Page 12

NINE

SHANE

It was another week of being torn by the stitches.

Patrick was like Schrodinger’s Flirt, simultaneously brushing me off and dragging me in. You never knew what his current state was because it was never truly current and never, ever static.

He leaned in too close when showing me a silly meme I had no business looking at. He helped me fix my grip on the bench press with hand over hand, skin on skin. He sat so close to me in the locker room that our knees touched.

But then, he swung his head after a passing girl who seemed like his type. He talked about his previous hookups with crass pride. He invited me out, only to bring a friend or ten at the last minute.

I was driving myself crazy as much as he was. We both held the wheel, and the destination was as clear as early morning dew.

When I tried to debrief with him after a game, he seemed too fussy and heated, literally flushed and red-faced, with eyes so glassy that I thought he wanted to jump at me over the table and just do something .

Then he shrugged and said he wasn’t feeling it tonight and asked if we could discuss it in the morning.

He was thinking of hitting the bar, picking someone up.

Those were the moments when I felt like he slapped his refusal of me right into my face.

I didn’t know what this need to prove himself to me was. It kept me up at night just as often as the foggy imagination of the things I had never done in my life, the things I would have let Patrick do to me in a heartbeat if only he leaned in an inch closer.

He tore me apart, and in some small corner of my heart, I knew I liked every second of it.

Except you blew it , I told myself. You reeled him in with a research project and used the excuse to measure his reaction to you .

His heartbeat.

Underneath it all, his pulse throbbed just the same.

Every goddamn time he dialed up the charm, anxiety gnawed away at his nerves.

He toyed with me as if for the simple pleasure of an increased blood pressure.

He teased me as if it were a ride at an amusement park, and he just wanted to feel the thrill of it.

And at the end of the day, I locked the door of my room, closed my eyes, and used him the same way. I used him to get high. The thrill I hadn’t felt for someone in ages.

Being an awkward person with a great deal of fear around undressing, God forbid kissing, or worse, meant I’d done everything under the sun I could do with myself.

They lied when they said switching a hand felt like someone else was doing it for you, by the way.

They also lied on the website that the silicone felt like flesh.

I didn’t know what flesh felt like, but that sure as hell wasn’t it.

And after a while, it had all gotten old.

I had come to realize that it wasn’t about the tightness of your grip or the size of your toy at all. Those were details. Means to an end.

What I lacked was the substance. The allure.

It didn’t matter if it was real or rubber.

It mattered that I needed real hands to close around my hoodie, to undress me like it was somehow urgent, to lean in and exhale a warm breath over my skin and lips.

I needed someone’s weight to press down on me, to make us both sink into the mattress, to share warmth.

I needed someone to look into my eyes when they entered me.

And in my nightly fantasies, it was always only Patrick.

It was Patrick because I knew exactly what he would look like.

He undressed me with his eyes throughout the day, then grinned and dashed away.

I knew how intense his blue gaze would be in the moment our bodies met, in the moment he was inside me, in the moment he bit his lower lip and wrinkled his brow and throbbed so deep in me that the sensation reached into my fingers and toes.

I knew all of this because he made it clear.

Passing by the boards from where I watched him in the drills and games, his gaze locked onto my face, and he shot me a grin that was unmistakably and exclusively for my benefit.

Swinging by my place, he always wore his signature scent and threw his arm around my shoulders.

Seeing me outside, he always checked me out and told me I looked good.

If that was all he did, I would have been happy. Like a cat chasing a plushy mouse hanging from a fishing rod, I never would have tired of it. But he needed to deny it later. Every so often, he needed to redraw the line in the sand, even though he’d crossed it countless times.

After the Saints won their third consecutive game in a game that was as thrilling and satisfying as I imagined sex should be, Patrick skated to me first, threw his arms around me, and pulled me into a celebratory hug.

It was nothing odd. Guys on the ice were hugging and jumping like mad, their disbelief that they’d pulled it off still swirling around the rink.

But as he held on to me, his lips found their way to my earlobe. “You’re my lucky charm, Shane.”

Never had my heart lifted so quickly and so high.

You should keep me , I wanted to say. What came out was, “I don’t think I had anything to do with this.”

Patrick chuckled. “Yeah. I’m just that good, huh?”

The swell of celebration pulled him away from me. I remained where I was with the bitter taste of regret on my tongue.

And when he tossed his stick across the rink in rage a few days later, he was thrown into the sin bin during the drills, and he looked to me with pleading eyes.

But my job wasn’t to console him. My job was to poke around his brain and find out what it felt like to slam into another person with ill intentions, knowingly pushing the boundaries of the rules, and to feel vindictive about receiving your punishment.

I needed to know how it all worked behind his icy blue eyes.

“We’re facing the Arctic Titans on their turf in a week,” he told me angrily. “And instead of letting me practice, I have to sit here. That’s bullshit.”

I wrote it down.

“I swear to God I’m gonna tear that paper and eat it, Shane,” he snapped. “We never won against those fuckers, and I need to be out there.”

I cocked my head with as much compassion as our strict relationship allowed—and I was aware that my transgressions made me a hypocrite. I waited, and then I wrote it down.

Patrick scoffed. “Ask your questions, Aristotle.”

And I did. When did the anger come to him first during this game? What options did he see laid out before him when he chose to slam Dean into the boards? Would he have done it differently? Why hadn’t the threat of punishment—and he had had to be aware of it—prevented him from crossing the line?

In fairness, while still sulky about it, Patrick answered my questions. Early; several; he thought it wasn’t that bad and Coach Webber was being dramatic.

“Do you ever think that reining in your anger out there would help you play with a clearer mind?” I asked.

