Page 29

Javier

It’s nearly nine o’clock, and we’re in Reid’s room, decompressing after the game.

We scraped by with a win. Not exactly winning in the emphatic fashion we’d have all liked, but Caleb was relieved not to have missed any shots, and we’re headed into the championships after spring break as the team to beat.

I hand Reid a beer.

He’s been in a strange mood since the game. He’s sitting on the floor, back to the wall, legs crossed, staring into nothing.

“Here!” I wave the beer in front of his face when he doesn’t take it.

He bats it away. “Not now, Jay.”

“It’s the last one, so don’t complain when you want one later.” I return to my seat on the bed and open the beer myself, shaking my head at Caleb, who is sitting at Reid’s computer desk, eyeing Reid curiously.

“I like her.”

Reid’s soft admission draws my attention back to him before I can lift my bottle to my lips.

I should have known this strange mood was because of Tobie.

As we were having a break between periods, Reid had glanced up at the screen and bolted from the players’ box.

I’d been confused as had everyone else, until we’d seen him kiss Tobie.

The rest of the team had cheered with the crowd until Coach glared at them.

Everyone stopped, but Caleb bumped my shoulder and said out of the side of his mouth.

“She must fucking hate that kiss cam. And you know what? So do I.”

Her last experience with the kiss cam had scarred her. Tobie would have walked out of the arena and never returned if she’d faced another humiliation because of it.

But she hadn’t because of Reid, who put himself firmly on the firing line for doing something so insane that none of us can believe he’s still on the team.

Coach spent an hour after the game screaming at him.

He’d walked into his office, then was back five minutes later to scream at Reid some more.

And yet, after being chewed on, spat out, and chewed out some more, Reid hasn’t lost his stupid smile two hours after the game ended.

We skipped the after-game party because of Tobie. She’d left the arena soon after the game, texting to say she was tired and going home, even though we’d told her she could come to the locker room to celebrate with us.

After a quick shower in the locker room, we headed to Reid’s room to talk.

“You don’t know her,” Caleb says, frowning.

He’d been tense during the first period, and after he’d scored his first goal, I caught him doing something he never does. He looked up at the stands.

At Tobie.

Caleb denied it when I asked him about it, but I saw it.

Reid snorts. “I don’t need to know everything about a person to know how I feel. I don’t want this to be pretend with Tobie, and it doesn’t feel like it is. She feels more real to me than anyone I’ve been with before.”

I take another sip from my beer as I process his admission. Reid is all about feelings, so none of that surprises me.

“Because of the kiss?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I felt this way before the kiss.” He stares into the distance. “She’s funny.”

“Funny how?” Caleb asks.

The fact he’s still here is a surprise. The old Caleb would still be camped out on the ice. Maybe because he didn’t miss a shot, but I don’t think that’s why.

I laugh as Reid fills us in on the skating lesson he gave Tobie and her clinging to the rink side. Even Caleb is trying not to smile at Tobie’s fear that she would fall through the ice to Australia.

“She’s sweet,” I say.

“She’s special, and she doesn’t realize how special she is,” Reid says softly. “I want to be the one to show her and make her laugh. Make her happy. You know?”

I do know.

“The championship is around the corner,” Caleb warns.

“I’m not saying that I’m going to abandon all hockey for her. Just… I know this isn’t the best time to fall, but when I’m with Tobie, things just feel right. Like I’m in this bubble with her, and that’s all that matters.”

“Being with her is easy.” I sit back on the bed and think about how I feel when I’m with Tobie.

“She wants nothing from me. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not.

And she doesn’t wear a mask at all. I sat with her on a bench in the quad for an hour, and I could have sat there for another hour, and it wouldn’t have been long enough. ”

“You like her too.” Caleb blinks at me.

“I do.” And I hadn’t expected to.

Tobie is opening my eyes to how much I’ve missed having a relationship that wasn’t just meaningless, empty sex.

I want something deeper with someone I can be honest with and who will be honest right back.

