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CHAPTER TWENTY

LOUIE’S PALMS ARE sweaty. The air conditioning in Ryan’s car is on full blast. It’s a million degrees. The cold air is making goosebumps prickle on Louie’s arms. He’s about to melt into a puddle.

He doesn’t know what the hell is happening to him. Actually, it is some kind of hell. His own personal hell.

It looks like this: Ryan is wearing shorts.

It’s summer. And a lot of people wear shorts in the summer. The thing is, Ryan has hockey player thighs. Which are, objectively, good thighs. Louie has spent his life around hockey player thighs and maybe, on occasion, he was a little bit jealous of other guys.

Jealousy is not what draws his eyes back to Ryan’s thighs over and over again. He’s figured out that much.

Louie checks his phone to distract himself. Missed call from his mom. Shit .

“You’re very twitchy today,” Ryan comments.

True. And Louie would love to stop being twitchy. He’d rather not think about thighs. Ryan’s thighs. Louie shifts in the passenger seat. Honestly, the thighs are just the tip of the iceberg.

“Wanna just tell me what’s going on?” Ryan glances at him. “Is this about the Awards? ”

“Kind of,” Louie says. The NHL Awards are part of the iceberg, at least. He holds up his phone. “My mom called. She texted this morning to ask when my flight to Vegas was landing.”

Ryan’s lips twitch.

This isn’t funny.

“I can’t do this to them,” Louie says, even though he is very much doing it. He’s not on a plane but in a car and he’s not going to Nevada but to Pennsylvania. “I can’t—”

“You can,” Ryan says. “You are doing this to them. Because…”

“Because?”

Ryan shakes his head. “Because you’re an adult. And you can make your own choices.”

“That’s not what you were going to say.”

“Hm.”

Ryan has been very careful about what he says about Louie’s family. None of the things he’s said so far were lies. It’s just that Louie didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Now that he’s crossed some invisible line by not going to the NHL Awards, he kind of does.

“What were you going to say?” Louie asks.

“I was going to say it’s about damn time you put yourself first,” Ryan replies without missing a beat.

“I should tell her I’m not coming,” Louie says.

“You do that. Give me your phone afterwards.”

Louie frowns at him. “Why?”

“I’ll turn it off for you.”

“I can turn it off,” Louie says. He turns it off all the time. Before important games, for example.

“Will you, though?”

Louie doesn’t reply. They both know he wouldn’t, not today. He can’t even bring himself to text his mom back yet. He lied to his family two weeks ago when he said he’d forgotten to book a flight. Too busy training for next season .

And he has been busy—the trainer Nick works with every summer is not taking it easy on them. Louie likes that about him. Ryan keeps calling him a sadist, but at the same time, the training gave him thighs like that, so he has no reason to complain.

For once, Louie didn’t mind that Ryan posted pictures from their workout sessions on Instagram. Whenever his dad mentioned that Louie was in Cedar Mills, slacking off, Louie had proof that he was, in fact, working hard. His dad didn’t say much when Louie eventually texted the family to tell them he was training with Nick and several other teammates. Just: If you think that’s the right move.

Dad didn’t think it was the right move.

He’s punishing Louie with his silence. He’s not saying much in the family chat anymore. If questions are asked, it’s Mom who sends them. And now it’s also Mom who’s asking when Louie is joining them in Vegas. The thing is, his dad’s silence doesn’t bother Louie. It probably should, but this is the most peaceful summer he’s ever had.

Mostly peaceful. He does have an unexpected thigh problem.

Louie doesn’t get that about himself. How he never noticed that maybe he was a person who’s into other guys’ thighs. Who thinks about dicks occasionally. More than occasionally during the past few weeks. Maybe there were some guys he thought were attractive, but more in a this guy has a nice face kind of way. Possibly, things got muddled in his head because he just isn’t attracted to people the way most others are.

Whatever the case may be, he won’t do anything about this. It’s awkward, it’s inconvenient, but Louie knows where the line is. This one isn’t invisible. And under no circumstances will he cross it.

The Harris house looks different in the summer.

First, there are about three times as many cars parked on the gravel at the end of the driveway.

Second, there are flowers everywhere.

Third, there are more cats than last time. Louie counts six on the way to the door and Ryan’s cat Chicken isn’t even with them.

Ryan opens the front door for them and steps aside to let him through.

Louie hesitates. “We’re just walking in?”

“I live here,” Ryan says with a shrug. “I mean, I don’t, but this is home. When you go home, you just walk in, too.”

Actually, Louie doesn’t have a key for his parents’ house and they’d never leave the door unlocked, so he always rings the doorbell. He doesn’t tell Ryan that. Anyway, lots of people probably don’t have a key to their parents’ house, especially when they moved out years ago.