He shot me a cold, detached look. “Do you even know me? After all this time?”

I didn’t say anything to that, even though his words ripped a hole in my chest the size of Neptune.

“It drives me, Shane,” he said. “That’s exactly what clears my mind.

When the fury kicks in, the rest of the world falls off.

There’s just the ice and the devils I’m fighting.

None of the other things that cloud my mind exist when I’m playing.

There’s no confusion out there. There’s no questioning, wondering, thinking about things over and over and over until you’ve thought them right into the goddamn ground and haven’t found an answer.

Nothing. Just the puck and the immediate threat. ”

I wrote it down, although I didn’t know how with the trembling fit that possessed my fingers.

What doubts? What confusion? What are you questioning, Patrick?

But I held my tongue. Perhaps it would have been easily explained by the fact that I needed to ask him tough questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to hear his answers.

I couldn’t bring myself to use that old excuse again.

Patrick went back in to play in the final period, his drive a little quelled, his fury burning a little dimmer, and his performance taking somewhat of a hit. It was like the questioning he had mentioned was running strong during the last part of the game.

Days came and days went. A thing I had never thought of, never predicted would be a problem, started to appear. Patrick was a fact in my life. More than that, he was a force.

I sometimes wondered what being an undercover cop was like. Sure, you prepared a lot, practiced your cover story until it felt like you’d lived it your entire life, and you went in. But after you had stayed there, after you had worn another person’s skin for so long, how did you ever get out of it?

I needed to know this answer.

I needed to know how they returned to their old lives. How did they leave it all behind? What thread of their true selves did they hold onto throughout the missions in order to be able to drag themselves back out?

How was I going to live when this was over and Patrick no longer needed to be a part of my daily life? His presence was so overwhelming and all-encompassing that I couldn’t remember what life was like before him, and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like after him.

My studies revolved around Patrick Callahan. My days were shaped around him. My desires gravitated toward him. My dreams were filled with him. Until I told myself he would be off the hook in a month and a half. Then, the future was a bleak dystopia where I would be on my own again, just surviving.

The three days in Detroit, where the Saints played against the Titans on Saturday, arrived. I’d packed lightly for the weekend but brought all the notebooks and reference books I could put into my backpack. The equipment the team carried took up way too much space to leave room for me.

The house the team got to use over the weekend was incredible. It beat any hotel by a mile. It was a large place with a sprawling open-concept living and dining room and a kitchen on the ground floor, a hot tub and a small, private gym in the back, and an upper floor with rooms the players shared.

I carried the key to room four while the Saints unloaded their luggage. It was a delightful one. I shut the door as soon as I stepped inside, worried about having to do small talk with some of the Saints I didn’t know well if they appeared in the hallway in front of my room.

A big double bed dominated the room, and a large wardrobe was built into the wall on the other side of it.

Nightstands, lamps, and a canopy over the bed mounted to four high bedposts were all in a semi-rustic style, matching the hardwood floor and the old, burgundy rug covering it.

A small wooden table was flanked by two vintage armchairs.

Beside one of the chairs was a door to a private bathroom, and that was a scream.

An incredible walk-in shower and an elegant cream-tile design made me want to live in this room for the rest of my life.

Westmont had generously agreed to cover the expenses for the purpose of my research, trapping me deeper into having to deliver the thesis, and I couldn’t be happier. These hockey players truly lived a good life on the road. I wondered what it cost to build this many rooms for all the players.

Then, like a saw cutting through the wood, a key zipped into the lock, and every hair on the back of my neck stood. A double bed should have been a giveaway. Dear God, was I sharing with some random Saint? They couldn’t do that, could they?

The door swung open, and I turned to face the intruder, only for my heart to split in half when Patrick’s eyes shone and a grin stretched his lips from ear to ear. “Hey, roomie. Whoa, this is nice.”

I swallowed the tightening knot in my throat. Was this heaven or hell? It was somehow both in equal measures.

I glanced at the bed, and Patrick’s gaze followed.

“Oh, that’s gonna be fun,” he said.

I couldn’t see how.

“Be warned, I kick in my sleep,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll be sore and bruised by Sunday.” He choked a little as he said this, sparking an unholy image in my head that must have crossed his mind.

“We’re…sharing?” I asked.

“Everyone’s sharing,” Patrick said and dropped his heavy bag by the side of the bed. “I’ll take this side if you don’t mind. I like to face the door. Makes it hard to sneak up on me from behind.”

I listened to his rambling, but my mind was elsewhere.

Christ, this was bad. Sure, we’d gone far beyond the acceptable lines in the locker room, but sharing a bed with Patrick was a sort of torture only a cruel old god would have come with.

It felt like stepping into the Old Testament, and I’d just mixed fabrics.

Eternal damnation, here I come.

“Aren’t you with…Elio or someone?” I asked.

“And let you end up with someone you don’t know?” Patrick asked with a small frown.

“So…you did this on purpose?” I asked.

He snort-chuckled. “Why are we talking about this? I thought I was being noble.”

“No, I mean…” I shrugged. “I’m just surprised.” I swallowed again, harder this time, and nodded. “Thanks.”

He grinned again, unpacking. “We can stay up after bedtime, put on our pajamas, and tell spooky stories in the dark.”

I forced a laugh that so clearly begged the universe to wake me up from this fever dream, but nothing happened.

I could pinch my arm off, and I’d still be here, doomed to spend two nights in Patrick’s bed.

Doomed to feel his warmth for excruciating hours of the night when he would sleep and kick and snore, and I would listen to his breaths and remain aware of just how close he was to me.

There wasn’t a mattress big enough to make this any easier.