Page 22 of The Poster Boy (Love The Game #3)

Marek

I ’d messaged Jay in a moment of blind panic. I was standing in the middle of my apartment and had looked around at the shambles my life was in, and I didn’t know what to do. Paralyzed, I’d called Jay because he was a great distraction.

Apparently he was too good of a distraction because I forgot the fucking condom. I’d wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But the possessive part of my brain secretly loved that I’d forgotten, that Jay hadn’t minded and had let me continue was almost too good to be true.

I knew it didn’t make it true, but coming inside him made him feel like he was mine in some way.

Not in every way, or even in ways that mattered, but on a primal level.

Like if you peeled back all the layers that made him—defenseman, hockey player, man, friend—beneath all that was a layer where he was mine.

It was the last first I’d have to give away, and I was glad that I’d given it to Jay.

It took a few minutes before he was willing to let me roll off of him, but he didn’t let me go anywhere .

“Everything good, Marek?” he asked.

I knew the question was coming long before he got up the nerve to ask it, but my face still flooded with shame regardless. I wished he didn’t live with Boone or he’d been able to host, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.

“It’s fine.”

Jay huffed. “Marek, we just had our dicks in each other’s ass. I think you can tell me if something is wrong.”

Telling someone about how you’d let your life turn into a wreck was a lot more intimate than having a dick in your ass, but I wasn’t about to burst his little bubble.

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Your cum is leaking out of my ass. I’m about to leave a huge wet spot on your sheets. I think we’re beyond that now.”

Rolling onto my back, I tossed an arm over my face so I didn’t have to look at him when I talked. “Everything is a mess.”

Jay waited for me to continue. He turned on his side and used me for a pillow. Knowing that he wasn’t staring at me waiting for me to talk actually helped me loosen up a little.

“I have ADHD. And usually I manage it well, but… I also usually have a support network. Kelsey, my sister. She’s been looking after me since our parents threw me out.

She even moved with me after I got drafted.

But she has a life now back there, and I couldn’t ask her to move again.

I’m a grown man. A professional athlete. I should be able to handle my shit.”

“Change can be tough. Tell me more about your ADHD. My cousin had ADHD, and he really put emphasis on that H, I tell you. The kid never stopped. But it can be rough to deal with. And you’re not dealing so well right now, I take it?”

Too mortified to even fathom looking at Jay, I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I know that I have things I have to get done. And I know they wouldn’t take long. But I don’t know where to start. The idea of it makes my skin itch. They call it task paralysis.”

“Well… can I help you get un-paralyzed? I could help you do the things you need doing. Like laundry.” He drew shapes on my chest with his fingertips, distracting me from the thunderous beat of my heart.

“I shouldn’t need help.”

“There’s no I in team, Myers.”

Prying my arm off my face, I looked at him as he propped himself up on an elbow, looking far too smug for his own good.

“That was terrible, for the record.”

Jay only smiled wider. It was a change from the usual scowl he wore. For the first couple of weeks after first meeting him, I wasn’t certain he even knew how to smile. He was always scowling or frowning or he just sat there with his deadpan expression.

But he came to life when he smiled. His exterior might be that of a prickly hedgehog, but his underbelly was soft. Jay was a secret softy. I wasn’t about to point it out, though, because I had a feeling he’d lock that part of himself back down.

Before I knew what was happening, he was on his feet and stepping back into his pants.

“What are you doing?” I watched, a little dumbfounded as he gathered up the dirty clothes from my floor.

Without missing a beat, he tossed the clothes into the basket. “Laundry,” he replied, motioning for me to get up. “Put some pants on and get some clean sheets.”

“You’re so bossy.” I rolled out of bed and grabbed a clean pair of sweats from my dresser. Then, as instructed, I got a fresh set of sheets from the closet. By the time I returned with them, Jay had stripped my bed and located the stacked washer and dryer.

“You don’t have to do my laundry, Jay.” I shook out the fitted sheet and tried to figure out which way it went on the mattress. After determining the correct way, the sheet quickly revealed my error, and I was forced to admit defeat and start again.

“I know I don’t have to.” Jay took a pillowcase and slid it over a pillow while I continued to battle with the sheet.

“I want to. None of us got where we are without help, Marek. My first coach taught me how to go faster. Another coach showed me how to improve my passing skills. There’s a million ways the guys help each other on and off the ice all the time. ”

It wasn’t the same, and he knew it. This wasn’t the same thing as puck drills, or shooting drills, or suicide drills. This was my inability to cope with real life and the million and one tasks that got away from me.

He dropped the pillows on the head of the bed. He grabbed the flat sheet and flicked it in the air, let the air catch it, and it gently settled down on the bed like he had some sort of Disney princess magic up his sleeve. I almost thought birds were going to come in the window and help him.

