Page 14

CHAPTER 14

JETT

Life was good. Very good.

The Bears had won five in a row, I was on top of my classes, and my recent conversation with a scout had resulted in preliminary talks with the manager of the Coyotes, a Pacific division developmental team. Not the AHL, but I could work my way up.

My pessimistic side reared every so often, warning me not to get too comfy, but then we won a sixth game on the road, I aced my English Lit essay, Randall called to tell me the Wolves wanted to meet me, and Malcolm blew me in the shower. I mean…c’mon.

The only minor issue was my knee. It was…fine, but not totally fine. I massaged it, iced the fuck out of it, and adjusted my cardio workouts to avoid unnecessary strain. It hadn’t slowed me down so far. In fact, I’d scored in four of the past six games and had five assists, too. Not bad.

If you asked me, Malcolm was my lucky charm.

Somehow, he had a calming effect on me. Maybe it was that he wasn’t obsessed with hockey. Everyone I knew was invested in the sport to some degree. My teammates, coaches, and agent obviously, but this whole damn town was hockey crazed too—random classmates, girls with hungry eyes at parties, professors, baristas, and the waitstaff at Bear Depot put me on a pedestal of expectation.

They wanted me to win…for the school, the town, for them. It was a lot of fucking pressure. Most of the time, I didn’t mind it. Some days, I lived for it. But win or lose, after graduation, I knew they’d forget about me. That was reality. Out of sight, out of mind. Even my friends would fade. I’d made hockey my priority to the point that no one knew me for anything else.

For example, Ty didn’t know that I loved Star Trek and low-key wished I was astronaut material. Langley didn’t know that I’d collected baseball cards since I was seven, and Regan didn’t know that I didn’t hate pineapple on pizza because it was disgusting, but because I was deathly allergic.

But Malcolm knew.

“Pineapple. Interesting,” he said, returning the container of pineapple sorbet to the shelf in the freezer section. He chose lemon instead and waited for my thumbs-up before dropping it into my basket. “How old were you when you discovered your allergy?”

“Fifteen. My dad and stepmom got married in Hawaii. I was ambivalent about the wedding, but excited to go somewhere tropical and new. I wanted to surf and snorkel. My brother and sister were coming too, and I hadn’t seen them in a while. It was going to be amazing.”

“But…”

“I ordered a poolside smoothie seconds after checking into the hotel and chomped into the pineapple garnish.” I led us to the next aisle and chose a package of chocolate chip cookies. “Nothing happened right away, but an hour later, I had a rash. It was worse the next morning. My dad thought it was a reaction to the sun, and I was devastated. Everything I wanted to do involved being in the sun. But I took his advice and sat under an umbrella, playing games on my iPad while…sipping smoothies decorated with pineapple.”

Malcolm stopped in his tracks, his mouth a perfect O as he stealthily sneaked a packet of wafers into the basket. “What happened?”

“The rash escalated and by dinner, I could hardly breathe. But I powered through, picking at my dinner and…the piece of pineapple on my plate. That’s when I went into anaphylactic shock and almost ruined the wedding.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it sucked. The trip was a bust. I didn’t feel well until the day of the wedding, and it was nice and all, but…weird.” I pointed at the wafers. “Do you really like those?”

“They’re okay. Layla does, though. She has a deep, abiding love for Jane Austen. She’s read every novel multiple times, has made pilgrimages to places Ms. Austen lived and visited in England, and has developed a taste for tea. And everyone knows that if you’re going to have tea, you need a cookie too.”

I chuckled. “Sounds logical. She’s cool.”

He inclined his chin, pointing at the open kiosk in the self-serve section. “Why was the wedding weird?”

It took me a beat to switch gears. I waited till we’d paid for our junk food and were heading away from campus to reply. “Two people with kids merging in one happy family unit without drama is a fairy tale. Everyone has issues from the previous marriage, and now what? You just power on and act like you’re all happy to start over? Nice try. Long story short, my brother Breck is an overachiever like our dad, but they clash. And Tatum has a hard time dealing with change. She spent her week in Hawaii reading in her hotel room. She didn’t want new siblings or a new mom. She wanted our real mom to sober up so we could be the happy family we never were.”

