Page 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

LOUIE KEEPS LOOKING at him. He can’t do that. Ryan doesn’t know how to tell him that he can’t do that.

They just had a polite conversation about their upcoming roadie to New York, which isn’t much of a roadie, but they’ll still spend the night in the city, twice, before they head to DC. Louie wants to go to a museum.

Ryan cannot and will not find that adorable.

Louie is still looking and, for the love of fuck, he needs to stop.

“What?” Ryan asks.

Louie blinks at him. “I was just… do you have tape?”

“Just the black one,” Ryan says and hands it over.

“That’s fine,” Louie says and takes off with it.

He so didn’t need any tape. But when they hit the ice for morning skate, Louie’s twig is taped in black, even though he always uses white. He lied and he took it all the way. Ryan will hand it to him, that’s commitment.

During practice, Louie only looks at him when he has to. Ryan watches him then because Louie is distracted. Coach talks to him, gives him a pat on the back. Louie smiles a little. Just a little, but more than Ryan has ever seen him smile at practice. In retrospect, Ryan wonders if Louie may have thought that he’d somehow ruin his chances if he allowed himself to be happy. Or that it’d hurt worse if Coach ended up sending him down.

Louie skates up to Nick after and they do their Serious Hockey Conversation thing until Liam shows up and showers both of them with ice.

Ryan finds out what Coach told Louie only ten minutes later when the assistant coach who runs the power play, Tremblay, calls them over. They’re shuffling. Louie’s joining the first unit. Which is the one Ryan happens to be on as the lone defenseman. Fun. Okay.

Of course, of fucking course, Louie is annoyingly professional. His passes are beautiful, as always.

“Good work today, Harris,” Coach Beaulieu says to Ryan as he heads off the ice.

For a second, it doesn’t register that Coach is talking to him.

Which is probably why Coach adds, “Thought you and Hathaway might work well together.”

“Oh,” Ryan says. Now he’s just rubbing it in and he doesn’t even know it. “Thanks,” he tacks on belatedly.

Back in the room, Ryan quietly pulls off his gear. Louie is doing the same right next to him, analyzing the Grizzlies’ injury situation with Nick. Ryan fights the urge to get involved just because he wants to talk to Louie (he’s never felt this pathetic about a guy) and turns to Liam instead (still feels pathetic but it’s a different kind).

“What are you wearing for the Halloween thing at the hospital?” Ryan asks.

“Ida picks,” Liam says. “I’m sure it will be something very dignified.”

“She should pick my costume, too,” Ryan says. “I have no idea what to wear.”

“I’ll let Maja pick yours. She’s currently obsessed with the trash collectors, so…”

Ryan rolls his eyes at him. “Great, thanks,” he grumbles .

Liam considers him for a moment. Ryan feels like he’s about to be dissected. Then Liam says, “Hey, what are you doing on Saturday?”

“Uh…” Do they have a game on Saturday? No. That’s Friday. Not having Louie around anymore also means he doesn’t know when they’re going where anymore. He could look at the schedule on the fridge, but it was so much easier when Louie just chewed off his ear about it.

It’s one of those teeny-tiny side effects. Ryan hates those teeny-tiny side effects. They’re everywhere. This morning he stared at a pair of Louie’s shoes that he forgot by the door and considered bringing them to the rink and calculated how much it might hurt and wondered if the other guys would catch on. Because as far as he knows, most of the guys still think that Louie’s staying with Ryan. Liam hasn’t blabbed, at least not to everyone.

Not about Louie and not about Ryan’s gay word vomit.

Ryan probably owes Liam one. “I don’t think I have plans,” Ryan says and glances over his shoulder. Louie’s stall is empty now. “I still don’t think dinner’s a great idea.”

“Actually,” Liam says, “I want to take my wife out for dinner and I need someone to spend two hours with Maja. Maybe three. Watch some…” Liam waves his hand. “Cartoons about shapes and colors. Draw a picture. Pretend you’re a garbage truck. We’ll feed her before we leave.”

Ryan shouldn’t laugh. “You want me to watch your kids.”

“Kid. Just Maja. Ida is going to a sleepover. Our babysitter is out of town and Louie has other plans, so…” Liam’s eyebrows climb high.

Liam is seriously trusting him with his kid. Ryan almost starts bawling. He clears his throat. “Yeah, sure.”