Louie steps inside and looks around the quiet, empty foyer.

“Hello?” Ryan shouts when he follows him. “Anyone home?”

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT, IS THAT RYAN?”

A whirlwind of colors and purple hair comes flying down the hallway and into Ryan’s arms. One of his sisters, Louie would guess. She squeals when Ryan spins her around and then, without missing a beat, turns to Louie once Ryan has set her down.

“You must be Louie,” she says and pulls him into a hug as well. “It’s so great to meet you. I’m Ivy.”

“Hi,” Louie says, shooting Ryan a helpless look over Ivy’s shoulder.

“Please let go of him,” Ryan says.

Ivy does let go, smiling brightly. “It’s so great to see you guys,” she says. “You have to go upstairs first.”

“Why?” Ryan asks. “Where’s Mom?”

“In the kitchen,” Ivy says. “She’ll say hi later.”

Ryan frowns at her. “Why not now?”

“Because it’s someone’s birthday tomorrow and she’s busy.” Ivy gives him an exaggerated wink. “So why don’t you go get settled in?”

“You guys really don’t have to do anything special for my birthday,” Louie says. He barely knows the Harrises’ and it seems weird that they’d make such a huge effort just because of him. Ryan told him they were having a barbecue with his family, no big deal, just a little party, but now Louie is worried they’re making him a cake .

“Uh-huh,” Ivy says. “This is not a ‘nothing special’ household, unfortunately. Dad’s been working on your present for a week.”

“I—”

“Shhh, Louie,” Ivy says, and starts steering him toward the stairs. “We are so happy you’re here. We love a party, all of us, and you’re giving us a perfect excuse. Ryan will show you his room, okay?”

“Okay,” Louie says, resigned.

Ryan shrugs at him in a no way to stop them kind of way and heads up the stairs to the small room under the roof with Louie at his heels. The air conditioning unit by the window is doing its very best, but it’s still warm up here.

“Take the bed,” Ryan says and flops down on the mattress—not an air mattress but an actual mattress—on the floor. “What if I just take a nap?”

“I don’t mind,” Louie says and sits down at the end of the bed. Ryan’s bed. He doesn’t like that Ryan doesn’t get to sleep in his own bed while they’re here, but Ryan would never agree to switching. “My mom would actually kill me if the first thing I did when I got home was sleep.”

Ryan grins up at him. His shirt rode up when he threw himself on the mattress, revealing a sliver of skin and a trail of coarse brown hair on Ryan’s stomach, which is where Louie’s eyes get caught.

“Hey,” Ryan says.

Louie snaps out of whatever trance he was in. That cannot happen again. “What?”

“You won’t be weird about the birthday cake, right?” Ryan asks. “There’s only one correct answer.”

“I will not be weird about the birthday cake,” Louie says because that’s the correct answer.

“Ivy and I are still making the sandwich cake, I think.”

“That’s a lot of cake.”

“The sandwich cake is mostly for me anyway.”

Louie laughs. “Okay. ”

While Ryan does or doesn’t nap, Louie unlocks his phone and pulls up the text his mom sent. Slowly, he starts typing, considering every word. Something came up, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to Vegas. I’m really sorry. I hope you all have a good time and good luck to Bastien!

He’s not sorry for not going. Or for lying. He’s sorry that he didn’t say he wasn’t coming in the first place and that he dragged this out for so long.

Ryan would probably tell him off for saying sorry, which is why Louie doesn’t tell him. He just locks his phone and drops it on the mattress next to Ryan’s head.

“Here,” he says.

“Oh, I see, we’re really growing as a person, huh?” Ryan says, then gets up and puts Louie’s phone on the dresser that’s covered in painted hockey sticks and pucks and other equipment. Ryan’s phone ends up next to it. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Louie asks.

Ryan shrugs. “For a walk or something. Until they’re done with the cake. Maybe we can say hi to Dad, although I guess he won’t let us into the garage either if he’s working on your present.”

“You did tell them I didn’t—”

“Yes,” Ryan interrupts, “I told them that you’re allergic to presents and that you will die if you get any. They do not care. They’re obsessed with birthdays. Honestly, I think that’s why my parents had so many kids. More birthdays. Don’t worry about it. They’re loving the extra birthday.”

Louie sighs. He just didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. He’s already staying here for free and he’ll be eating the Harrises’ food and he doesn’t want to annoy them. A barbecue seems like enough work already. But if Ryan says that his family is having a good time, Louie will believe him. And he does hear the excitement in Ryan’s voice when he talks about that sandwich cake, so Louie won’t tell him not to make it, even if it sounds weird.

It’s kind of—

Endearing.

And Louie will stop thinking about it right now.