Page 15 of The Poster Boy (Love The Game #3)

Jay

B y the time I’d formulated a response, Marek was gone. It was for the best really, because there was no way that was ever going to happen again. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But he’d walked so boldly into my room and caught me off-guard.

I tried not to think of how fucking good it had been.

Or of the way I’d felt when he’d caged me against the door.

I should’ve told him to fuck off. But I hadn’t.

Because as much as he’d annoyed me when he first got traded, I didn’t hate him.

I hated that he kissed the media’s ass. Mostly, I’d been frosty because he was out, and I was still hard up half the time, too scared to make a move in case someone outed me the way they’d outed him. Myers was my worst fear come to life.

So maybe I’d acted like an asshole. And maybe I’d pretended to be asleep when he was done busting his nut all over me like he was marking his territory or some shit. The truth was… I’d have done it all again right then. Not just because I was horny. Because Myers had been that good.

Of fucking course he had. The universe clearly hated me.

I’d gotten just enough of Myers to know that I wanted more, which pissed me off all over again.

And that resulted in me resorting to my old way of coping with anything uncomfortable—ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

It never worked, and yet there I was, doing my best not to interact with Myers.

I was as frosty as ever and that asshole just let it roll off his back like it didn’t even matter.

Like I didn’t matter.

It was probably for the best, but his nonchalance pissed me off. I was ignoring him, so he was doing it right back, and that was childish of him. Irrational, me? Never.

The one upside to maintaining the status quo between us was that Boone didn’t notice, and that man noticed everything.

Boone was a good friend, a great captain, and a horrible fucking snoop.

If he had any idea that I’d taken his advice, but with the last possible person he’d ever expect, I’d never hear the end of it.

Boone was one of the few people who knew that I was gay.

“What about the hotties you bring to charity events?” he asked.

“It’s not hard to match with a good-looking woman when you make a couple million a year.”

He’d only nodded, then knocked the bottom of his beer on the top of mine, making it foam everywhere.

“You’re in a better mood.” Boone dropped down next to me on the couch. We had a couple days’ break between games and the luxury of it happening while we were at home. We still had to train our asses off in the weight room and on the ice, but it was nice to get a little time away from Myers.

Boone nudged me with his elbow when I didn’t respond .

“Yes?”

“You got laid, didn’t you?”

Slowly, I turned my head to look at him, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly.

“You sure are obsessed with my dick. There something you want to tell me, Boone?”

He shoved me. “I’m not obsessed with your dick, asshole.”

“You’re obsessed with my asshole now? Boone, it’s okay. You can tell me anything.”

“Okay, how about this? You’re a shithead.” Boone grinned. “I know you got some. You’re in a better mood than usual.”

“Take that back.” My fake scowl didn’t last long, and eventually I shrugged and looked away. “I can take direction from the captain of my team.”

“You sly dog. Look at you, leaving broken hearts in every city. You’re going to have a twink in every port.”

I almost choked. Myers was no twink.

“Hardly.” I turned my head and looked at Boone again. “Are you sure you’re not the one who needs to get laid? You’re pretty invested in this.”

He stretched out on the couch and put his feet in my lap.

I shoved them off, only for him to return them to where they were and wriggle his toes.

Sometimes he was like a touch-starved cat.

It was probably how he was raised. I think he was used to getting a certain amount of hugs a day, and when he left home, he was deprived of that.

The result was a best friend who used my lap for a pillow, or a footstool as the case may be.

He liked to sit in close proximity to me when we were watching a movie.

I refused to call it cuddling, even though that’s what it was.

There’d never been a spark of attraction between us.

Truthfully, I wasn’t surprised that Boone was bi, but I did wonder why he never dated.

That was firmly none of my business, though.

I wasn’t like Boone. I didn’t want to pry my way into people’s heads and shit.

If they wanted to volunteer information to me, great. If not, even better.

“Yes, Boone, I took your advice. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

He let out a sigh and wriggled his feet again. “Well, did you at least have fun? Were you safe? Is it true love?” Boone batted his eyelashes at me.

“You’re a?—”

“Shithead,” he cut in, finishing my sentence. “Rub my feet, Brooksie. They ache like the dickens.”

“Like the what? What the hell have you been watching?”

Like a good best friend, I grabbed one of Boone’s feet and worked my thumbs into the arch of his foot. He had strange taste in TV shows and liked old black and white movies. Foreign films. Things with subtitles.