“Thank you,” Liam says and wanders away, buck naked.

Ryan will not spend all evening wondering what Louie is up to tonight.

It’s just weird. Louie isn’t a Saturday evening plans kind of guy. On Saturday evening—when they’re not playing themselves—Louie watches hockey. Maybe he went to the rink with Nick because he’s just that obsessed. Wouldn’t be the first time. A few weeks ago, Louie would have dragged Ryan along.

Tonight, Ryan is ringing the Hellstroms’ doorbell.

There are worse things than hanging out with a small child pretending he’s a garbage truck and playing that game where you sort shapes into a box if Liam was serious about all that.

“She’ll probably fall asleep after running circles around you for ten minutes anyway,” Liam said when Ryan asked him how he’s supposed to entertain Maja for two hours.

The door opens to Liam carrying Maja, who beams at Ryan. She throws up her tiny arms. “Rah-rah!”

“Hiii,” Ryan says and waves at her. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when a tiny child smiles at you.

“Here you go,” Liam says and immediately hands Maja over.

“Um,” Ryan says. He holds her up. “Now what?”

“Now you do whatever she wants,” Liam says, grinning. “I have to go pick up my wife. You have my number if anything goes wrong. And, good news, you’re not alone. Seems I was wrong about Louie having other plans.” He gives Ryan a pat in passing and off he goes, leaving Ryan and his kid right there on the doorstep.

“Your dad is evil,” Ryan tells Maja. “It’s so fitting that his nickname is Satan.”

“Saaan,” Maja says.

“Exactly,” Ryan agrees, peering into the house. No trace of Louie. Maybe he’s hiding in his room.

Fuck’s sake. Liam absolutely did this on purpose. Ryan’s been had.

He shuffles into the house, toeing out of his shoes and putting a disgruntled Maja down so he can take off his jacket. She’s appeased when he picks her up again and carries her into the living room. Where Louie is sitting on the couch, eyes on his phone. Ryan wonders what he’s looking at since he hates Instagram so much. Probably hockey stats .

“Hey,” Ryan says.

“Hey,” Louie replies, staring at him like he did at the rink earlier.

“Looks like Liam double-booked babysitters,” Ryan says.

Louie nods.

“Right.” Ryan’s going to take a page out of Louie’s book and just go away and not deal with this. “We’re gonna go play a game.”

“Lu,” Maja says, pointing at Louie.

“Yeah, that’s Louie.”

Maja reaches for him. Great. Obviously, Louie is too kind to ignore this small child and gets up to take her to the kids’ playroom. Heaving a sigh, Ryan follows them. He’s been here before—Ida put little sparkly clips into his hair and took pictures of him in front of the wall that’s painted like a magical forest.

Louie puts her down on the soft rug in the middle of the room and grabs the box with the big building blocks. He dumps them out for Maja, who immediately dives for them. Ryan sits on the floor with them and starts helping with the tower they start to build.

“Let’s see if we can make it as big as you,” Louie says to Maja.

Ryan looks at Louie. That was a mistake. Looking at Louie, here, away from the rink, with only a little kid as a buffer, is a little painful. A lot painful. “Would be more of a challenge if we made it as big as you,” Ryan says.

“She can’t reach that high,” Louie says, deadpan.

Ryan soon finds out that apparently the fun part of their construction business game is not the building part, but the demolition part. Maja has that covered. “Do you want to be a wrecking ball operator when you grow up?” Ryan asks her.

“Rah-rah house!” is Maja’s reply and a moment later the Rah-rah house is rubble on the floor.

“I should get her a jersey that says Rah-rah on the back,” Ryan says.

Louie’s smile appears slowly, tentatively, like he’s fighting it.

Maja squeals and starts running around them, jumping over building blocks, and climbing on Louie’s back until he flips her over. It’s practiced like something they’ve been doing, probably since Louie moved in here. A few days, and Louie belongs here. It’s just one stab in the heart after another.

While the two of them do their gymnastics routine, Ryan collects building blocks and starts constructing a hockey rink. Maja, in the meantime, goes back to running and throwing herself into the pink beanbag chair in the corner.

“Is that… something she should be doing without a helmet?” Ryan asks.

Maja cackles as she lands in the chair for the second time.

