Page 18 of The Poster Boy (Love The Game #3)

Marek

T he only thing holding me up was Jay. My legs were jelly, and I was pretty sure that the whole encounter in the closet just now was a trauma reaction. I hadn’t been prepared to face questions about my parents. It was my own fault really. I knew it was, but I couldn’t turn back the clock.

But being with Jay had bought me a few minutes of blissful peace. The endless swirl of thoughts had slowed to nothing. Even now that we were done, I felt calmer. Resting my forehead between his shoulder blades, I carefully pulled out and removed the condom. I tied it off with my sticky fingers.

“Are you okay?” Jay asked in a quiet voice.

“I should be asking you that,” I said as I groped for my pants. Pulling them up one-handed was awkward, but I managed.

“Yeah, but I asked you first.”

Was I okay? Not really, but I would be. “I’ve been better, but it’s my own fault.”

“Even if that were true, that doesn’t mean you have to be okay with it.”

“You know, for a guy who hates me, you’re sure nice to me sometimes.”

The silence that followed my statement was thick, and I felt Jay turn around. He was so close to me that I could almost feel the heat of his skin. It would take nothing to lean forward and capture his mouth with mine.

“I don’t hate you.”

“But you did.”

“For the wrong reasons.”

For a second, I thought Jay might kiss me. I found myself longing for that more than anything. Sex was great, but I really wanted that connection with someone. Someone I could really lose myself in.

The moment passed with no kiss, and I realized we were still hiding in the closet.

We should get out of here and get back to our rooms and pretend this never happened, but I didn’t want that either.

I wanted more time with him. More time to figure out why I liked him so much.

He’d spent the first couple of weeks after the trade being all but openly hostile toward me.

His attitude had cooled in recent weeks, but for the longest time, there was a layer of annoyance in our interactions.

Until tonight. Tonight, any irritation he might have felt hadn’t been directed toward me. He still seemed annoyed, but I was starting to suspect that Jay Brookbank was annoyed at everything at least eighty percent of the time.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “You’re sure you’re okay, though?”

“Better than.” I smiled, though he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Maybe next time we’ll plan better, and we won’t have to fuck in a dark linen cupboard. ”

“Next time?”

“I’m hoping there’s a next time. I have to admit that I’ve been too scared to hook up with people.

I almost didn’t go to your room that first night, not knowing it was you, but I needed to get out of my head.

And then you gave me your room number, and I knew it was someone on the team because it was in the block of rooms the team booked.

” I took a chance and reached for Jay. I put my hands on his hips, because if I put them anywhere else, it would have been his face.

I’d have grabbed him, and kissed him, and consumed him the way I wanted to. “Will there be a next time, Jay?”

“We probably shouldn’t.” He didn’t sound convincing at all.

“We definitely should. It’s perfect. You don’t like me, so there’s no danger of you falling for me and being dragged out of your closet. We travel together. Play together. It won’t be weird for two teammates to hang out.”

“Why am I considering this?”

“Because I’m irresistible?”

“Incorrigible.”

“Magnetic.” I was smiling now in a way that I hadn’t smiled in a long time. Not since the trade at least. Even his next comment didn’t damper my mood.

“Moronic.”

“I may be a moron, but I’m the moron who fucked you.”

“Touché.” Jay let out a sigh. “I should say no.”

“But you’re not going to.”

He didn’t acknowledge that statement. Instead he said, “You should give me your number so we’re not messaging on hookup apps anymore.”

“Is Jay Brookbank asking for my number?”

“Don’t make it a big deal, Myers. ”

“My phone is up in my room. Do you have yours on you?”

He let out a soft laugh. “Yeah. I got it right here, but we should get out of this closet now. I’m starting to feel a little closed in.”

I hated that we had to leave our dark little bubble.

It felt intimate in a way that I hadn’t experienced with a hookup before.

Even other hookups that hadn’t taken place in a cramped housekeeping closet.

Something about Jay appealed to me. Something soft under his sharp exterior called to me.

The truth was that Jay wasn’t half the asshole he pretended to be.

He might be all fists on the ice and sharp looks off it, but the reality was that he was just looking to protect himself, the same way I was. He just went about it a different way.

He kept his cards close to his chest, but I felt like something happened between us in the dark that had tipped his hand.

“I’ll go first.” When Jay moved out of my embrace, the bereft feeling that swept over me nearly took me to my knees. I was thankful again for the darkness so I could hide my reactions from him.

