Page 23

23

holky

Shit—two eggs in a row with broken yolks. Since Chuck loved breakfast, I was making fried eggs, bacon, sausage, and a fruit plate. It was the least I could do after keeping him up till 4:30 a.m. I rubbed my jaw as I took more eggs from the refrigerator. I couldn’t remember if I’d sucked him off three or four times. The last time he came, he groaned like a wounded man and immediately passed out.

When the eggs and meat were ready, I took the fruit out of the fridge and realized I’d screwed up. I wanted to take him breakfast in bed, but I didn’t know where my trays were. While I wondered if I should put everything on a small table and carry it to the bedroom, I remembered—large cabinet on the left of the sink. I was bent over, reaching for the trays, when a hand squeezed my ass. Grinning like a goofball, I stood, but before I could turn around, he hugged me from behind and kissed my neck. A thrill rippled up my spine, and I couldn’t resist the devil in me. “Logan, is that you, baby?”

He loosened his grip enough for me to turn around, and I found him wearing a big smirk. “Fuck off, Holky. He doesn’t suck dick nearly as well as I do.”

“And you’d know that how?”

Rolling a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, he said, “Hooked up after practice the other day while you got a massage.”

That hit like an unexpected punch to the gut, brutal enough to knock the breath out of me. I grabbed the counter to stay upright, and I stared down at the granite, trying to make sense of what he’d said.

Had they really? Would Chuck actually…?

We hadn’t talked about being exclusive, but he had to know how I felt. Neither of us had said it, but… Fuck. He’d thrown it out there like it was a joke, as if it wouldn’t gut me.

I raised my head but couldn’t look him in the eye. “Are you serious?”

His jaw dropped. He grabbed my arms, and when I tried to pull away, he wouldn’t let me. “Nate? Look at me. I was kidding, sweetheart. I didn’t think you’d take me seriously. I’ve never been with another man, and I don’t want to be. You’re the only person I want. I’m not interested in anyone else. You’re my…”

I looked at him. His eyes were almost comically wide, and the veins in his neck were throbbing. When my heart rattled like a snare drum, I forced myself to ask, “I’m your what?”

He glanced around. “You made breakfast?”

“Yes, but… You and Logan didn’t really…”

“No.” He squeezed my arms. “Never. Only you, Nate. I’m sorry I said that. Please forgive me.”

I nodded, still needing to know what he’d almost said. “Your what? I’m your what?”

He pressed his lips together and cleared his throat. “We need to talk, so let’s sit.”

Since it was a rare sunny February morning, we took our breakfast to the kitchen table in front of the French doors. Sunlight streamed in, casting a warm glow over everything, and Chuck almost looked golden. His eyes glimmered as he bit into a strip of bacon, making my heart skip a beat. I nearly made a joke, something flirty to keep things easy, but his expression shifted before I could open my mouth.

He picked up more bacon and tapped it on his plate. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

“You don’t want to move out, do you?” The words tumbled out of me before I could stop them.

“No, nothing like that.” He put the bacon down and took a sip of coffee. “Why would you think that? Do you want me to move out?”

“No.” Chuck picked up the bacon and ate it while I downed my orange juice and gathered my thoughts. “I’ve been thinking too.”

He had a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth but paused long enough to ask, “About?”

“I’m not sure.” So much for gathering my thoughts.

I expected him to laugh or at least toss a chirp across the table, but he narrowed his eyes and ate his eggs.

As they say, the best defense is a good offense, so I asked, “What have you been thinking about?” My voice was too loud, making him jump. “Sorry. Nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?”

“I don’t fucking know. It’s this…” I wagged a finger back and forth between us. “ Us. ”

He tilted his head. “Us?”

“Yeah.”

This time he did snicker, then squelched it and shook his head. “Wow. That was about as clear as a post-game interview, a bunch of words but no actual information.”

I scoffed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Professor Madison. I don’t have the time or crayons to explain it to you.”

“Like you could fucking explain it.”

“Bud, I could explain it to a rock that would get it better than you do.”

He held up a hand. “Stop. We can’t do this.”

I ate a piece of sausage to buy time. “Do what?”