“She’s fine,” Louie says, watching her. “I think.”

After the fifth dive, Maja stays where she is and sighs. Exhausted. “Aww, are you tired?” Ryan asks.

“No,” Maja says.

“Interesting,” Ryan replies. “You look tired.”

“No.”

“So, you’re wide awake, huh?”

“No!”

“Stop talking to her,” Louie whispers. “Just let her fall asleep.”

Ryan isn’t sure she will—she’s definitely fighting it and keeping her eyes wide open. And if she does fall asleep, Ryan will (essentially) be alone with Louie. Does he want that? Maybe not.

One by one, Ryan reads the titles of all the picture books that are lined up on the shelf. Very interesting. So interesting. He actually read some of those to his sister’s kids. They’re cute. Ryan likes looking at the pictures as much as a two-year-old; he wonders what that says about him.

Quietly, Louie clears his throat. “She’s asleep,” he whispers.

“Okay,” Ryan whispers back, sneaking a glance at Maja. “Do we leave her there?”

Louie nods quickly. Like he knows that moving her would be a fatal mistake.

Ryan narrows his eyes at him. “You’ve babysat the kids before?”

“Just Ida,” Louie says. “Once.”

“Hm.”

“What?”

“I just…” Ryan shrugs, staring at the pink miniature hockey net in the corner. “I mean, we definitely didn’t end up here by accident. Both of us.”

“They told me Liam asked you and Ella asked me and they forgot to tell each other, except I live here and I know they tell each other everything, so…”

Ryan nods at the hockey net. “We’ve been played.”

“I told him it wasn’t going to affect the team,” Louie says.

Oh, good, as long as it doesn’t affect the team, it’s all peachy, isn’t it? Ryan will not let that come out of his mouth. Nope, no way.

A few seconds tick by. The quiet quickly starts to feel claustrophobic.

“Ryan?” Louie says. “Can you look at me?”

“I could,” Ryan says. “I don’t want to, though, I don’t think.”

“Okay, well… I wanted to say sorry.”

Fuck it, Ryan is going to look at him. Louie is cross-legged on the floor, turning a building block over in his hand. His eyes are fixed on Ryan, and they’re looking more green than usual with the magic forest wall behind him.

“It was all a lot,” Louie goes on. “You know, that morning…”

“When you thought you’d thought-crimed your brother into getting injured. Yeah, it seemed like it was a lot.”

“I know that was stupid,” Louie mutters.

“It wasn’t, though.” Ryan shrugs. “And I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was. Like you said, it was a lot.”

Louie finally looks away. “I didn’t know what to do with you, I just couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I didn’t handle it well.”

Ryan, the king of not handling things well, definitely understands how that happened. “I guess you didn’t,” he agrees. “Maybe I didn’t either. Maybe things just collectively… weren’t handled well.”

“Maybe,” Louie says.

“I don’t…” Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t blame you for leaving or whatever, I get that you needed a break. I’m just bad at being left, you know? Because everyone always leaves me.”

Louie’s face falls. “It really wasn’t about you.”

“I know that. In my mind, I know that. My heart says I’m unlovable and I suck and no one will ever want me.” Ryan shrugs. “But that’s a me problem. I’m trying not to take it personally.”

“You’re not unlovable,” Louie says quietly.

Another shrug. “Maybe just easy to leave, then.”

“Not that either,” Louie says, even more quietly.

“You don’t have to say that,” Ryan says. He was there when Louie left; he didn’t seem to have any trouble with it whatsoever.

Louie chucks his building block on the carpet. “I think I do have to say it. And I think you know what that’s like.”

Oh, Ryan has felt like he needed to say a lot of things. And he said way too many of them. “Yeah, I do know.” He rubs his forehead. “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t this insecure and running around, yelling ‘Please love me’. My abandonment issues aren’t sexy.”

“Your abandonment issues don’t scare me,” Louie says.

What the fuck is he trying to say? Ryan raises his eyebrows at him. “Well, your daddy issues don’t scare me either.”

Louie doesn’t reply. He leans back against the big shelf behind him. Time ticks on. “What do we do now?” he finally asks.

“We wait for Liam and Ella to come back,” Ryan says and gets comfortable against a humongous teddy bear. He picks up a random picture book. “Want me to read you a story while we wait?”

