Page 19 of The Poster Boy (Love The Game #3)

Jay

B oone knew something was up with me. He kept giving me the side eye whenever we were alone.

I’d have offered to tell him what was going on, but I wanted to keep it under wraps.

It was nothing. A fling. And I didn’t want to hear how stupid I was for fucking a teammate.

I’d weighed the risks and found there were few.

If things went south between us, well, then I’d go back to hating him and nothing would change.

Only now the idea of hating him held no appeal.

Neither did the idea of something happening between us to cause a rift.

I was enjoying the tentative friendship we’d formed.

It made me realize how isolated I’d let myself become.

Not just with friendships, but as a gay man.

I’d buried myself deep in the closet. I kept my head down and played the game.

But one day, the game wasn’t going to be there anymore.

That didn’t mean I wanted to come out, especially not the way Myers had, but for the first time, I started to think of all the things I’d been missing out on.

“Seriously, Brooksie, what’s up with you?” Boone asked as he paused the movie we’d been watching. Well, the movie he’d been watching. I’d been staring at the TV but stuck firmly in my head.

“Nothing, just thinking about stuff, that’s all.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Stuff.”

“Yeah. Stuff.”

Boone raised one eyebrow, unimpressed with my answer. “You’re thinking so hard you practically have smoke coming out of your ears. I know you’re keeping something from me.”

Unsure what to say to that, I simply shrugged.

He ran a hand through his hair. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know I can, Boone.” I had to give him something. Not only was he my best friend, but he was a dog with a bone. He wasn’t about to let it go unless I did. “I’ve just been thinking about my life after the game.”

“You’re still young, Jay. You have plenty of good years in you.”

“I know that, but it still doesn’t stop me from wondering what’s next, you know? Who will I be without a team around me? What will I do, if not play hockey? And I don’t exactly have a banging social life.”

Boone’s look of concern made me shift in my seat and wish I’d just told him that I’d been getting railed by Marek Myers, the goalie everyone thought I hated. Even the media had picked up on my animosity, blaming it, thankfully, on some easy saves he missed and not anything more sinister.

The truth of it was that I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been.

I wore my bad attitude like a suit of armor to protect myself, but it also kept people out.

Not Marek, though. Marek had peeled my armor off and gotten under my skin.

The impression he’d left after our first encounter was enough to draw me to him a second time.

Enough to make me ache for a third. And for the first time since Boone and I started living together, I regretted having a roommate.

If Boone wasn’t here, I could invite Marek over.

And maybe he’d stay the night. Maybe I’d get to experience waking up next to someone.

I wasn’t inexperienced in a lot of ways, but there were some things that I’d never done.

Like spend the night with someone. I’d always ducked out, or they did, or the hookup was a quickie in a bathroom stall or a closet.

Until Marek, I hadn’t realized how bone-crushingly lonely I’d made myself. I let Boone in, but only to a certain point. Unless I was willing to change, things would stay the same. I’d stay the same.

If I wanted things to be different, I had to be different.

“I’m seeing someone. Kind of. I think.”

Boone’s eyebrows rose up into his hairline. A slow smile spread on his face. “Well, it’s about damned time. I have to admit, dude, for a minute there I was worried you were going to tell me you had some sort of incurable disease.”

“How on earth did you jump to that conclusion?”

“You were broodier than usual. I figured it had to be something serious. Leave it to you to have an existential crisis over getting laid, though.” Boone slapped my chest, and I gave him a shove in return. “So little Brooksie Wooksie is growing up and has himself a real life booty call.”

“This is why I don’t tell you anything.” I got to my feet and headed to the kitchen. Boone followed me like a faithful puppy, hot on my heels.

“Au contraire, this is why you tell me everything.” He stopped and thought for a moment, screwing his eyebrows together.

“Well, not everything. I don’t need to know the specifics of your hookups.

” He leaned on the counter and watched me pull a bag of popcorn out of the cupboard and pitch it into the microwave. “So… who’s the lucky guy?”

I turned my attention to the microwave and waited for the popcorn to start popping. “I met him on an app.”

“Wait. Did you actually hook up after I told you that you needed to get laid? Oh, my God, you did, didn’t you?” Boone seemed far too pleased with himself, and I regretted bringing any of it up.

“Well, if you’re still taking orders from me, you could tell me who this heartthrob is who has you tangled up in knots.”

I shook my head and tossed him a look that I hoped conveyed my innermost thoughts of are you for real right now?

“Come on. Do you have a picture of him?”

“His picture on the app is just his torso, so no, sorry. Besides, I don’t ask to see pictures of your hookups. Don’t be weird.”

