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CHAPTER SIX

brENNEN

“Motherfucking piece of fucking shit fucking lock.”

The landlord, a.k.a. my dad and uncle, had promised yet again last week to fix the locks in the apartment, but they hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I’d missed my chance to possibly see Ellie naked, which pissed me off.

Except I liked that Ellie’s door kept coming open. He thought I hadn’t noticed him talking to his stuffed animals when he was in there.

As far as I could tell, Ellie didn’t have any other friends.

It didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t connected with anyone during the three years he’d been in school.

Ellie was an introvert and then some, and he rarely spoke first to anyone.

But he was wonderful, and I wanted everyone, except Matty, to understand that.

That asshole had pissed me the fuck off this entire trip. He’d chirped in my ear nonstop about Ellie. Yeah, I wanted Ellie to be happy and find his people, but Matty wasn’t it. Ellie was soft. He was tenderhearted. Matty would chew him up and spit him out.

Unfortunately, he also couldn’t shut the fuck up about how cute Ellie was, which was correct, and that he was so fucking smart, also true.

He made sure to point out that Ellie was one of those guys who didn’t get noticed, but once you had, he wouldn’t leave your thoughts.

I couldn’t tell if Matty was actually interested in Ellie, trying to get under my skin, or both. Likely the last one.

I’d spent most of my off-ice time this trip wondering what Ellie was doing.

Was he getting a proper dinner without me there?

Did he make it to class on time, or did he leave something behind like he always did, if I didn’t grab his stuff for him?

Ellie was a bit on the disorganized side, and he’d get wrapped up in a project or a book and forget to eat.

Never in my life had I paid so much attention to a roommate.

He’d never admit it, but Ellie hated having the lights off in the apartment.

I took that to mean he was scared of the dark.

He hadn’t said he disliked being alone in the apartment, but on the nights I was out late, he always stayed up until I got home.

I would see the light click off from under his door when I came home and locked the door behind me.

When I realized it was messing with his sleep, I started returning earlier so it wouldn’t fuck him up.

I didn’t regret inviting him to come stay with me, but I didn’t know what my problem was when it came to him.

He hadn’t given me any sign he was interested in fooling around.

The Daddy in me wanted to take care of him like a lost bird that had fallen out of the nest. But being gay and in my vicinity didn’t automatically make him interested in me.

I was borderline obsessed to a nearly unhealthy level.

It sure as shit fucked up my time on Manhole because I swiped left on anyone who wasn’t magically Ellie.

None of it mattered now, though, because Ellie was about to come out of his bedroom, sadly not naked, and I could see him for myself. Objectively, two days wasn’t a long time, but these past two had felt like a goddamn eternity.

“Good morning,” Ellie’s soft voice called from the doorway.

I turned around from the stove where I was fussing with the bacon to a fucking vision.

He was dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and a shirt, but his tentative smile was one that he didn’t share with many people. I was one of the lucky ones.

“Hey, you okay? That was a quick run to your room.” Fuck me, I needed to keep my mouth shut because Ellie’s smile dropped.

Fix it, genius. “Sorry, never mind.” No response.

“I fixed your favorite breakfast.” He looked interested.

“C’mere, and I’ll prove I know what it is.

” Ellie stepped and broke into a wide, toothy smile.

“Okay, you got me. That is my favorite.” In the pan was a chocolate chip pancake that was supposed to resemble the shape of a rabbit. “Thanks for making it.”

“I’ve been stuck with crap hotel food and not much of it. We cleared out the vending machine just to get some food that didn’t suck.”

With the food done, I plated our breakfasts and brought them to the table. Ellie perched on the edge of the chair in anticipation. Something settled deep in my chest when he dug in with gusto, devouring what I’d made for him. It fed my suspicion that he hadn’t done much cooking while I’d been gone.

“Are you going to class today?” Ellie asked with a mouthful of food. I squelched the urge to remind him not to talk with food in his mouth. I handed him a glass of juice instead, which he gulped down before shoving more pancake into his mouth.

“My later ones, yes, but I need some sleep or I’ll be fucked at practice this afternoon. You gonna be there?”

