Page 92 of Puck My Stepbrother

“Oh no?”

“No. I promise.”

He didn’t respond right away. Maybe he wondered how I could make that promise. Don’t worry, I hadn’t lost touch withreality. Most people would freak if they knew the true nature of our relationship. I couldn’t say that it wouldn’t matter. I just wanted to believe that I could always make things okay for Quinn.

“We don’t have to worry about what other people think,” I said.

“Yes, we do. People judge enough as it is—and you have more at stake than anyone.”

“How do you figure?”

“You’re not thinking straight, Levi.”

“You do that to me, you know.”

“And you do that to me, too. But we’ve got to think about this. Won’t it be hard enough to have people knowing you as the gay hockey player?”

“We’ve already had gay players on the Larkin Lions. Remember how positive the reaction was to that? And besides, who said I was gay? I’m bi, remember?”

“You know what I mean. Labels aside, you’ll be the hockey player who isn’t just into guys, but in a relationship with his own stepbrother. Big difference from Kayden Preston and Erik De Ruiter.”

But you weren’t my stepbrother when I met you,I wanted to tell him. Not that I felt Quinn was making up excuses or anything. He believed what he was saying—and he wasn’t wrong, either. Erik De Ruiter and Kayden Preston had been one thing. Quinn and I were another. The sports media would have a field day with that if they learned about us. But I didn’t care. I only cared about Quinn. In that moment, I understood that the little ginger-haired nerd I’d once bullied was all that had ever mattered.

“You have your hopes and dreams to think about,” he said.

“But youaremy hopes and dreams.”

“What about hockey?”

“Hockey’s just a game, Quinn. You win some games, and you lose some. What we have is bigger than hockey could ever be to me.”

And I meant that. I knew I’d fed endless lines of bullshit to people over the years. I only did that when I wanted to get in their pants. It was a different story now that I loved another person with all my heart.

“You really mean that, don’t you?” he asked.

“Of course I do.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why would someone like you fall for someone like me? Why would you invest so much of your life trying to make me yours?”

“We’ve been through this before, Quinn. I’ve felt this way about you since we were kids.”

“And you just didn’t know what you were feeling at the time.”

“Right. I didn’t know my ass from my elbow in those days, so it shouldn’t be surprising I couldn’t make sense of what I felt.”

“How’s that any different from now?”

I couldn’t help laughing at that.

“I’ve been through so much with you, Quinn, that I can’t help but see clearly now. I know it doesn’t matter what happens with hockey. That shit will figure itself out. It doesn’t matter what happens with anything else, either—as long as I have you.”

It sounded cheesy, but I meant it. When it came to love, I never said things I didn’t mean.

“That’s got to be the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Quinn said.