We stepped into the stairwell, slinking wordlessly away from the closet door and down the stairs as if we were somehow in sync. We stopped at the ground floor, and Jay pulled his phone out. “Send yourself a text.”

It took all my strength to keep my hands from shaking as I popped my number in and sent myself a message. I grinned when I handed his phone back to him.

Jay glanced at the text I’d sent and he almost smiled. I could tell he wanted to, but he stopped himself. He might not hate me, but he didn’t want to like me .

He slid his phone into his pocket and gave me a onceover. “You gonna be okay?”

“I’m good.” To my surprise, it was true.

For this moment at least. There had been a rush of anger and helplessness when I was asked about my parents.

The worst of it was that the question made me look like the bad guy.

I could still hear the reporter’s voice in my head.

Marek, is it true you won’t take calls from your parents?

Marek, why did you go no contact? The media had been relentless, but I’d hoped to appease them by being in the spotlight as much as they wanted me to, thinking maybe that would earn me some slack when I wanted it.

Clearly, that had been a stupid idea. And now, because of my tendency to overshare, I’d created a crack in the foundation and the press were going to continue to chip away at it.

For now, however, my encounter with Jay had settled enough of my frenetic energy that I felt almost normal.

And maybe it was about more than the sex.

Maybe it was because I didn’t feel as though I had to win Jay’s approval.

I’d never had it to begin with, so I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose by being myself around him.

I didn’t have to smile for the cameras or pretend to have my shit together. None of that mattered to Jay.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what mattered to him beyond hockey.

“I’m going to head upstairs.” He stepped around me and started up the steps. “I’ll see you around, Myers.”

“Yeah. See you.” I waited in the stairwell for a few minutes before letting myself out in the lobby. As discreetly as possible, I slipped the keycard back to the person at the desk and prayed that they didn’t sell the story to a tabloid or get fired.

I went straight back to my room and grabbed my phone.

I’d just seen him a few minutes ago, but I had access to him now and I wanted to use it.

Jay was like a drug. An obsession. It had started before we’d even fucked the first time.

Right from that awkward meeting outside the arena, when I could tell he didn’t like me and wasn’t happy to see me, I’d found him attractive. It was hard not to.

Jay Brookbank was a heartthrob. Thick, dark curls that he kept longer on top.

They looked soft, and I’d wanted to run my fingers through them the first time I saw him.

Even though he scowled at me. Hazel eyes that had hidden depths to them.

That was especially clear now that I’d gotten to know him a little more.

But the thing I clung onto the most was the way he didn’t hate me.

I ducked into the bathroom when I got back to my room, washed my hands, and disposed of the condom by wrapping it in toilet paper and burying it in the trash can. Griffin, my roommate, laid on his bed and was texting someone on his phone.

When I dropped down onto my bed and grabbed my phone from the charger, he glanced at me.

“Have fun?” The smirk on his face suggested that he knew exactly why I’d left the room.

“I don’t kiss and tell.” I unlocked my phone and checked for messages from Kelsey. I wondered if she’d seen the news yet. “That’s the press’s job, apparently.”

“You should stop taking so many interviews.” Griffin voiced the thing that I’d thought a million times. “You’ve given them enough of yourself. Let them latch on to the next gay player.”

My stomach fluttered nervously at the thought that if we weren’t careful, the next out gay player could be Jay.

I wondered if he’d even told the team that he was gay, or if he navigated life as a queer hockey player all by himself.

The thought saddened me because even when I hadn’t been publicly out, Kelsey had known.

And before it was official and I was outed with a celebrity, I sort of thought of my sexuality as a badly-kept secret.

I let my panic encourage me to send a text to Jay.

Does anyone else know you’re gay? Bi? Pan?

My nerves had me second-guessing everything.

Gay. Boone knows. Maybe a couple of the guys because they’re not dumb. But, in general, not really.

I exhaled a shaky breath.

We need to be extra careful then. I don’t want you to go through what I did.

That’s decent of you, Myers, but I’m a big boy. Don’t worry about me.

I know you’re a big boy

OMG did Broody Brookbank just SMILE at me?

It was an emoji. It doesn’t count.

Too late. No backsies. You smiled at me.

Go to sleep, Myers. It’s past your bedtime.

Age before beauty.

*Middle finger emoji*

My phone went silent after that, and I took a minute to text Kelsey to warn her about the mess I’d accidentally caused.

Despite everything that had gone on after the game, sleep was easy to come by.

I tried not to give the credit to Brookbank, but he was the last thing I thought of before I crashed out.