“And you?”

I nodded at the guy yelling, “Go Bears” from the crosswalk, and grunted. “I didn’t care. I just wanted to play hockey.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. Not by a long shot, and Malcolm probably knew it. But he didn’t press or call bullshit. He let it go.

I liked that about him. We could share pieces of our pasts like odd-shaped rocks we’d found at the beach, put them into our pockets, and move on. It didn’t feel heavy or strange.

Maybe I was slow, but it didn’t occur to me till after we’d rolled around naked in my bed for an hour or so that I was the one doing all the sharing. That wasn’t Malcolm being secretive either. That was me cluing in that I wasn’t in the habit of asking about other people’s lives.

Or…more accurately, I wasn’t in the habit of letting anyone in.

But Malcolm was already in. I wondered how that had happened so fast.

I flung my leg over his and set a hand on his bare hip. “What about you?”

“What about me?” he countered.

“Tell me something I don’t know. How did your family react when you came out?”

Malcolm pulled his glasses off and cleaned them on the edge of the sheet. “I don’t think I’ve ever officially come out. My sexuality isn’t important to them.”

I frowned. “They’ve never asked if you’ve met someone or if it’s serious? Have you ever brought anyone home?”

“No, they wouldn’t ask intrusive questions, and I’ve never brought anyone home. I’ve never had anyone to bring home.”

“No boyfriends.”

He snickered. “Not the kind I’d introduce to my family.”

A spark of jealousy hit me out of the blue. Whoa .

“Oh. So…they know and accept you without any conversation at all.”

“Correct,” he confirmed.

“Haven’t you ever had an awkward, ‘Sorry, I bat for the other team’ moment with a cute girl making goo-goo eyes at you?”

Malcolm gave a wry smile. “I can’t recall, but…that’s not my definition of awkward.”

“I’ll bite. What’s your definition?”

“Being unprepared for a lecture, doing poorly on a test because I studied the wrong chapter?—”

I huffed in disbelief. “Have any of those things ever happened?”

“No, but if they did, it would be awkward.”

I busted up. “Try again. Everyone has an awkward moment. Gimme something.”

“All right. Um…I walked in on Layla and her ex-girlfriend kissing. I embarrassed them, and that was awkward. And if you were to count the many times I’ve tripped or fumbled whilst in a state of agitation, I suppose that was awkward. But those instances are based on action. Something done rather than something that simply is. I’m gay. That’s not awkward, it just is. I’m not responsible for anyone’s opinion of me. If they feel awkward because they thought I was someone I’m not, that would be their problem, not mine.”

Okay, maybe that was Self-love Wisdom 101, but at that moment, it felt like the inspirational speech I’d needed to hear.

I took a good long look at the man in my bed continuing his version of embarrassing faux pas —the time he put dog treats into his back pocket and got bitten in the butt by the family mutt, the time he attempted to bake medicinal brownies and added too much weed—and all I could think was, Damn, he’s so fucking brave, so damn cool.

Malcolm knew himself and accepted the parts of him that were different from others. He didn’t waste energy or time on unnecessary static.

God, I wished I were more like him.

I linked our fingers, unthinking, and kissed his knuckles. He paused midsentence, eyes alight with curiosity.

“I like you, Maloney.” I nipped his thumb to avoid any mushy confessions, adding, “Rewind and give me the deets on those pot brownies.”

He groaned but gamely launched into Layla’s hysterical account of Malcolm dancing on the coffee table, drawing “tattoos” of bunnies on his arms, and laughing till tears ran down his face.

I chuckled and shared a few college exploits of my own.

We stayed like that for a long while as shadows lengthened in the room and late afternoon sun gave way to twilight. Neither of us mentioned hockey, his thesis, or the future. We didn’t even talk about sex or try to start round two. We just…hung out, naked in bed on a random Wednesday, sharing snippets of ourselves.

Maybe this was going to sound a little sappy, but it was one of the best days I’d had all year.