Page 19 of Tough Guy (Game Changers #3)

“Holy shit. Who the fuck are you?” Wyatt made a show of whipping off his sunglasses as Ryan climbed into the passenger seat of his Range Rover.

“There’s no chance you’re not going to make a big deal about this, is there?” Ryan grumbled.

“What? About the fact that you suddenly look like bearded Captain America instead of, like, the dad in How to Train Your Dragon?”

Ryan rolled his eyes, but he secretly appreciated the ridiculous compliment. “I got a bit of a trim.”

“That’s not a bit of a trim. That’s like a full-on reality show makeover. You could have warned me!”

“It’s just a haircut. Drop it.”

Wyatt looked like he had more to say, but he just put his sunglasses back on and pulled away from the curb.

Ryan furtively glanced at his reflection in the side mirror and had to admit it: he looked good.

The stylist, Guillaume, had talked to him extensively about the importance of product.

The small-town boy in Ryan had suspected Guillaume of trying to sell him a bunch of expensive stuff he didn’t need, but the part of him who wanted to maybe present himself as a sophisticated, metropolitan man of style decided to take the stylist’s advice. All of it.

And thus Ryan had spent more than he’d ever spent in his life on a haircut, and had left the salon with a bag full of hair and beard products.

He’d even been talked into buying a new (absurdly priced) hairbrush because apparently there was a difference between hairbrushes.

Guillaume did not like it when Ryan told him he usually bought brushes at the dollar store.

So now Ryan had a tidy, lightly oiled beard that smelled like hazelnut, and hair that wasn’t quite long enough to tie back. His hair also had some fancy cream in it that actually made it look carefully styled rather than plopped on top of his head.

He couldn’t help but wonder what Fabian would think.

“You can’t stop looking at yourself,” Wyatt teased.

Ryan jerked his gaze away from the mirror. “It’s just weird, is all. Not used to it yet.”

“You got a man you can invite to Kent’s party tomorrow night?”

Ryan nearly choked. “Would you invite a man to Kent’s party? If you were me?”

Wyatt grinned. “If it makes Kent uncomfortable? Fuck yeah, I would.”

“That wouldn’t be fair to your date, though,” Ryan pointed out. He would never use someone like that. And even if he had a boyfriend, he wouldn’t subject them to Dallas Kent’s birthday party. “I’ll be going alone. And leaving as soon as possible.”

“That’s the spirit!”

When they reached the community center, Wyatt hauled a duffle bag out of his trunk and carried it to the building. “Guardians swag,” he explained.

They were greeted by an exhausted, and grateful-looking, woman who was about half Ryan’s height with glasses and graying brown hair.

“Hi, Anne,” Wyatt said cheerfully. “They giving you hell?”

“I’m just glad you guys are here.” She turned to Ryan and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Anne.”

“With an E?” Ryan couldn’t help but ask. He’d maybe read Anne of Green Gables too many times.

“With an E! That’s right!” She beamed at him.

“I’m Ryan.” He released her hand and waited for instruction.

“I need to make some calls, but you know where to go, Wyatt. It’s pretty much a full house today, so good luck.”

“That’s okay, I brought reinforcement,” Wyatt joked, nodding at Ryan. “Let’s go meet the kids.”

Wyatt led Ryan to a large gymnasium, which seemed to take up most of the building.

There were some rough-looking basketball nets at either end, a couple of hockey nets at either end of the short side of the room.

There were also about fifteen kids in the room, running in all directions and yelling.

A couple of boys were kicking dodge balls as hard as they could without really paying attention to where they were going—or who or what they would hit. It was chaos.

“Hey!” Wyatt yelled. “There are celebrities in the room, so look sharp!”

One girl who looked about twelve scrunched up her face. “Celebrities?”

Wyatt pretended to be affronted, which made her laugh. “Who knows who this guy is?” he asked.

“That’s Ryan Price,” another girl said shyly.

Wyatt pointed at her. “I knew you’d get it, Nicole. That’s right, this is Ryan Price. He plays for the Guardians with me.”

“He doesn’t play with you,” one of the boys who had been kicking the dodge balls said with a grin. “He plays and you sit on the bench.”

Ryan laughed. He liked these kids already.

“Uh-huh,” Wyatt said flatly. “Well, get ready to be stonewalled by me today, Xander. I will not be going easy on you.”

Wyatt very quickly split them into two seemingly random teams and asked one of the older girls to get the floor hockey gear out of a storage room.

The gear was a bunch of sticks, a couple of soft rubber balls, and some surprisingly nice road hockey goalie gear.

Ryan suspected that Wyatt was responsible for that donation.

Wyatt put one of the sets of gear on, and the girl who had retrieved the equipment put the other set on. Ryan picked up one of the sticks, which were all way too short for him. He noticed there were no gloves. They should really have gloves. Maybe he could buy a bunch of gloves and donate them.

“What team am I on?” Ryan asked.

“Whatever team Xander isn’t on,” Wyatt said loudly. Xander booed.

They played for about an hour, and Ryan loved every second of it.

It took him back to being a kid himself and playing hockey for hours with the other Ross Harbour kids on the backyard rink his father had made.

He’d loved the game so much then, and the force of how much that had changed hit Ryan hard as he joked around with these kids.

It was also nice to be the best player in the game for a change.

Ryan switched teams a few times, because it was only fair. He had fun taking shots on Wyatt, who beat him most of the time. Either way, they both laughed a lot.

