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KAYDEN

L ook, I never once felt the need to explain myself until Erik De Ruiter walked into my life.

Love. Love . It’s just a word. Just one syllable for god’s sake!

Oh yeah, girls have told me they loved me.

I didn’t say it back to them either. They made a big deal out of it, but we never got into some ridiculous argument.

This time, I did get into a ridiculous argument with Erik.

That alone should’ve told him he was special.

Okay, that totally came out wrong. I’m just saying that unlike my past girlfriends, I was at least willing to tell him why. I opened up to him.

But he still didn’t get it.

Call me a pig. I don’t care. I’m a hockey player and don’t sit around thinking about my feelings. Sorry if I thought Erik was the same. Either way, I knew I hadn’t heard the end of it.

The ice before practice begins offers us a special kind of alone time. We both zipped up and down the rink, taking shots at empty nets before meeting at center ice.

God, he was gorgeous. I had no problem telling him that, and he smiled like it was way too flattering. And I did feel more powerfully about him than anyone I’d ever been with. Putting it into words was another matter, though.

We kissed, mostly because I wanted to squeeze in whatever physical contact I could before the guys arrived.

Something about throwing my arms around Erik on the ice with all our equipment on appealed to me too.

I totally would’ve pushed him to fuck on the ice if it wouldn’t have left frostbite on our asses.

Anyway, our argument about the L-word had stuck in my mind. I hadn’t stopped thinking about it and wanted to clear the air and, I’m the kind of guy to come right out and say what’s on my mind.

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” I said. “You know that, right?”

Erik paused, and drew a deep breath, like he needed time to sugarcoat a way to say, “ No, I don’t, actually .”

“Come on, bro. You’re killing me.”

“It’s not that hard, Kayden. You just say it. I love you. See? I just did it.”

“I get what you’re saying, but?—”

“I love you. There, I just did it again. I might lose control of myself with all this love in my heart.”

“Look, if you could just?—”

“I love you. I looooove you. A thousand times, I love you!! ”

“Jesus, dude, can you get through a simple conversation without acting like an ass?”

“I will if you will.”

I stopped and smirked at him. Maybe I should’ve known better than to attempt a serious conversation with him. That’s on me, I guess.

I fired a few pucks down the ice, the cracking sound reverberating throughout the empty arena. They bounced off the boards. I wanted to tell my boyfriend that I was now too distracted to make accurate shots but knew better.

“Saying something is easy enough if you don’t really mean it.” I regretted those words instantly.

“You’re not saying you wouldn’t really mean it, are you?”

“No way. I’m just saying that when people throw those three little words around, they might not be pulsing with emotion. It’s just something they’re saying. You know, like an obligation.”

Erik stopped. I judged from his pursed lips and stern expression that he was considering it. He had to know I had a point, even if he was too much of a hard-headed Canadian to realize it.

“So, you’re saying that you would only ever say it out of obligation?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”

“I didn’t say it would be out of obligation, bro. I’m just saying that some people don’t put enough feeling into the things they say. I want to make sure every last thing that comes out of my mouth means something.”

That was the truth, but it would never satisfy him. I revisited my thoughts about whether they put something in the water in Ontario to make him so ridiculous.

He fired a puck at the net, and it landed. Not bad for shooting from so far out. But I knew he wasn’t doing it just for practice. He got like that when frustrated, and the source was no mystery.

“I can say it if you want me to,” I said. “You know, if it’ll make you feel better and it’ll put the argument to rest. It’s not like my tongue’s gonna fall out. I lo?—"

“Are you ashamed of us?”

That one stopped me cold in my tracks. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can read minds. I really didn’t like the direction of this conversation. Not that I regretted bringing it up, but I totally had misgivings over letting things get out of hand.

“I’m not ashamed of us.” I spoke through gritted teeth. Even I knew how defensive I sounded.

“Oh no? If you weren’t, then you would’ve let us come out to everyone by now. And a simple I love you wouldn’t be such a monumental achievement.”

“Oh my freaking god, dude.”

“And we wouldn’t be having yet another argument about this.”