I want Tobie. Not just because she’s beautiful and listens better than anyone I’ve ever met before, but because being with her feels right.

I sip from my beer as Reid stares into space, and Caleb bounces his gaze between us for the next several seconds.

Shaking his head, Caleb gets to his feet and stretches out the kinks in his neck. “I better go. I want to go through the playbook and see if there’s any improving on them before the championship.”

“I’m thinking of asking her if she wants to make this fake relationship real,” I say as Caleb picks up his bag.

“We could ask her,” Reid says.

Caleb drops his bag with a thud. “Are you seriously talking about dating her? Sharing Tobie for real? Both of you?”

“There’s no guarantee she will like us,” Reid says.

I cock my head. “She could like neither of us, or she could like all of us.”

“But she said that thing back at the rink, so…”

“What thing?” Caleb frowns.

I arch my eyebrow. “Didn’t you say you had that?—”

“Do you honestly expect me to go anywhere now? We need to talk about this. What did Tobie say?”

Reid’s mouth quirks into a smile. “Just that she thought there’s a little more softness beneath your grumpy exterior that she likes.”

“She said that?” Caleb is doing his best to look offended at the accusation that any part of him is soft, but I’m not buying it. Neither is Reid, from his smirk.

Caleb takes a gulp from his beer. “And if she did like us all, then what?”

“What’s there to talk about?” I ask, intending to open Caleb’s eyes to the fact he’s into Tobie much more than he wants to admit to himself. “I mean, I wouldn’t say this really involved you.”

“Of course, it involves me,” he snaps. “I’m dating her too.”

We stare at him.

“ Fake dating her,” he corrects himself.

Reid chuckles. “Sure.”

“So if she did like us, then what?”

“Then we give it a go, the way you try with any new relationship,” I say.

“And sex?” Reid asks quietly. “I haven’t slept with her yet.”

“Neither have I,” I admit. “I want to, but when Tobie is ready for it. I figured she was still getting over her ex hurting her, so going slow is what she needs right now.”

“And if this interferes with the game?” Caleb presses.

I shrug. “There’s no reason it should. We both like Tobie. Both want to make her feel good?—”

“Treat her better than that fuckwit who doesn’t deserve her did,” Reid says.

“And if she likes one of you and not the other?” Caleb asks.

“Then I’ll back off,” I say.

“And I’ll back off if she wants Jay and not me,” Reid says.

“How is this supposed to even work? Say she does like us? Then what? Is this going to last? How? Is she going to expect us all to sleep together?”

We fall silent.

Reid fidgets. “She’s not going to want to sleep with us all.”

“We can’t talk about that with her,” Caleb agrees. “She’ll think it’s what we want or expect, and it’ll scare her off.”

“I know that,” I add.

But we all look at each other, and I cannot be the only one thinking, what if?

We’ve never shared a woman because we’ve never liked the same girl before. But what would it be like to have Tobie in the middle of us, to share her?

Together.

“I have to go.” Caleb gets up and grabs his bag.

“Yeah.” I put my beer down and push myself to my feet. “Me too.”

None of us look each other in the eye as Caleb heads for his room, and I head for mine.

The first place I go after I dump my bag on my bed is the bathroom to a freezing cold shower to do something about my painful erection.

Thirty minutes later, I’m slipping into bed fully aware that all my dreams tonight are going to revolve around a certain woman and an event that will never happen.

When a knock sounds at my door, I glare at it. “I’m not partying tonight!”

Not all the guys on my floor recognize that my nickname might be Casanova, but it was a name I cultivated more to keep people at a distance than to keep them close.

Casanova doesn’t settle down. He fucks who he wants. It’s always casual, never permanent, and he moves on to the next girl with a smile, treating her right, but that’s it.

No more.

At least until Tobie entered the picture.

When I’m in my room or with Reid and Caleb, I’m not Casanova, the guy with the sexy accent women love. I’m just Javier or Jay.

The knock sounds again, louder this time. Whoever it is isn’t going away.

