Page 36 of Breakaway Goals

Morgan slowed the treadmill further, down to a walk, and then hopped off. Further ruined Hayes’ day by lifting his T-shirt up again, wiping away more sweat. He didn’t come any closer to where Hayes was leaning against the bench press, but his gaze was intent. Interested .

“What about you?”

It was not what Hayes had expected him to say, and he floundered.

“I’m not—this isn’t about me. This is about Finn.”

“I told myself that when I showed up, you’d be cold, unfriendly. Unbothered.” Morgan wet his lips. “But you’re not.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hayes said. Unbothered ? Honestly, what the fuck. Yes, it had been six years, but surely Morgan had understood how into him he’d been. Head over heels, logic thrown right out the window, building dream castles in the hotel rooms they’d shared.

“No, it’s not. You threw me out—”

“I kicked you out, because you were a total asshole at the end of the tournament, and because then you showed up like you could just get in my pants because I was convenient,” Hayes interrupted. Nevermind him being stupid, nobody was as stupid as Morgan Reynolds, verified .

“ Convenient .” Morgan had the nerve to actually look floored by this.

“I can’t believe you think that. You were literally the least convenient option I could come up with.

I was there because I . . .” He hesitated, and Hayes mentally begged him to finish while simultaneously hoping he never uttered the rest of that sentence.

“Because I missed you. I knew I would. But I missed you more than I ever expected.”

“What the fuck,” Hayes said, because that was exactly what he was thinking, nothing else.

“I meant it back then. I came to apologize. Ditching you at the end of the tournament was totally shitty.”

“You freaked out,” Hayes corrected in a hard voice.

If they were really going to talk about this, they weren’t going to dance around it.

Not like they’d done in that hotel room doorway, six weeks after.

Hayes had been too sad and still half-hoping that it could end differently to be as blunt as he should’ve been.

“Yeah. And I . . .” Morgan swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and he looked away. “I might’ve freaked out again, when I saw you again.”

Morgan had said before that he’d expected Hayes to be angry when he showed up in Florida, and Hayes couldn’t say he’d been particularly angry before this.

Maybe he’d wanted to be, because anger at least felt productive, unlike all this endless sadness.

But now he actually was angry. So angry it burned through him, a shaft of pure righteousness spearing right through his middle.

It made him strong. Gave him purpose, finally .

“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” Hayes retorted, letting that feeling fill him. He’d been miserable for so long it felt amazing to feel something else.

“Hayes—”

“No,” Hayes said, hand clenching around his empty plastic cup. “No, you don’t get to show up and do this now. I was sad for so fucking long . And you were just . . .what, freaking out? Panicking? Having your big gay panic?”

Morgan frowned, but Hayes had a full head of steam and nothing was stopping him now. He’d lived too long with all this shit inside his head.

“You were a total asshole, on that last day. And then you never texted me back? It wasn’t just sex, and you knew it.

I should’ve said something, I should’ve called you on it, but I was so fucking .

. .” Hayes’ throat went tight, just thinking about how much he’d felt during those ten days.

Less than two weeks and they’d been everything.

“I was so fucking into you. Terrified that you might not feel the same. More terrified that you would, because what were we going to do about that?”

He knew it was true, the moment it came out of his mouth. He’d known it was true for some time now. What could they have done about it?

Morgan’s gaze was painfully understanding, like he’d just seen Hayes get it. Poison finally draining out of the wound.

“You were a total asshole,” Hayes repeated, but now the righteous anger was gone, evaporated like it had never existed in the first place.

“You were a total asshole about it. You didn’t need to do that.

You could’ve been . . .” What could he have been though?

Morgan had never pretended to be anything but what he was. He’d never lied to Hayes.

“And you kicked me out,” Morgan said.

Yeah, he had. At the time, it had felt like the safest possible choice.

The only way he could get Morgan back, hurt him the way he was hurting.

Hayes had told Zach that he couldn’t stand to get just the scraps that Morgan felt like tossing him, and that was true.

It was still true. But it had been more too.

Morgan had left. So when he came crawling back, trying to apologize, Hayes hadn’t listened and then he’d slammed the door shut in his face.

An eye for an eye.

Hayes nodded. Not sure he trusted his voice now.

Well, they’d finally hashed it out. Everything was in the open now.

Maybe this was what he’d always needed to finally move on, but as Hayes stared at Morgan, that didn’t feel right either.

But it was all he had.

“I don’t want you around,” Hayes said. “But I don’t think I have a choice but to accept it. For Finn.”

Morgan didn’t look hurt by Hayes’ admission; he didn’t look like anything at all. He just nodded. “For Finn,” he agreed.

He didn’t know where that left them; laid bare by honesty, but no better off than they’d been before. It seemed impossible they could co-exist like this, but what other choice did they have?

Hayes finished his workout. Left without looking over at Morgan, and believed—hoped, maybe—that Morgan ignored him too.

He was in the locker room, taping his stick, gear half-off, half-on, when Jasper plopped down next to him. “Hey,” he said.

Hayes nodded at his friend, pretty sure that he didn’t have to tell him the last thing he felt like right now was making small talk.

He wanted to go to practice, then head home. Lick his wounds in peace. Maybe call Zach when he’d finally rehashed all the layers of that conversation and felt like he could actually talk about it.

But Jasper looked at him expectantly. “You alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” It was so much easier to turn the whole thing onto Jasper than to tell him no, I’m not alright. He was the captain, he couldn’t afford to not be alright.

Jasper shot him a look. “I told you, you’ve been weird and quiet. You can talk to me, you know?”

He knew it. But nobody on the team had figured out about him and Morgan yet and he wasn’t about to start telling anyone now. He couldn’t actually imagine admitting the truth to Finn, but if he was ever going to go there, Finn kind of had to be the first person to know.

“Yeah, of course,” Hayes said.

Not Jasper, even as tempting it was to blurt out in the middle of the locker room, I used to be in love with Morgan Reynolds and having him around is kind of killing me.

It would probably feel better if Jasper at least looked at him with sympathy and understanding, not just sympathy.

Jasper made a frustrated noise. “You don’t have to shoulder all the burdens alone, you know? I’m your A. I can be there for you. I want to be there for you.”

“I know, and you are,” Hayes said, patting him on the knee. “We’re good, I promise.”

It’s just me that isn’t good.

But Hayes had to believe that someday he might be able to say it—to Jasper, to any of his other teammates—and actually mean it. Maybe today had been the first day in making that possible.