Page 17 of Little Treat

“You’ve got to be on a regime yourself,” I said. “You work around chocolate. If I was doing that, I’d be—well, different.”

“I grew up around the stuff, and my folks always let me have whatever I wanted. Guess being the youngest also made them a little more lax with the whole indulging thing. I did, a couple of times, and I paid the price, throwing up and just not having an all-around good time because of it,” he said. “It’s all about moderation, right?”

“Moderation,” I repeated, reaching out for my cup and pushing him along for the ride since he was still clinging to me. “Thank you.” I pulled the mug to my face and immediately got an upper lip of cream in my moustache.

“Don’t thank me, I didn’t make it,” he giggled. “But I’ll accept it anyway.”

It had been so long since I’d been away from it all, and for once my thoughts weren’t constantly around all the players touting new protein shakes and pre-workout mixes. It was everywhere, all the time, and I probably also wanted to cling to some of my youth by trying them all out. Jamie was teaching me something differently now, though. He was teaching me that I didn’t want to be young again, I wanted to be free, and I should probably start byoutingmyself.

“Oh, also, the reason I’m kinda pushing you to finish your cocoa...” Jamie said with a mumble I almost didn’t hear.

“Yeah?”

“I texted my folks that you don’t have Christmas dinner plans, and they want you to come over,” he said. I opened my mouth to speak, but he continued. “I already told them you would, and I really hope you will, because you’ll be saving me.”

Placing my mug back and licking my moustache clean, I briefly collected my thoughts. “If it means saving you, I suppose I can’t say no now.”

“Would you have even said no if I’d asked?” He batted his lashes at me, like I would forget the question. “I was going to ask you earlier, remember, when I said you were doing a bad job at having alone time here.”

“I remember,” I said. “And I assumed you might’ve asked me then, and I’d actually thought about, kinda hoped you wouldn’t bring it up again since I hadn’t decided on what I wanted to do.”

His smile dropped for a second. “Oh.”

“But if you’d asked me when we arrived at the suite, I would’ve said, I’d love to spend it with you,” I told him. “And I hope we have some kind of reciprocal relationship going on.”

That big pearly white smile returned, alongside two rosy pinched cheeks highlighting his freckles. “Are you saying I owe you, Daddy?”

“Oh, big time, but it’ll be mostly making sure your folks don’t keep asking me about the players,” I told him. “I am still trying to get away from work, right? Probably isn’t good if Daddy goes back to work even more stressed.”

“I know some stress relief techniques,” he said, his hand snaking under the duvet and grabbing at my sleeping cock. But little did he know, just one touch was all it took to wake it.

***

I hadn’t planned on being around anyone for Christmas Day, and now I was going to be in a house full of Maple Kings fans. I knew they’d would questions—I knew they would all want me to pass messages along—and I needed to figure out the best way to tell themnowithout hurting their feelings.

In the couple of days leading up to Christmas, I’d spent every evening with Jamie. We went to the restaurant in town, had lunches in the cafe, and even took selfies together. It was the first time I’d taken a picture and not been surrounded by the entire team.

The final thing I had to do was buy gifts. They probably weren’t expecting it, but I couldn’t show up empty-handed, especially since they all knew what I did and how much money they thought I made—and sure, it was a lot, but it had so far come with sacrifices.

Jamie worked his regular hours, meaning I had plenty of time to do the relaxation thing—and I found it so completely boring, my brain didn’t know how to shut up, which was fine, because it was currently only thinking about Jamie and how I didn’t want things to end when I left. I didn’t want to leave this place. It had been an experience that had fulfilled me in so many ways, and I didn’t want to close that off the moment I was on the road again. Icouldn’tgo back to that.

If there was one thing I could count on, it was overnight online shopping. I couldn’t find what I wanted to get Jamie, but I knew I wanted to get him something special. It might’ve come across a little bit intense, considering thisthingwe had going on was only a couple of days fresh—I’d worn underwear longer than we’d been seeing each other.

On Christmas Eve, Jamie had gone home to wake up in the magic of his childhood bedroom—his words. I’d been curious, but not enough to press him about it. I wasn’t trying not to spend too much time there—his father had given me the type of glare you get from a player’s parent, especially when all the NHL channels were reporting on them as being the next big thing.

I woke up alone with air conditioning on blast, turning my room into an icy den. I cuddled myself under the blankets,and as I wiggled around, something touched my foot. It was Jamie’s underwear. He must’ve wiggled out of it and left it for me to find. It was a nice gift to wake up to.

The gift was shortly followed by a call from my mom. She was having the time of her life on a cruise around Asia. It was almost the evening there and she’d sent me photos of her Christmas dinner—which didn’t resemble anything like what we’d had when I was growing up—and alongside it some very boozyMerry Christmasmessages, all misspelled, each one sent to me trying to correct herself.

My mom was a diamond, truly. She’d split with my father when I was younger, and when I turned twenty, just as the scouts were circling me, she found someone new, a woman. It was powerful, but made me panic, so I sidestepped from her for a couple of years—an awful decision, which I’d more than made up for tenfold. I was the one footing the bill for the cruise for her and her partner Joan. They were couple goals.

I sent her a voice message.

“Missing you. Whenever you’re in the state, you know I’ve got tickets for you and Joan,” I said. “And I hope you’re having a great day—or evening now. Merry Christmas. Love you.”

She responded almost immediately with some heart emojis and a picture of herself and Joan as they sat on this boat with fireworks in the background and wine glasses in hand. I envied their love, knowing one day I’d find a love like it.

Maybe I already had.