Page 132 of Breakaway Goals

He squirmed in his chair, unsure if he was embarrassed or angry or some other emotion that defied definition.

“Are you joking?” Finn demanded.

“Uh, no?” This was the worst. Morgan was now officially on record as regretting being the one to suggest this.

“You’re telling me you’re in love with Monty and that you’vebeenin love with him for six years, and now you’re finally back together or whatever, and the words you’re gonna use are,give it another go?”

“Your father is painfully unsentimental sometimes, you gotta forgive him for it,” Hayes said andsmilingabout it.

“Not that unsentimental,” Morgan yelped defensively. “I’ve said lots of romantic things to you. So many romantic things.”

“Yeah, we don’t need to hear those,” Jacob said dryly, taking a long sip of his wine.

“Good,” Finn said. “Monty’s a great guy. Acatch. Don’t forget it.”

“I have zero intention of forgetting it.” God, he wanted to drop through the floor. Finn lecturing him on how to romance hisboyfriend. There was no way this could get any worse than it currently was.

“As long as you’re happy, Dad, I’m happy for you.” Finn grinned at him and paused, expectantly. “Though, there’s only one question I have for you.”

Morgan tried not to cringe. “What?”

Finn gave him a hard stare. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”

Morgan’s jaw dropped. “What?What?”

Finn waved his hand. “The first time you saw Hayes this summer, you literally froze in your tracks.”

“I did not,” Morgan muttered. Though he had, a little. But not obviously! He’d been more subtle than that.

Finn shot him an unamused look. “And then there was all the times you stared at him like he was a full buffet spread and you were starving.”

“I definitely did not do that, either,” Morgan said, feeling a flush creep up his chest from under his shirt collar.

“Oh, you did. The opposite of low key. I know what yearning looks like, and you were like front and center definition, Dad. It wasn’t that hard to ask Jacob if you’d hung out with Hayes at all, six years ago, and it was even easier to put the pieces together.” Finn looked unimpressed. “I just can’t believe it took this long for you to get your shit together.”

“It did—I didn’t want to—” Morgan gave up. Turned to Jacob. “You told him!”

“I did not,” Jacob said, laughing now. “But yeah, you were not very hard to figure out, bud. I knew the moment we showed up at Sentinels camp that he was the guy you’d told me about.”

“Oh my God,” Morgan said. “All those times—”

“Which times?” Hayes and Finn interrupted at the same time with the same words. They exchanged glances and burst out laughing.

“You literally said, and I swear it’s a direct quote,even you wouldn’t be stupid enough to pine after Hayes Montgomery.”

Hayes grinned. “You said that?”

“He said that.” Morgan glowered. “You couldn’t have thought itthen.”

“Oh, I was convinced by the time I said that,” Jacob said. He leaned back in his chair and pinned Morgan with the kind of hard-assed look that hadalwaysmade Morgan want to kill him when he was in the net and Morgan was trying to slip a puck past him. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to give you crap about this? After what you said about me and Finn?”

Oh, he had. It was half of why he’d been so nervous. “I didn’t react well, then.”

“No shit,” Finn retorted. “You accused Jacob of being a pedophile!”

Hayes shot him a soft look full of reprimand, which shouldn’t have been hot, especially not in front of his son and his boyfriend, but the skin under the collar of his T-shirt prickled.

“Not my best parenting moment,” Morgan allowed.