Page 26 of One-Touch Pass (SCU Hockey #4)

Marcos

I’m standing in line for the coffee cart when I hear my name being called.

Wearily, I turn around and try to drum up a smile for Nate, who’s jogging toward me across the lawn.

This hasn’t been a great week for me, after having to cancel my therapy session because of a baseball game that got rescheduled.

Not to mention, feeling like shit for how my date with Nate ended last weekend.

Every time I feel like I’m getting better—getting back to normal—I set myself back by worrying about someone touching me.

The fact that I wanted Nate to touch me made the whole thing even more infuriating.

Why the fuck can’t I just let myself relax? Be normal?

“Marcos! Hey,” Nate greets me, smiling widely as he comes to a stop so close to me his chest brushes my arm. I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt, thank God. I think if someone touched me today, I’d faint.

“Hi.” I try a smile on for size again, and find it comes a little easier now that he’s here.

He’s just so perfect . It seems incredible that eyes could come in that color; even more incredible to be paired with those cheekbones and that lovely brown hair.

And as if he wasn’t already blessed enough, he’s patient and generous and accepting. He shouldn’t even be real.

“How are you?” He peers at me. “Are you okay?”

Not particularly. I feel like all the steps forward I took over the summer weren’t steps at all.

I thought I’d made progress by miles, and now I’m realizing it was little more than inches.

My body itches with the desire to touch him, and be touched in return.

My brain, on the other hand, only seems to function in the realm of what might go wrong.

The fact that I’d been doing fine being alone up until now—until Nate—annoys the shit out of me.

Unfairly, some of that annoyance is aimed his direction.

“I’m fine,” I say shortly, not in the mood to explain.

My shoulders are tight and there’s a slight tension headache forming between my eyes.

Nate reaches out, and I yank my arm away before he can make contact.

Long sleeves or no, I can’t today. The hurt that flashes across his face before he’s able to disguise it makes my chest burn with shame. I don’t want to be like this anymore.

“You sure?” he asks. I sigh and try to unknot my muscles a little bit. I’m too edgy, and there is no fucking reason for it. It’s Nate .

“Just not having a great day. Sorry. How are you?”

“Oh, fine,” he says flippantly, waving the question away and staring intently at me. It’s a searching sort of look. The kind of look Max will often aim my direction when he knows I’m being loose with the truth. I wait, knowing that Nate will fill any silences I leave. “I had fun on Saturday.”

I smile. “So did I. ”

“I can tell, since you’ve been so eager to go out with me again,” he teases, but can’t fully hide the wariness in his tone.

“Sorry, I just…” I trail off and look away from him, unable to think of a suitable excuse when I’m staring directly into his eyes.

Sometimes, I feel like I don’t deserve to let myself relax.

That what happened to Max was my fault, and maybe the fact touch bothers me so much is exactly what I deserve.

Why should I get a chance to be happy when I’ve caused so much unhappiness to someone I love?

“Sorry,” I repeat, unable to say much else. A little bit of hurt remains in his eyes, but is mostly outweighed by the concern. I’m not sure which one pains me more.

He opens his mouth to reply, but is distracted by his name being called. Turning, he raises a hand in greeting and I take a small step away from him. By the time he turns back around, I’ve put several feet of distance between us. He frowns when he notices.

“I’ll call you tonight, yeah?” he asks, annoyance briefly crossing his face when his friend calls his name again. He turns around. “Just a second, man, fuck!”

“Sure,” I agree when he swings back around and faces me. His fingers are clenched tightly around the strap of his backpack, and there’s an almost frantic light to his eyes.

“You’ll answer when I call, right?” he presses, smiling like it’s a joke but unable to make it wholly convincing.

“I’ll answer,” I promise.

We head off in opposite directions. Glancing over my shoulder, I look at his retreating back and feel disgusted with myself.

We had an incredible date over the weekend, and I’m pretty sure I’ve just gone and ruined it by being unreachable and rude.

It didn’t use to be my default state, but more and more these past couple of years I’ve found myself unable to be any other way.

I don’t know how Max managed to trust Luke enough to let him in.

