Page 4

Chapter 4

“You’re looking a little pale this morning,” Bryan observed wryly as they rounded a turn in Forest Park.

His brother would know, because nobody else knew him as well as Bryan and Bryan was also a doctor. Admittedly, he specialized in pediatrics and children didn’t tend to get hangovers from a bottle and a half of red wine, but still. He’d know.

Since Jacob had retired, Monday mornings were their running time. Usually they tried to make it twice more during the week, though that day changed depending on Bryan’s schedule. Not just with his work, but his family.

Jacob had two small, very adorable nieces, Jacqueline and Krista, who had yet to get the memo that their uncle was not very cool.

“I got a little carried away with this cab sauv. A really delicious smoky fruit. You’d have liked it, but unfortunately I drank the whole goddamn bottle,” Jacob admitted.

“That’s not like you.”

Jacob had debated whether he’d tell his brother about the late-night visitor who had systematically demolished a few of his walls—and seemed hell-bent on destroying some more in the weeks and months to come.

You really need to stop worrying I’m going to seduce you.

If Finn had any inkling how laughably easy it might’ve been, maybe he would’ve proposed that exchange.

Sex for coaching.

But Jacob knew he’d never have taken the offer, even if he wanted to.

Things were complicated enough between him and anyone with Reynolds as a last name without adding fucking to the equation.

“I had someone show up last night. At the house.”

Bryan glanced over at him. “A hookup? Good. You need—”

Jacob interrupted him because that was the last thing he wanted to hear. Especially not right now when he was trying to focus on not saying fuck it and just taking it. “No. Not a hookup. Uh . . .Finn Reynolds. That’s who showed up.”

Bryan did a double take. “Not . . .well, that’s awkward.”

“Yep. Morgan’s son. He’s a goalie for the local college’s hockey team. Really pretty decent goalie, I think.”

“You think?” Bryan’s question seemed innocent enough, but Jacob knew better.

“I might’ve watched him a bit,” Jacob conceded, breath coming out in faster pants. “Mostly out of curiosity. And then we ran into each other when I went to their fundraiser a few weeks back.”

“Mostly?”

It was annoying how Bryan always knew what he wasn’t saying.

“He’s not a child, you know. I’m not—I wouldn’t—I don’t .”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything .” Bryan threw his arms up in mock innocence as they took another turn, moving deeper into the forest.

Jacob had set a bit of a punishing pace—the reason he wasn’t going to touch with a ten-foot pole—but Bryan seemed to be keeping up just fine. He might’ve not had a career as a professional athlete, but he’d kept himself fit.

“He’s twenty-one, and besides, it’s not like that.”

“Yeah, ’cause Morgan would murder you. Might murder you, anyway, frankly, but this would only add more fuel to the fire.”

“I can’t imagine Finn telling him,” Jacob said. “Even about the coaching.”

“So that’s what he wanted, huh? Not to get into your pants, but to get into your mind?” Bryan snorted.

“Something like that.”

“And you’re going to do it.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Well . . .” He’d said he would. Even though he’d said no initially, he did want to help Finn with all the demons plaguing him, despite all the very good reasons not to. And then there was the fact that Finn could also help him .

A fact he might not have even considered except that he’d only been in his hot tub, drinking wine because the meeting with Sophie and Mark had frustrated him so much. Maybe Finn wasn’t an expert on image, but he could give Jacob a different perspective.

“You’re going to do it,” Bryan repeated, this time with a smile tilting the side of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Well, God help you,” Bryan teased.

“I know,” Jacob grumbled. He pushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “Except I don’t know how to be a fucking coach. I don’t know how to teach him how to not give a shit about his dad.”

“Let me guess—he came to you because his impression of the situation is that Morgan was always bothered by you, but you didn’t give a crap about Morgan.”

Jacob nodded.

“Well, that’ll be an interesting conversation.”

“It’s not that I was bothered by Morgan.”

“No, but we both know it was more complicated than that. Maybe the world didn’t know about it because you didn’t spout off about the dickhead every chance you got, but he bothered you.”