“Yep, with my tape and pucks.”

“Cool, cool. We’re going to a team dinner tonight.”

“Oh, okay.” The note of sadness in Ellie’s response shouldn’t flip-flop my stomach, but it did because I never claimed to be a good person. “Okay. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“No, sorry, I want you to come with us.

“Uh, I can’t go.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it’s a team dinner?”

“You’re part of the team.”

“I work in the equipment room.”

“And we’d all be fucked if the equipment wasn’t handled, so that makes you part of the team.” I settled my sparking nerves and forced myself to speak clearly when I added, “Please come with me tonight.”

“You really want me there?” Ellie chewed his bottom lip.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Then I guess I’ll be there.”

Happiness exploded in my chest.

After Ellie left for class, the silence of the apartment was deafening.

When he was gone, it felt a little less warm, a little less bright.

After I cleaned up the kitchen, I wandered into the living room to pick up in there.

As usual, Ellie’s stuff had been dropped and forgotten.

There was the usual spread of shoes, blankets, and coloring books.

The books warranted a closer look. It was puppies and kittens with simple shapes.

He had colored in a few of the pages already, creating polka-dotted puppies and striped kitties.

Although he’d mentioned liking simpler shapes, the coloring still wasn’t what I’d expect from a college junior.

I stacked the coloring books and crayons in a pile to return to his room, along with the rest of his stuff.

Next, I turned to fix the mess of a couch.

When I pulled off the back cushions to straighten them, a bright piece of plastic caught my eye.

Wedged between them was a pacifier. I knew it hadn’t been there before my trip because I repeated this process every morning, including the day I left for the game.

Unless Ellie had suddenly taken to watching adult-sized toddlers, this wasn’t intended for a kid, which meant it belonged to sweet Ellie, who had a menagerie of stuffed animals.

I tossed the pacifier onto the pile of his other stuff. After tidying up the rest of the living room, I gathered everything and went into Ellie’s bedroom. In a surprise to no one, it was a mess. My intention was to drop off his stuff and walk out, but my best-laid plans weren’t on the menu today.

Since I was going to do a load of laundry anyway, the jumbled pile of clothes on the floor grabbed my attention. In an attempt to be helpful, I reached down to snag it so I could add it to my laundry pile. Oh shit.

It was a onesie. A footed onesie. A footed onesie with moose…

mooses—who fucking knew—and foxes on it.

There wasn’t any camo in sight. The prints were of the woodland creature variety and had snaps rather than a zipper.

No question, it was something a little would wear.

Trapped in the onesie was a cloth diaper cover with ducklings on it.

When I set the coloring books, crayons, and pacifier on a relatively clear spot, my eyes landed on an open notebook.

Ellie’s journal. The written words jolted my system as the weight and impact of them sank into my chest. My fingers twitched with the urge to flip through the pages to see more of Ellie’s personal thoughts.

Before I got myself into more trouble, I got the hell out of his room. The urge to look through the rest of his stuff was strong, and I didn’t want to push my luck any further than I already had. I tossed the load of laundry in the washing machine, returned to my room, and flopped onto my bed.

I needed to determine whether I was looking at what was in front of me realistically or if it was wishful thinking on my part.

The coloring books could go either way. Hell, my mom liked to color too.

She didn’t usually pick kitties and puppies, but I’m not sure that made a difference.

The cartoons were the same. I knew plenty of guys who watched cartoons, yeah, some of them were more adult, but cartoons were cartoons.

Rafe, our captain, said he liked the younger kind because they cleared his brain.

Which made the cartoon evidence inconclusive.

The stuffed animals were in the same category. They could go either way, but it felt like a step toward the little side. For the most part, even guys who had a stuffie collection didn’t play with them like Ellie did when he thought I couldn’t hear him. That one went in the little column.

The pacifier? Abso-fucking-lutely in the little category. There was no question at all with that one. And if he had an oral fixation, I’d be more than happy to give him something to suck on.

The onesie could go either way, but the print was definitely on the little side, so I lumped it with the pacifier. But the cloth diaper cover with the ducklings was all little. No notes.