He looked into my eyes. “I have something important to say, but I’m nervous too. We’re doing what ‘Mad Dog’ and ‘Holky’ do best—deflecting.”

“I’m not deflecting.” I said it automatically, even though I totally was deflecting. The way his brown eyes locked onto mine made me feel exposed. I already knew he could see past my cocky lines and dumb jokes into the mess underneath.

I should have cared what he wanted to say, and I did , but all I could think about was the pressure building in my chest. Words were fighting to come out, but I didn’t know how to do it. I opened my mouth then closed it again. The feelings were too big. Was I imagining them, making this into more than it was? Was I about to ruin everything?

Maybe it was all a mirage, and I was the only one feeling it.

He stared at me. His bedhead was a mess, sticking up in every direction, and the little line between his brows, the one he always got when something was bugging him, made an appearance. Was he mad? I couldn’t tell, and it was twisting my stomach into a hard knot.

He glanced away, looking out into the garden, and I swallowed hard before asking, “Do you know what you want to say?”

“More or less. Do you?”

“Sort of, but I can’t get it organized enough to come out. You want to go first?”

His head snapped back toward me. “Me?” His voice wavered enough to make my chest tighten.

I nodded.

For a second, something bright and intense flared in his eyes, but it flickered out just as quickly, leaving behind a raw shine that told me he was barely keeping it together. He lifted his hands but didn’t seem to know what to do with them. After a second, he dropped them back to the table and turned them face up, then down again. It was almost as if he were searching for something to hold on to but couldn’t find it. Finally, he flattened his hands against the surface and splayed his fingers. “Things have changed between us.”

My heart froze. “They have? I mean, I know they have. Are you mad about it?”

“No. I’ve been confused, maybe distracted, but never mad.” He raised his head and looked into my eyes. “We should talk about it, though.”

“About what? We’re ROD friends, right? That explains it.” My words were as fast and uncertain as my thready pulse.

“No, it doesn’t.” He spoke slowly, keeping his voice low. “I’m not even sure there is such a thing as ROD friends. We made it up, but why? There were other words we could have used.”

My thoughts spiraled into questions urgently demanding answers, but I had none. Where the hell was he going with this? What “other words” was he talking about? If he was getting at what I thought he was, how did he feel about it? What did he expect me to say?

Needing to buy more time, I picked up my fork but couldn’t hold on to it. It sailed out of my hand and clattered to the floor. Fuck all. Before he got carried away, I needed to get my two cents in. “I’ve liked you since we met, and I like you more every day. I feel… well, this won’t make sense to you, but I feel like you’re a girl.”

“I’m what?” His eyes were bugging out of his head. “After what we did last night, if you seriously think I’m a girl, I need to show you an anatomy book.”

“You’re not a girl. I said like a girl.”

“I doubt anyone else who was at last night’s game would think so.”

“You’re getting it wrong, so listen to me.” My voice broke on the last word, and I struggled to keep myself together.

Chuck reached across the table and laid his hand over mine. “Like a girl, how ?”

“The way I like you,” I said. He didn’t move, so I added, “Like I would a girl.”

He pulled his hand back and dragged it down his face. When he looked at me again, he was smiling, but it wasn’t his usual cocky grin. This one was soft, almost shy.

“I get it,” he said. “That’s how I feel too, but not exactly. No woman has ever made me feel the way you do, sexually or emotionally.” He paused for a long breath. “It’s the emotional part that’s huge for me. I mean, I’ve got a dick, so technically I could fuck anyone, but it wouldn’t be like this. The reason it’s so good with you is because of what we’ve built, the whole package.”

My brain nearly went offline as my thoughts smashed into each other, piling up like a traffic accident in the fog. Eventually, I managed to assemble a coherent sentence. “You’re what I’ve needed in my life for so long. You make things feel right—you make me feel right. You help me see who I really am, and by some miracle, you still like that guy.”

“I don’t just like you, Nate. You’re everything I’ve been hoping for without even knowing it.”

We stared at each other while the heat kicked on; our eyes were still locked when it cycled off. Cars passed on the street outside, and wind whipped through the garden. I was afraid if we moved too fast, we might break the spell.

“There might be a problem,” he finally said.

My heart went into overdrive. We’re so close. Don’t let us screw this up. “What problem?”