And there it was, in a nutshell.

“I can teach him to block out noise, though. I can teach him to be a good—a great— goalie.”

“That you can, little brother.” Bryan patted him on the shoulder. “But I bet I can still take you down today.” He gestured to the top of the hill they were heading towards and then took the fuck off, finding a new gear.

Jacob made an outraged noise and pushed his legs harder, faster, lungs bellowing.

They raced up the side of the gently rolling hill, and by the time they got to the top, he was breathing hard and his legs were burning, but he felt better, too, like he’d sweated out the last vestiges of the wine.

“I hate it when you’re right,” Jacob told his brother when he’d finally caught his breath.

“Hey, it was to your benefit, too,” Bryan teased. “So you’re really going to do this and not tell Morgan.”

“If he’d even take my call—”

Bryan interrupted him. “He’s going to find out. And then he’s going to be really, really pissed.”

“Why?” Jacob asked even though he knew exactly why Morgan might be pissed. “It’s not like he can teach Finn how to be a better goalie. And he’s Morgan so he’ll want his son to be the best. Even if that means I’m involved.”

“So you do want to tell him.”

“No.” Jacob let out a hard breath. “Because he’ll assume . . .because we all know what he’ll assume, and it won’t be that far from the truth, probably.”

“That far, huh?” Bryan teased.

“It’s not going to happen. There’s a line I won’t be crossing. A line I won’t let him cross.”

“You told him that?”

“Yes,” Jacob said. Sighed. “I’m gonna have to find a better coping mechanism than a bottle of wine, though.”

“Hard running, that’ll do it,” Bryan suggested, a light in his eyes. “Trust me, I know.”

He and his ex-wife Marlena had gotten divorced five years ago, when she’d taken a once-in-a-lifetime job working at a brain injury study clinic in Switzerland. Their marriage had been over before that, but when Marlena had decided to move, taking the job, they’d agreed to co-parent, only.

And Bryan, with the primary custody of Jacqueline and Krista, found himself a single parent with not much time or energy to devote to dating. It didn’t matter that he was bi and would’ve been happy with either sex. Even though the reasons for his dry spell were different than Jacob’s, they’d both found themselves in the same position. Single. Alone. Sexless.

“I keep thinking, I come out, and maybe I’ll finally find a guy who’s willing to put up with me for more than just a night,” Jacob said.

“But you’re not really making much progress on that,” Bryan guessed.

“Nope. I get Sophie and Mark’s hesitancy, I do, but it’s driving me crazy now. I’ve . . .I’m ready. And I feel like now that I’m finally there, they keep throwing up roadblocks.”

“They trying to keep you in the closet?”

“The opposite.” Jacob hesitated. Wiped his face down. Pulled a water bottle out of the light pack he wore. “They keep putting together crazier and crazier coming out plans. And I wondered, is that why all their suggestions suck? Are they trying to hold me back?”

“Holding you back is still holding you back.”

“Well, I’m going to be getting a different perspective on the whole thing,” Jacob said wryly.

“Let me guess—that’s what Finn’s going to be giving you. Not his dick.”

“Not his dick,” Jacob agreed. He ignored the pulse of disappointment and instead said, “Race you to the bottom?”

Bryan groaned, but the moment Jacob took off, he was hot on his heels.

“Where you off to in such a hurry?”

Finn had hoped he’d be able to slip off unnoticed at the end of the team’s weight room session.

Jacob had texted him around noon and said to come to his place again at seven-thirty.

Their weight room session was supposed to last until then, but Finn figured if he took it a bit easy and ducked out five or so minutes early nobody would notice.

But of course Ramsey noticed.

There wasn’t anything Ramsey wasn’t aware of.

Including him sneaking out, apparently.

At least Finn believed that Ramsey cornered him in the hallway outside the weight room, duffel bag on his arm, sweatshirt hood pulled up over his head.

“Uh . . .just have something I gotta handle,” Finn said. Not meeting Ramsey’s eyes, because that piercing light blue saw and cataloged everything.

