Page 15 of Forbidden Hockey

“You and Hunter?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “No. I’ll have the same problem in a few months. I need my own room. Somewhere I can … fuck, I sleep with the lights on, okay? Can you fall asleep with the damn light on, Dirk? Can you?” His voice is all shrill as if maybe the lack of quality sleep he’s losing, sleeping with lights on, is driving him to the brink of his sanity.

I know he needs this; I want him to have it, but he’s not ready. Fucking Trav, letting Dash talk him into this. When it comes to Dash’s well-being, he doesn’t barter, but for everything else Dash-related, Trav’s a huge pushover.

“If you’re moving, I’m moving with you.”

“How you gonna swing that one?” He raises a skeptical brow.

In other words, how am I gonna get it by Hunter? But the way I see it, there’s not really a reason for him to disapprove. We’ll be playing for the Vancouver Orca’s farm team, the Kelowna Wildcats, this season, so I’ll have to move out by September anyway. What’s two months living in a different house? It’s not like Hunter will be all that far away.

“I’m nineteen. I’m an adult now. My brother doesn’t control my life anymore,” I say as a thousand nerves run through me. Hunter’s approval is important to me, no matter how cocky I try to be about it. And also, he kind of does control my life a little bit.

Dash smirks because somehow the brat in him survived his ordeal. “Can I be there when you ask him?”

I shove him. “Fuck off.”

“Bet your palms are sweaty just thinking about it.”

No, they’re?—

Okay, maybe a bit. But damn, if it isn’t nice to see this kind of light in his eyes again. I don’t mind being the butt of his jokes.

Trav walks into the bar from the kitchen, but he’s not alone. Lana, who’s always way too fucking handsy with him—if you ask me, but no one did—follows, smiling like he hung the moon. I glare, but then remember where I am. My head snaps to Dash to see if he saw that slip, but he’s already gone, has already planted his ass at the bar.

I roll my eyes. He and Stace are so fucking obvious.

But with him occupied, I can stare, torture myself with the sight of his hands on her.Did it have to be in the middle of the fucking day, Travis?You only fuck people you like in the middleof the day. I try to set them both on fire with my eyes. It doesn’t work. It backfires, catastrophically, because Trav’s eyes flick up, landing on me, and I swear to fucking god I’m gonna incinerate. I forget how to breathe.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Now who’s obvious?

There’s a fire in my throat as I think about all the conceivable ways I can hide my identity and start a new life, because there’s no way Trav can’t read a look like the one I just gave him.

I snatch up as many glasses as possible and hightail it through the kitchen door, bound for the dish pit. That means flying past him and Lana, so I keep my eyes straight ahead. I load the dishes into the racks, my heart racing, trying to come up with an acceptable excuse for my behavior.

I … I don’t like Lana. Yeah.Yeah!It would make sense, except for the fact that I know how sweet she is, and kind, and fun. She’s a registered wildlife rehabilitator, which makes her perfect for Trav, but terrible for my lie. She was a regular before they started seeing each other. Apparently, animals find her like she’s fucking Snow White, and she nurses them back to health.

No, that’s not gonna work.

Instead of racking the glasses as fast as I can, I take my time, reminding myself how fucking inappropriate it is for me to have the thoughts I have. What are they anyway? Nothing, that’s what. Trav is smoking hot. I’m a healthy nineteen-year-old dude. Of course, I find him attractive.

You also find a lot of other guys attractive, but you don’t get fucking territorial when other people touch them.

Yeah, okay, there’s that.

I can’t figure it out, though. Why do I feel this way? Is it normal? A phase? Trav’s not even into men. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve only ever seen him with women. This whole thing’sfucked, and there’s no one I can ask about it, because no way am I asking Dash about his dad. Hunter would flip out.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I try—for the hundredth time—to erase the ache in my heart and the pain in my groin. Both are worse when I see him with someone. I have to get over it, though. Trav’s thirty-nine. He could be my dad—not that Ieverthink about him that way. He’s somehow a good friend to me, every bit as much as Dash is. Like hell will I make things weird between us.

At home—where, no, I did not allow Dash to follow—I stare in the mirror while I talk myself into heading out to the living room to have the conversation with Hunter. I’ve grown. I’m not a skinny little boy anymore. I’ve put on a nice amount of size because of hockey and workouts, but then there’s the fact that I keep my hair a little shorter than the rest of my hockey brethren because I know Hunter finds it more respectable. He’ll flat-out order me to cut it when it’s too long by his standards, and he’s sick of looking at it.

Hunter’s not even a strait-laced kind of guy. He’s a gruff construction man at heart, no matter how many promotions he gets, but different rules apply to me. I’m supposed to be the poster child for families with white picket fences, even though Hunter and I are anything but.