I balled my hands into fists and squeezed. He would drive me crazy before we had the chance to hoist a championship trophy.

“This is killing you, isn’t it?” he said.

“Damn right, it is. You’re lucky you’ve got the best ass in the universe.”

“It really shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “By now, we should be able to be open about our feelings. And we should at least be about to tell others we’re together, just so they know. Forget the media. We don’t have to shout it from the rooftops.”

“You’re forgetting about the complications. For every action, there’s a reaction. There’s no telling what that reaction will be.”

“I’m comfortable with that.”

Shit!

I felt myself hulking up, like I would soon bounce Erik De Ruiter off the walls.

I drew a deep breath to calm myself. Speaking as confidently as he had made matters worse for me.

I could hit him with a comeback, sure, but he would wallop me with another of his own—and so on.

Worse, it would support Erik’s ridiculous point, no matter how off-base he was.

“I know I said there would be a distraction before,” I said. “I wasn’t bullshitting you. And you don’t know how the guys are going to react.”

“Again, we’ve got to be willing to take that risk.”

“I’m hearing you, but we’ve got a championship to win.”

Even though Erik stared at me blankly, I knew what he was thinking. He might as well have said, “ So the fuck what?” He would seriously put our relationship above winning a championship.

When I stopped to think about it, I felt like an asshole. No, wait, that isn’t right. Sure, I would’ve put our relationship above winning. If I’d told my boyfriend that, he would’ve scoffed because he’s trying to make me look like an unfeeling dog turd.

“Look,” I said, “I’d like to think we can have it both ways.”

“Maybe you think you can, but I’m telling you, we’ve got to get this figured out fast.”

I could tell from Erik’s hard expression that he wasn’t kidding. Look, this wasn’t normal for me. Yeah, I’ve been harped at by girlfriends before, but none had ever tried to take charge like he had. If Erik thought he was going to be in charge of this relationship, he had another thing coming.

“You can lose that look now,” I said.

“What look? This one?”

He didn’t speak through gritted teeth like I had earlier, but he didn’t sound thrilled.

“Look, I understand why you’re unhappy,” I said. “I do. But you can’t push me that hard.”

“Can’t I?”

Now Erik was starting to sound more like the kid who’d stolen my locker from me at the start of the season and less like the one I’d performed mattress gymnastics with for months now. I might not have squashed that kid’s spirit, but I totally could have had I wanted to.

He didn’t want to tempt me.

“No, you can’t,” I said.

“Yes, I can. You want to know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because I have the best ass in the universe. You said so yourself.”

“I know I did, but?—”

He bent over, showing me his whole ass, and wiggled it. Then his backside swayed pendulum-like from side to side.

I tried not to laugh but wouldn’t give myself away by covering my mouth.

“Stop that, would you?” I asked.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Not the sweet, juicy apple it usually is.”

He reached around and slapped his backside a few times while continuing his seductive pendulum swing. And he made whooping noises, too, just to taunt me. My god.

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “You’re dying to stick your cock in this ass, and you know it.”

“You know your ass loses some of its appeal when you’re wearing hockey pants, right?”

Instead of shutting up and accepting defeat, he slapped his ass with both hands now, then clutched the cheeks and wiggled some more. A laugh sputtered from my mouth, and I clamped a hand over it before he could accuse me of finding anything funny.

“You know you want this,” he said, “and that’s why I’ve got you under my complete control.”

Thank god he’d done something to break the tension. But that wasn’t all. Our teammates poured onto the ice to see Erik with his ass in front of me while he slapped it with both hands.

I couldn’t help covering my face with my hands. This was too much.

Ryan Detenbeck skated up to me. “I’m not even going to ask what this is about.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

So far, my desperate attempt at damage control hadn’t fixed anything. I would’ve expected a relationship with a guy to be different from what I was used to with girls, but I found myself backed into a familiar corner.

What if I couldn’t fight my way out? It’s not that I want to weasel out of anything. I just might have trouble acting the way he thought I should.

But if I couldn’t, would Erik stick around or would he become just another ex?