“I didn’t mean right now, I meant…” Louie waves his hand between them.

“Well, you don’t want me to be a distraction, so you either have to stop thinking about us exploring each other’s bodies, get over it, and come home,” Ryan says as casually as he can manage. “Or you could kill me. I guess then I’d stop being distracting.” He gives Louie a moment to roll his eyes about that one. “Or you could… let me distract you a little bit.”

“It’s a terrible idea,” Louie says. “It was a terrible idea all along. We’re teammates.”

“You’re worried it could end badly? I think it already did and, like you said, we didn’t take it to the rink.”

Louie looks at him like Ryan is tape he wants to analyze for their next game. Having that kind of attention directed at him is cooking his insides like he’s sitting in a microwave. Ryan tries to analyze Louie right back, but he only makes it as far as the floppy hair and the forest eyes. Coherent thoughts not possible.

He sticks out his foot and nudges it against Louie’s. “Can you just come home?” Ryan asks. “And we’ll figure out the rest?”

Louie tips his head back against the shelf. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not asking you for anything, I swear. Just… the house is really quiet.”

Ryan was doing such a great job of not being totally pathetic. Up until now.

A soft sigh is the only answer Ryan gets to that. Louie peers at Maja, who is still snoozing on the beanbag chair like it’s the most comfortable place to sleep in the world.

Ryan focuses on keeping his mouth shut. If he says one more embarrassing thing, he has to move into a hovel in the woods and become a hermit. He doesn’t want to pressure Louie into anything. If he wants to stay here with Liam, if that makes things easier for him, then Ryan will accept it. And he won’t be needy and clingy about it.

After what feels like an hour (but has probably been five minutes), Louie says, “I want to—” He cuts himself off. Shakes his head.

“What?” Ryan asks .

Louie bites his lip.

Ryan nods. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” Louie says softly. Then his foot knocks against Ryan’s and stays there, just a small spot of warmth, unmoving, steady.

They don’t talk, but it’s not awkward anymore. It’s like sitting on the couch and watching a game, with Louie paying rapt attention and Ryan scrolling through his phone and looking up when he sees Louie tense and knows something’s about to go down.

Ryan eventually starts leafing through the picture book he picked up earlier and things almost seem normal, even though they’re in a playroom that is equal parts forest and pink, with a building-block hockey rink next to them, and they’re watching a tiny child who is sleeping in a beanbag chair.

“Oh, look, you’re all still alive,” Liam says. He’s appeared in the doorway out of thin air.

Ryan and Louie both jump, sitting up straight. At least Ryan’s not the only one who didn’t hear him coming. “We know what you did,” Ryan says.

“Damn.” Liam smiles. “You built an… impact crater? Very creative. Did you play kill the dinosaurs? I thought we were over that, but hey.”

“It’s a hockey rink,” Ryan says flatly and points at the blue lines. Granted, they didn’t have a lot of white bricks, so it looks like someone peed on the ice, but he did his best.

“Uh-huh, great job, boys,” Liam says. He nods at Maja. “I’ll let her mom handle that. Well. Thanks so much, I’ll hire you again for sure.” He nods at Ryan. “Come on, let me give you your payment.”

“We’re getting paid?” Ryan asks and follows Liam into the Hellstroms’ brightly lit and spotlessly clean kitchen. Ella is putting away leftovers from their date. Going by the paper bag, it was the Mexican place in Silver Lakes. “How was dinner?”

“Excellent,” Ella says. “Thank you so much for helping us out, Ryan. Louie wasn’t sure he was qualified.” She smirks at Liam. “But he mentioned you had several nieces.”

Wait . Louie said what? “Um,” Ryan says, “yeah. I have… yeah.” He looks around to find Louie, but he must have stayed in the playroom with Maja. They all sit on a throne of lies.

“Dang, really? I thought he said he didn’t have time?” Liam pretends to be shocked. He’s terrible at it. “Love, you’ll have to carry Maja to bed. She always wakes up when I do it,” Liam tells Ella and pulls a huge container out of the fridge that he hands to Ryan. “Meatballs for you. Enjoy.”

“Oh my God, thank you,” Ryan says. He’s going to eat half of these on the couch at home ten minutes from now.

Liam glares at him. “Since you won’t come over for dinner.”