01:04 · THE FOUNDRY · PORT ARDLEY · AFTER A LOSS
Nick's back room
Two washers, a drying room, a sewing machine, a sharpening wheel and one stool. Everyone in the building tells Nick Botelho things in here at one in the morning, and forgets they did. Tonight a defenceman from Sheffield sits on the stool and asks him to marry a stranger.
Exhibit one
He labels everything
Nick owns two label makers. One lives at work. The other says HOME on its own lid, in its own tape. By the first Monday, Declan's house had been labelled. Including the pants drawer.
So label something. Your person, your pants, your soup. Then screenshot it.
STUCK ON · THE FRIDGE
Exhibit two
The stalls
Every man has a stall and a nameplate over it, and the crest on the carpet nobody walks on. Open one.
Exhibit three · the stool
Nobody asks the equipment guy
"How's your mother's hip?"DECLAN REVITT · TWELVE STITCHES IN · BLOOD STILL ON HIM
The night Declan blocked a slapshot with his face, he came off for twelve stitches, sat in Nick's back room with his tooth out, and asked about Nick's mother. Nobody in that building had ever asked.
Nick has been in love with him since. He has told no one. Then the lawyers' letter comes, Declan's years in America run out in June, and he sits on the stool with a beer and asks the pipes whether Nick knows any American men who'd marry a stranger.
WHAT NICK SAID
"Me."
"Because somebody in this league should get something out of it, and it won't be me."
Exhibit four · the sharpening wheel
What's your hollow?
The hollow is the groove Nick grinds down the middle of a blade. Deeper bites harder and turns quicker. Shallower glides. He knows every man's by heart. Three questions and he'll know yours.
The paper
It only has to fool the government
A courthouse wedding in February. One bed. A lawyer who doesn't want to know. A file that has to convince the government, and a dressing room that can never suspect a thing. So why can't either of them tell what's real any more?
Read Waivers in Kindle Unlimited
STAY-AT-HOME · M/M HOCKEY ROMANCE · LISETTE REES-PEEL · EXPLICIT, 18+ · ONE COUPLE ACROSS THREE BOOKS