He’s a lot braver of a person than I am.

At the end of the day, I’m feeling no better.

Changing into my practice uniform in the locker room is mortifyingly nerve-wracking, as I desperately try and change as fast as I can.

Vince, whose locker is right next to mine, has no concept of staying in his own bubble and is constantly bumping his bare arm or back into me.

I can handle it most days, but today is just not one of them.

I feel like I’m being electrocuted every time he touches me.

By the time I’m tying the laces on my cleats, my breaths are coming in short, panicked bursts, and my vision is dangerously blurred.

The moment I leave the lockers and step on to the field, I feel loads better. Tipping my head back, I take a couple measured breaths and will my anxiety medication to kick in.

“Marcos the Grouch,” a happy voice says from behind me. I groan.

“Go away, Luke.”

I open my eyes to look at him. He steps up beside me, carefully keeping a foot of distance between us. He knows not to touch me, and thankfully doesn’t make the attempt today.

“How’re things?” he asks, grinning and adjusting the brim of his baseball cap.

“I’m ready for this day to end,” I admit.

“Same, but more because that means I get to go to your place and?—”

“Luke,” I cut him off firmly.

Snorting, he finishes with his hat and brings one arm across his chest to stretch. Stepping in front of me so he can look me in the eyes, he adopts a more serious tone .

“Seriously. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing in particular.” I shrug, immediately resorting to my old standby of avoidance.

Luke just waits, stretching his other arm and watching me.

I frown. He’s been spending way too much time with Max, and now he knows me way better than I would like him to.

“I’m just annoyed, because apparently today is the day my anxiety medication decided to not treat anxiety. ”

“That bad?” I shrug again, turning my face away from the pity on his. After a second, he offers a distraction. “Maxy said you’ve got designs on a hockey player.”

I roll my eyes. “Max needs to stop talking to you.”

“I’m going to assume you don’t want to hear my joke about the correlation between the size of the man’s hockey stick and his?—”

“I cannot fucking talk to you.”

He laughs as I walk away from him and over to the fence to stretch. Oddly, I do feel a little better, although I’ll never admit it to him. I’ve spent so long giving Luke a hard time, if I start being nice now, he’ll really start to think something is wrong with me.

I relax further as practice gets underway, and even manage to forget about Nate for a couple hours.

Luke spends the entire afternoon finding excuses to talk to me—shouting and winking at me from across the field, and generally giving me a lot of reasons to scowl at him.

He’s being supportive in the best way he knows how, and I’m appreciative of it even though I could do without the flirting.

“You’re not so bad,” I tell him grudgingly as we walk together toward our cars. He gasps theatrically.

“I love this for us,” he says, bumping his shoulder against mine and earning another scowl. He laughs. “It’s funny that half of Max’s friends are so fucking grouchy.”

“I’m not grouchy ,” I argue, even though I am.

“Sure,” he agrees. “See you at home?”

I nod. Luke and Max have both gotten in the habit of referring to our apartment as “home,” even though Luke doesn’t technically live with us.

At this point, we might as well add him to the lease and move him into Max’s room.

It’s not as though he spends any time at his actual home anyway.

His roommates have likely forgotten what he looks like.

“Yeah, Luke. See you at home.”

He beams at me, as though hearing the unspoken welcome in that sentence.

Sliding into my car and clipping my seat belt into place, I drum my fingers idly on the wheel.

When Luke waves at me from his old beater on his way out of the lot, I come to a decision and reach for my phone.

Max hasn’t let what happened sophomore year hold him back.

He’s been working hard and putting in the steps to heal and move on. It’s time I did the same.

Marcos

I just finished practice, on the way home now. Is it cool if I call you in about an hour?

Nate

For you, lovely, I’m available any time.

There’s always been something of an unspoken agreement between me and Max about his hockey games.

Not being big on socialization, I don’t go to many of his games in person.

I do, however, watch all of them online.

Max, whose schedule is a little more demanding, makes it to even fewer of my own games, but prefers to come in person.

In his opinion, watching baseball on television is enough to put even an insomniac to sleep.