“Hey! It’s perfectly normal for me to hook up. You, however, probably had a layer of dust on your dick.”

“I assure you, Dad, he’s real, we’re safe, that’s all you need to know.” The popcorn finished popping, and I grabbed it from the microwave and tore it open. I shoved a handful in my mouth before passing the bag to Boone.

“Are you sure you’re safe?”

“Yes. Why? Do you need to know what brand of condoms we used?”

Boone threw a piece of popcorn at me. “No, idiot. I want to make sure you’re not fucking some fame chaser who’s going to sell you out to the tabloids the minute you’re done dicking him.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, so far, I’d been the one getting dicked. I’d let him keep his assumptions.

“There’s no worry about that,” I said with confidence.

“How can you be sure? People will do anything if they think they can make money from it. And even if they signed an NDA, if they outed you, yeah, you could sue, but the damage would be done.”

“Boone, stop catastrophizing. He won’t out me.”

“How can you be sure, though?”

Boone could be such a mother hen sometimes, which made him a great captain because he genuinely cared about the guys on the team, both on and off the ice. Coming from the family he’d come from, he had a way of making everyone feel like they were part of his family.

“Boone, relax. It’s okay.”

“I repeat—how can you be so sure?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I let it out slowly and weighed my options. On one hand, I could stay quiet and let Boone unravel with worry. Or I could give him enough information to make him understand that I wasn’t going to be outed by the person I was seeing.

“Look, it’s another player, okay. I won’t tell you who, but they know what would happen if people knew.

So people aren’t going to know. And don’t ask me who it is because I’m not going to tell you, Boone.

I’m serious.” Grabbing the bag of popcorn, I went back to the couch and sat down.

I started the movie from where Boone paused it and, after a minute, he joined me.

Flopping down next to me, Boone slung his arm over my shoulder and pulled me against him, letting me rest against him like we’d done a million times before. I held the popcorn bag toward him as an offering. Boone let out a sigh and took a handful.

“I suppose you’re right. I don’t need to know everything. But if you ever want to smuggle a guy into your room, just give me the word and I’ll make myself scarce.”

“Or we could meet elsewhere.” Which we hadn’t done since the road trip ended, and we were back on home ice.

Suddenly I wondered why. We’d been home for a few days now, and Marek had yet to reach out to me. Although, the same could be said for me. It wasn’t like I’d been Mister Chatty either.

I found myself wondering what he was doing.

What his apartment looked like. Maybe he hadn’t wanted me over because he’d been busy having other people over.

Which was fine. We weren’t anything to each other.

But he’d said that he had a hard time hooking up since he’d been outed.

Even though it was unlikely that he had a parade of hot men in and out of his apartment, the idea of it unsettled me.

Boone took the popcorn from me and removed his arm from around my shoulders. “Go call your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I protested by resisting the urge to pull my phone out and text Marek. Myers was not my boyfriend. He was barely my friend. He was just a hot goalie with a great dick who’d recently started to annoy me far less than he used to. That’s all.

Boone rolled his eyes. “Okay, go call your not-boyfriend.” When I hesitated further, he shoved me off him. “As team captain, I order you to call your not-boyfriend.”

“That’s hardly one of your duties as captain.”

“It is when he’s probably responsible for your improved mood. On and off the ice.”

I scowled at Boone, but he made a shooing motion with his hand. “Off you go.”

“Well, now I don’t want to.” I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest just as my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Boone grinned at me. “I bet that’s him.”

“It could be anyone.”

He scoffed. “Unlikely. Come on, I know you’re curious.”

The worst of it was I knew in my gut that it was Myers texting me and though it would make Boone crow with satisfaction for getting his own way, I stood and left him on the couch to laugh at me as I did as I was told and slinked off to my room to text my not-boyfriend.

The idea of me with a boyfriend was absurd anyway. I’d never even been on a real date. I had no idea how to be a boyfriend. My life was hockey from early morning to the moment my head hit the pillow every night. It left little room for other activities and explorations.

Not that it mattered because sex was all Myers and I were.

It wasn’t like he was in the market for a boyfriend either.

If he were, he’d probably date someone who was out.

Someone who could handle the press that still seemed to hang on his every word, even though he’d cooled toward them since the other day when the fractured relationship with his parents had been revealed.

Slipping into my room, I pulled my phone out of my pants and ignored the way a smile threatened to appear when I saw his name on the screen.

Marek

Are you free?

I bit my lip to keep myself from grinning like an idiot.

I could be .

He responded with his address and a question.

When can you get here?

I shoved my feet into a pair of shoes and grabbed a hat. I’d showered but hadn’t done shit with my hair and it was a mess.

On my way.