Some of their teammates—even teammates who’d played with the guy for years—still stupidly thought he was just some pretty boy player, out for a good time. But Finn had long since suspected that was just a front Ramsey put on so nobody would see what he was really doing.

What was he really doing? Well, Finn wasn’t sure , but he was fairly convinced Ramsey just liked organizing everything and everyone around him. Making sure it worked the “right” way. AKA the way Ramsey wanted it to. And since Ramsey also seemed to understand what people fundamentally needed—not even necessarily what they wanted—those scenarios were ones everyone usually ended up happy with.

Ramsey had set up Brody and Dean, Brody’s football-playing boyfriend, as roommates, thinking, Finn was fairly certain, that they’d find their way into the same bed.

He’d gently pushed and prodded Elliott to see past the frozen, unyielding walls Malcom had put up, until they too had ended up happy together.

“What do you need to handle?” Ramsey asked casually.

But nothing with Ramsey was casual. Finn had figured that out. If Ramsey didn’t think he saw through his little stunts with foosball and all the other things he did to try to put Finn’s mind at ease, well . . .

Finn would’ve called him out on it ages ago, but the problem was that they worked . Even when Finn knew exactly what Ramsey was up to, they worked. Not always, and not as a long-term solution, but well enough that he’d manage not to implode this season. Yet .

“Just a thing,” Finn said evasively.

“A hockey thing?”

Finn made a face. “Not everything is your business, Ramsey.”

But Ramsey just shrugged, like they both weren’t very aware of the fact he thought differently.

“Just curious. You seem like you’re heading somewhere in a hurry. Kind of like a few days ago, when you raced off from drag brunch at Darcelle’s.”

Fucking Elliott and his huge ass mouth.

“I didn’t—”

“You sure did.” Ramsey’s tone firmed. He was always so relaxed and easygoing until he revealed that he was all steel underneath. It was easy to forget he’d been a foster kid, who’d been forced to make his own way in the world.

But Finn, who’d been forged in a different kind of fire, but still a fire, always remembered.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?” Ramsey asked.

So I can fix it , was the unspoken end of Ramsey’s question.

But Finn didn’t need Ramsey’s fixes. He needed to figure it out on his own, and he’d taken steps to do that.

“No,” Finn said bluntly.

Ramsey made a face. “Are you really gonna be like that?”

“Are you really gonna be this fucking pushy?” Finn wanted to know.

“Hey, we’re on the same side here. I just . . .I’m worried about you.” Ramsey reached out and gripped his arm reassuringly. He meant it. That was Ramsey’s magic; he wanted better for you than sometimes you even wanted for yourself. Reached higher than you’d ever dream to climb.

But not Finn. Not this time.

“You don’t need to be, not anymore.” Finn remembered what Jacob had said about him just last night.

We gotta find that confidence on the ice.

They would. Together. Finn felt sure of it. He could already see the end of this agony, and he’d never been as ready as he was right now to put it all behind him.

No matter the cost. Whatever it ended up being, he’d pay it, willingly.

“What are you doing?” Ramsey asked again. Like phrasing it differently would give him an answer this time.

“What I have to do,” Finn said and turned and walked off.

Finn wasn’t stupid enough to think the conversation was permanently over, but at least Ramsey didn’t follow him.

It was about a fifteen-minute drive over the winding West Hills to get to Jacob’s house.

He hadn’t known what to expect last night when he’d come here, but this remote home, set way back from the road, its jagged but graceful peaks looking like it belonged in the forest where it sat, was not what he’d imagined.

It had been a good reminder then—and was still a good reminder now—that he didn’t know Jacob Braun all that well.

Most of what he’d learned about the man was reading between the lines of what his dad said about him, not from the half a dozen times he’d met the man in person over the years.

Finn parked his SUV, grabbed his bag, and made his way to the house.

This time when he knocked on the front door, it opened immediately, like Jacob had been waiting for him.

Something fizzed inside him at that thought, but Finn shoved the thought away.

He wasn’t here to seduce or be seduced.

He was here to become the best version of himself.