When it was time to leave, Anne came to help Wyatt distribute the Guardians merchandise he had brought. It was mostly ball caps and pucks, which Ryan and Wyatt both spent some time signing.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Anne said to Ryan as he signed the last of the pucks. “The kids really love having you guys visit.”

“I had fun,” Ryan said. “I’d be happy to come back. And if there’s anything you need...”

She laughed. “We need everything. But if you want to spread the word about how to donate to us, I’ll always appreciate that.”

“You ready to go?” Wyatt asked. He was holding the empty, balled-up duffle bag.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Do you think I could come with you again next time?” Ryan asked when they were pulling out of the parking lot.

Wyatt looked delighted. “Absolutely! So you liked the kids? They’re great, right?”

Ryan smiled. “I liked them.”

Dallas Kent’s house was exactly what Ryan had expected it to be: enormous, ostentatious, and stupid. It definitely reflected the personality of its owner.

Ryan had very begrudgingly made the drive out to Kleinburg for Kent’s birthday party, hoping the entire way that it would be a laidback sort of affair that would mostly just be his teammates and their partners.

He was dismayed to find that, despite the ridiculous size of Kent’s mansion, it was uncomfortably crowded with people.

Most of the people were young women Ryan didn’t recognize.

He did not, in fact, see many of his teammates’ wives and girlfriends present.

“Kent lives here alone, doesn’t he?” Ryan asked. He absently trailed his finger over the keys of a grand piano Kent owned for some reason.

“Well,” said Wyatt, “I don’t think he spends many nights here alone.”

Gross.

Ryan wasn’t going to pretend he had the best eye for design and decor, but Kent’s house looked like it had been decorated by a team of frat boys who had each been given a million dollars and told to spend it on “rich guy things.” The result was a hideous mess of giant televisions, marble statues and fountains, framed black-and-white “tasteful” photographs of naked women, leather couches, and, yes, a grand piano.

Ryan had only seen a few rooms, but as far as he could tell every light fixture was a chandelier.

“I guess the basement is the real party place,” Wyatt said. “Legendary beer pong matches have happened down there. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Great.” Ryan took a sip of his beer. “Do some of these girls seem kinda young to you?”

“Everyone seems kind of young to me these days. But yes.”

“Where did they come from?”

Wyatt shrugged. “Who knows? Kent always manages to surround himself with women. The guy is obsessed.”

Wyatt said it lightly, but Ryan had noticed that Kent seemed to have an unhealthy fixation on women. And on what he could get those women to do. Ryan had played with a lot of guys who talked about women in ways that made Ryan’s skin crawl, but Kent was very possibly the worst of them.

“You look like you’re expecting the man of your dreams to show up at this party,” Wyatt said with a grin.

“What?”

“You look stylish. The tight, sexy clothes, I mean. It’s a good look on you.”

“Whatever,” Ryan said, but he felt his cheeks heat.

In truth, he had put quite a bit of effort into his appearance tonight.

He had used his hair product, and had rubbed oil into his beard, as per Guillaume’s instructions.

And he’d worn an outfit he had bought with the intention of wearing to a gay club the next time he ever decided to go to one: charcoal jeans that had some stretch in the fabric, so they hugged the significant bulge of his thighs and ass, and a black, short-sleeved button-up shirt that strained around his biceps and across his pecs.

The outfit was a lot more revealing than the loose shirts and bootcut jeans he normally wore.

Ryan wasn’t sure what had prompted him to dress outside his comfort zone tonight. His teammates had teased him a bit about his makeover when they’d first seen him before the game last night. Now they were back to mostly ignoring him.

“Houde just texted me.” Wyatt held up his phone. “There’s a poker game starting downstairs. You want in?”

“No thanks. I’m going to stay up here, I think.”

“For fuck’s sake. This is the Halloween party all over again. You didn’t even wear a costume to that!”

“I wore a costume,” Ryan protested. “I was a cowboy.”

“Yeah, but when your whole costume is a hat, and then you leave that hat on a chair all night, it ain’t a costume.” Wyatt clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t have too much fun, Pricey.”

He pushed his way through the crowd toward the door that led to the basement. Ryan spotted an empty love seat, and moved quickly to sit down. He hadn’t even been sitting for a minute when a young woman dropped into the seat next to him.

“Hi.” The woman was very pretty. She had wavy blond hair and enormous blue eyes, and Ryan had no idea who she was.

“Hi,” he replied. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he took a sip of beer and glanced away.

She sat there, without speaking, and he wondered if she was expecting him to flirt with her or something. She’d picked the wrong guy. Gay or not, Ryan couldn’t flirt with anyone.

Eventually the woman, who he was sure was perfectly nice, gave up on him and left. Ryan inwardly cringed at how rude he must have seemed. He wished he could just wear a sign that said I’m sorry. I am terrible at socializing. Please don’t take it personally.

In fact, why was Ryan even here? He didn’t want to drink anymore. He didn’t want to make conversation with people. He didn’t want to gently deflect the poor women who tried to flirt with him. He didn’t want to play poker, and he definitely didn’t want to see Dallas Kent’s legendary party basement.

He wanted to dance with Fabian. He wanted to celebrate Tarek’s birthday, who Ryan barely knew. But he wanted to know him. He wanted to know all of Fabian’s friends.

He glanced at his phone. It was almost eleven thirty. It would probably take Ryan an hour to drive back to the Village, which would probably leave him plenty of time to hang out at the club with people whose company he actually enjoyed. In a place where he could be himself.

Or, better yet, be who he wanted to be.