Forgoing a shirt since it’s probably one of my teammates trying to convince me to go to a party, I unlock my door, swing it open, and lean way the fuck back when Daniela stands on her tiptoes to kiss me.

“What are you doing here?” I ask my ex-girlfriend.

She beams at me, brown eyes hooking mine. “You haven’t been returning my calls or texts.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay to show up at my dorm at nearly eleven o’clock.” I grasp her arms and nudge her back when she leans in again. “Stop trying to kiss me.”

A door snicks open, and Killian, another teammate, sticks his head out, flicking his gaze between Daniela and me. His blue eyes linger on Daniela, who dressed up for this visit in a short red dress and heels, her long brown hair in loose curls.

“All good, Casanova?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Great.” My smile is all teeth, but he nods and disappears into his room.

Since I’m not having Daniela in my room, and I don’t need her unwanted appearance getting back to Tobie, I grab my keys and grasp her arm, stepping out into the hallway. “You’re going. Now .”

“But I came all this way to see you.”

“Why?” I don’t slow my pace as I lead her down the hallway, ignoring the creak behind me as one of my nosy roommates sticks his head out to investigate our raised voices.

I shove open the staircase doors and lead Daniela down them.

“Because I missed you,” Daniela says.

“No, you don’t.” I look at her. “Did my mother send you?”

Her nose wrinkles. “No. Why?”

I keep walking. “You need to leave.”

“But Javi…”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap.

We’re outside in front of my dorm building two minutes later. It’s only when the door slams shut after me that I realize I’m in my bare feet and boxers.

Fucking half naked.

It’s cold, but my rage is keeping me plenty warm.

“What do you want?” I demand.

“I just wanted to see you.” She bridges the distance between us.

I take a step back, wanting nothing to do with this situation or her.

“No, you wanted something from me. Just like always. What is it? Attention because your new fiancé isn’t giving you enough of his?

For me to tell you I miss you so you can feel good about turning your back on me when I most needed you? What?”

She’s not wearing her new engagement ring. Why? Was this just a late-night booty call, and she’d get back in her car tomorrow morning and drive back to her soon-to-be doctor fiancé?

I hadn’t needed anyone more than Daniela after I arrived in Lamont three years ago. I’d dropped out of Harvard and left pre-med, determined not to waste my life on something that didn’t make me happy.

When it’s your time to go, money means shit because all you have when you’re on your deathbed are the memories of the life you lived.

I didn’t want to be on my deathbed filled with regret the way my grandpa was.

He left me more money than I will ever spend, but I’d pay twice over to have him back. I couldn’t even call to speak to my little sister without my mom getting hold of the phone and making me feel guilty for giving up pre-med.

But I had Daniela.

I had the woman who loved me as much as I loved her, would be my wife, and stick by my side.

Except I didn’t have her.

I never had her.

Because what she wanted wasn’t me. It was the idea of me. The person I would be one day. And that wasn’t a doctor, so she replaced me.

Her lip trembles. “Javier, please don’t be mad at me.”

I take a step back. “You’ve tried that before, Daniela. It didn’t work before, and it won’t work now. Go back to Boston. Don’t come back here. Stop calling and texting me. Move on with your life. I have.”

I turn to leave.

“So you’ve met someone, then?” Her voice is brittle.

I keep walking.

“I heard they call you Casanova, but you’re no Casanova. Are you fucking someone else?”

I stop.

No, because, for once, it’s not just about sex. It’s about so much more than that.

Something new.

Something with two guys who feel like family and a girl who is sweet, beautiful, and real. She feels like someone I wouldn’t just want forever, but someone I need.

That means doing something I should have done long before now.

I press my keycard on the door. “Go home, Daniela, and forget my number. I stopped loving you so long ago, I can’t even remember how it felt.”

She’s speaking as the door slams shut behind me.

I don’t turn around, and I stop listening.

She’s in my past, and I’ve had enough of her dragging me back into it.

No more.