“I forget what it was called. It wasn’t that good, anyway. But I can’t get that phrase out of my head. I hoped that if I used it a couple of times that it might banish it from my brain.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

Boone let out a groan, and he went boneless as I continued to work the muscles in his foot. “When you’re too old to get in hockey fights anymore, you should become a masseuse.”

“Massage therapist.”

“What?”

“They’re massage therapists now.”

“Well, you should do that for a living. ”

“I still have a few good years left in me before I think of hanging up my skates, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

I didn’t like thinking about life after hockey.

If I had it my way, I’d pretend that I was going to play forever and never think about what I was going to do when my on ice time was up.

But now that Boone brought it up, I couldn’t help but wonder what other skills I had besides skating fast, slamming bodies around, and punching people in the face.

Those weren’t exactly transferable skills.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” I switched to Boone’s other foot.

“Mmm. Coach, maybe.”

“I think you’d be a good coach. You’re a good captain.

You’re bossy. You like it when people listen to you.

” Everyone liked him. I left that part out, though, because his head was already swollen enough.

But it was the truth. Everyone loved Boone.

He was one of those magnetic people who just drew others in effortlessly.

“It’s just a thought.”

“It’s better than professional foot rubber.” I frowned at my word choice.

“I’m putting that on your business card. Jay Brookbank, hockey player and professional foot rubber.”

“I despise you.”

“You don’t hate anyone.” He cracked an eye open and looked at me. “Not even Myers, as hard as you pretend that you do.”

“I never hated him. He annoys me, that’s all.”

How did we end up talking about Myers anyway? Why would Boone bring him up? Did he know something? I scrutinized his expression and rolled his words over in my head looking for any tell that he’d figured out Myers and I had fucked. But there was no possible way for him to know that .

“Seriously, Jay. Massage therapy is in your future.” Boone moaned a little when I worked my way up his ankle.

Life after hockey was a daunting prospect.

It was something every player had to think about eventually.

But if luck was on my side, I’d have a few good years left.

I doubted I could hit ten more years, but I knew I had a solid five in me.

Maybe seven. I lived frugally, investing a lot of my money so I could theoretically never work again once I was out of the league.

I couldn’t see myself being a massage therapist, though. It was likely that Boone was pulling my leg anyway. It could be hard to tell when he was being serious or just seriously annoying.

He let out a groan and pulled his feet back. Putting them on the floor, he stood and stretched. “I’m going to bed.”

He ruffled my hair on the way by. “Don’t stay up too late. You need your beauty sleep.”

“I’m already beautiful.”

“Your attitude needs its beauty sleep then.”

“Fair enough.”

Boone laughed all the way to his room and shut the door.

Without anyone to keep my mind off shit, I automatically thought about Myers again. Fucking asshole had haunted my thoughts since that night in the hotel. I shouldn’t have let him in. Should have let him think I’d been pranking him. But I wasn’t that kind of an asshole.

The only time I wasn’t thinking about Myers, or trying not to think about him, was when I was sleeping.

I turned the tv off and headed to the other side of the apartment where my bedroom was.

The condo was laid out with a bedroom and a bathroom on each side of the unit and the shared living area in between.

The other problem I’d been having ever since the hookup with Myers was that it had reawakened my sex drive.

Before, I’d been happy to have a lazy jerk session in the shower or before bed.

It wasn’t a big deal that I’d go months without sex.

Now, all I could think about was the way Myers felt pressed against me.

The way his cock filled my ass, stretched me open.

The grip he’d had on my hips and the way I still regretted letting him leave without a round two.

Not like he’d have wanted that. He’d lit out of there before the cum on my leg had a chance to dry.

I hadn’t given him a reason to want to stay.

Fucking a teammate was a bad idea, regardless of how well he’d sold it to me.

He was there. I was there. Once he found out that I hadn’t been joking, he’d zeroed in on me, and I’d been dumb enough, desperate enough, to get into bed with him.

If only he’d have sucked, then I might not crawl into bed every night and reach for my lube. I might not fuck my fist while I thought of him and what it would be like if we’d have taken our time together, rather than fucking and fleeing as fast as possible.

It was what it was, I told myself as I yet again reached for the lube.

The last thing I needed was Marek fucking Myers.