“First, let me say this is not a problem for me. I’ve thought about it a lot, even when I wouldn’t admit it to myself. So it’s not a problem for me, but I’ll try to understand if it is for you.”

“What is it?”

“We’re both guys, sweets. And we’re both straight, or at least I always thought I was. I don’t know what to call myself now, but I can’t be as into you as I am if I’m totally straight. Benny Caldwell, my old coach at Mohegan, is bi. He was married to a woman, but she died, and now he’s married to a man.”

Was that it? Was I bi? Could someone be straight for twenty-six years and then one day realize out of the blue that they’re bi instead? Because it isn’t… You don’t just turn bi. If I’m bi now, I always was.

Chuck spoke again. “Last night, when I thought Messer had hurt you, I went berserk. I couldn’t think about anything except beating his fucking brains out. I was terrified that even if I killed him, I’d look up and not find you there. It took a few minutes, but that’s when I had to admit it, once and for all. I think I’m bi, but regardless, I’m crazy about you.”

In true Holky fashion, I almost laughed—not because anything was funny, but because Chuck had said exactly what I needed to hear. In an instant, everything made sense. Words poured through my head, and I told him how I felt.

I was halfway through my confession before I was able to look at him. He was watching me with a soft, expectant look on his face, like he was waiting for me to speak. It was then I realized I hadn’t said a damn word.

I gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry. I thought I was talking to you, but it turns out I was rambling in my own head.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Classic me.”

His lips twitched. “Are you feeling okay? About to faint?”

“No, I’m not going to faint. Listen, and you’ll learn how weird life can be.”

“Go for it, but if you’re about to tell me to get lost or something, please don’t drag it out.”

“It’s not that at all. I’ve known how I felt about you. Looking back, I think it started at Thanksgiving when we came up with all that ROD friends bullshit. Regardless, I definitely knew in Miami. Remember that night in the hotel? When we had sex, but I was too overwhelmed to say anything?”

“I remember.”

I reached for his hand. “Last night, you fought for me. Hell, for a minute I thought you might kill that bastard. Yet all I could see was the man who’d won my heart going to war for me. You were out for blood because you thought he’d hurt me.” My throat tightened. “No one’s ever cared about me like that.”

Chuck squeezed my hand. “I was… terrified.”

I nodded. “Somehow, in the middle of all that chaos, I started thinking clearly. The dreams I’ve been having and the feelings I’ve been too scared to admit all made sense. I hoped that maybe—just maybe —you felt the same.”

Chuck blinked. “Which is…?”

“I guess I’m bi too. I don’t know, and I honestly don’t give a shit. The only thing that matters to me is being with you.”

He wrinkled his brow. “So… you like me too? We’re a couple?”

God, we were such dumbasses—two idiots so busy pretending we were cool hockey bros that we didn’t even know how to do this. We’d spent half our lives acting like feelings were poison.

That ends now.

I stood and walked around the table. “Get up.”

He stood, and I cupped his cheeks in my hands. “Dog. Handsome Chuck. Babe. I…” His eyes caught my attention, and I needed a breath to get back on track. “Would you please be my boyfriend? My exclusive, in-this-totally-for-us boyfriend?”

I was almost certain he’d say yes, but when he did nothing but stand there looking into my eyes, the tension built. “Chuck?”

One corner of his mouth tilted upward, followed by the other. His lips parted, showing his perfect white teeth, and his dimple—that damn, drive-me-crazy dimple on his left cheek—kicked into action. “I’d really like that. This is real for me. No takebacks.”

“That’s good because…” Come on, if I can’t say it, I have no business being with him. “I love you.”

His eyes teared even as his smile grew bigger. But he said nothing.

“I love you, Dog,” I repeated. “Do you love me?”

“Duh.” His smile fell right off his face. “Wait. That sucked, but I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Yes, I love you. I’m so in love with you.”

You’d have thought we’d never kissed before. Our foreheads collided, we bumped noses, and when I tried to put my lips on his, our teeth clicked.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“My fault. I’m a little excited here.”

“Me too.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Sexually excited?”

“Every way excited. I’m so happy, Nate.”

“Then come with me. Let’s find out what two guys who are in love do in bed.”