“When Church went through his slump, you were there to guard the net while he sorted himself out.” Jay faced me then and offered me a tentative smile.

A look of understanding and acceptance was on his face.

All the compassion with none of the judgment.

It nearly broke me. I knew if I had to say a single word at that moment that I’d lose my shit.

I nodded instead, winning me a grin from Jay that was soft and made his eyes crinkle in the corners.

“Let’s finish up here, and then we’ll figure out what’s next.” He brushed a kiss against my lips and then busied himself by putting the duvet back on the bed. It was probably the first time my bed had been made properly since I moved here.

Jay had me tackle the bathroom next while he sorted out the main living area. I’d at least gotten my shit together enough to have my meals prepped and delivered. Shame bloomed in me yet again when I came face to face with the stack of empty containers he’d stacked on the counter.

“I’ll do these dishes. What else do you need to do?”

With every task that Jay took off my list, it not only took a load off my shoulders, but it freed up some of the fog in my brain.

I couldn’t think in a cluttered space. Especially when I was responsible for the clutter and the mess.

It drove me to distraction, thinking about how I should get up and tidy but being unable to make myself.

Now, though, that he’d taken care of the worst of it, I could hire someone to come in a couple times a week to keep on top of things.

“I want to hire a housekeeper. Do you have any recommendations?”

“Me, nah. But Andrew has one he likes. Text him now while you’re thinking about it.”

“Yes, boss,” I joked and looked around for my phone. Jay motioned to the counter where, sure enough, I’d abandoned it earlier. I fired off a series of texts to Andrew begging for his help in finding a housekeeper .

“What else do you need to do?” Jay had finished the dishes and was drying his hands.

“Right now? Nothing.” I furrowed my brow and tried to think if there was anything I needed to do. I’d been scattered for days and couldn’t seem to get a grip on anything. Holding on to a thought was like trying to grip a fistful of water.

“Nothing?” Jay tossed the towel on the counter. “Are you sure about that? Nothing at all.”

My gaze slid down his bare torso and paused at the massive erection he was sporting.

“Does doing dishes really do it for you?” Even as I teased, I reached for him. Looped my fingers into the top of his pants and pulled them down. His cock sprang free, and I grabbed it, stroked it, tried to look in his eyes but they’d already fallen shut.

“I might have a thing for hot goalies.”

Jay might have said it as a joke, but it made me light up inside. Winning his approval, his attention, had made me feel giddy, like I’d won the lottery instead of the tentative affection of a grumpy defenseman.

“You think I’m hot?” It was easy to tease Jay now that I knew him better.

Leaning in, I mouthed my way across his clavicle. “I thought you hated me,” I said against his skin, unable to look him in the eyes in case part of it was still true.

“Your looks were part of why I hated you, because you’re too fucking pretty when you smile. It pisses me off.”

That got my attention and I snapped my head up to look at him. “What?”

“You were this shiny, out, gay man, professional athlete, like a handful of other guys, and you were this poster boy for gay hockey players. Smart. Nice. Does charity work. No one could be as good as you. It had to be an act. And it was. No one’s that good.”

My heart dropped, and it must have shown on my face because Jay smirked.

“You’re even better than you let on.”

I tightened my grip on his cock, watching his eyes roll back. “Careful, Jay, I might start to think you like me or something.”

Could he hear the way my heart was a kick pedal against my ribcage, thumping out a steady rhythm against my chest?

“Oh, we can’t have that, now can we, poster boy?” He moved closer, and winding his arm around my waist, he cupped my ass. “Now, are you going to get on your knees for me, Myers?”

It was deranged, but I almost like being called poster boy more than my own name. The nickname was meant as a subtle dig against himself, and maybe a bit at me, but I’d done what I’d needed to do in order to survive.

“If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been living up to my poster boy duties lately.”

“What about your other duties?” Jay asked, flicking his gaze down my torso.

I sank to my knees and buried my face against him. Inhaling the scent of us on his skin, I let him hold on to me, ground me with his hands in my hair and his coarse pubes pressing against my cheek.

It was hardly a duty at all, and we both knew that, but pretending things were all fun and games kept us from going deeper below the surface. We were teammates who had sex sometimes. And nothing more.

We could never be more. Not only were we teammates, but Jay wasn’t out, and he’d never expressed an interest in being out. I doubted he’d come out before he retired. All the things I thought I wanted, I couldn’t have with him.

All we could have was secrecy and inside jokes, and I’d have to pretend it was enough. It got a lot easier to pretend when Jay finally fed me his cock and fucked my face in the middle of my kitchen.

I only wished I knew what came next.