hadn’t put his gloves on yet, because the courtyard had patio heaters, and he was still nice and warm despite the dropping temp.
“Cal, man!” One of the slopestyle guys, Jamie Meyer, clapped him on the back. “Want to go have dinner?”
“Nah, thanks, bruh. I’m waiting on someone.”
“Jonesy? He can come too.”
Travis Jones was Caleb’s roommate on this trip, and he was a bazillion years older than him. Like maybe thirty-five.
“No.”
“Hermann?”
“No. Not a boarder.”
Jamie tilted his head. “Then who?”
“A hockey guy. I met him this morning, and I really liked talking to him.”