Page 36

OSCAR

Five months later

T hat’s it,” Alka says as he follows their progress down the field. He stops and watches as his team passes the ball. It barely skirts around one of the opposite team’s players before Reeve grabs it and passes it away again.

There’s more teamwork in the first five minutes than there was the entirety of the scrimmage I watched against Martinville. It’s a relief.

We’re playing Gold Mountain University in our second official game of the season. I have to say, I’m surprised that the team has their shit together. On the other hand, I’m not surprised because Alka is a fantastic coach.

I hold my breath when our number six stops the ball. He waits for the opponent streaking toward him to catch up before kicking it backward as he shuffles out of the way of the oncoming player. He skids while our six kicks the ball.

Their goalie stops it, though barely. He jumps for it, dinging the ball with his hand. It changes direction and hits the goal post. It’s only luck that it bounces out and not in.

“So close,” Ruby says from beside me .

Smiling, I wrap my arm around his waist and kiss his cheek. It was difficult for him and Alka to accept the school’s decision. Alka and Harper removed three additional players from the team who’d been hateful and disrespectful, even if not to the same extreme that Jeff Doherty had.

They didn’t do it in front of the rest of the team as someone from the meeting suggested. However, there was full disclosure as to who left and why. This included the fact that Greer decided to try blackmail and was expelled from RDU indefinitely. That’s not the kind of person they want on campus.

Ruby said practices had been weird. Before their removals, Jeff had outright ignored Ruby as if he didn’t exist and Greer wasn’t as chatty with him as he’d once been, though he wasn’t an outright dick like Jeff had been. He just wasn’t friendly anymore. They were acquaintances. Teammates. Not friends. Something that truly bothered Ruby.

Once they were back to practice after the couple weeks off and the removal of the five players, it felt like everyone tried to overcompensate. They simply couldn’t put aside the knowledge that their former teammates had been removed for excluding Ruby, and it led to them passing to him even when he wasn’t open. Honestly, I didn’t think it was that difficult to figure out. If Roux’s open, pass it to him. If he’s not, then don’t. You don’t have to play soccer for ten years to know that. Maybe that’s just me simplifying soccer.

It was uncomfortable. I think the plan had been for Ruby to make a little announcement as to why he was leaving the team, but he decided not to say anything at all. Like it or not, he was the problem even though he shouldn’t have been.

Both Alka and Ruby said that the team calmed down after the players were removed, and while Ruby stayed for three more practices, he was glad to leave for good. He said that while no one outright said anything to him or even looked at him in a different way, there was tension in the air every time he walked in .

Alka waited the rest of that week after Ruby left before taking over his duties again. From what Harper said, he was far harsher than he ever was in the past. I attended a few practices, just to see, and yep, that wasn’t the man I’d seen coach in the ten years I’ve known him.

It resulted in a long discussion when he got home. I understood he was angry and hurt, but if he was going to coach, he needed to remember that it’s not supposed to be hell. He disagreed, saying if he was going to be coaching uncivilized asshole children, that was how they were going to be treated.

Ruby and I decided to let him do what he felt needed to be done. Five months later, he’s still not the coach he was before he told his team about him and Ruby. I’ve never known my husband to have regrets, but I think he seriously regrets that decision. Especially because he feels guilty every single day because Ruby isn’t on the team when he did nothing to deserve leaving it.

“Yes!” Ruby says, getting to his feet. “Come on, Reeve. Go.”

There’s a hush in the stands, then everyone groans when one of the other team’s players gets in his way. He can’t keep his balance when they knock shoulders, resulting in the ball being stolen.

Ruby sits with a huff.

There’s definitely far more cohesiveness on the field now. Reeve and Dorian are the only players I know by name. Reeve because he and Ruby are still friends and Dorian because he’s the captain and I’ve heard both Harper and Alka call on him a few times.

It’s weird referring to everyone else as numbers, but… Maybe that’s what they deserve to be. Either they were dicks, or they stepped aside and did nothing while a handful of people were absolute assholes to another. They pretended it wasn’t happening.

Our number forty-seven makes an attempt on goal. I’m not sure it should have gone in, but it does. Their goalie dives, and his hands hit the ball to send it out. One of their own teammates tries to dodge out of the way, but he’s already in motion as the ball comes at him. It hits his shoulder and ricochets into the net while the goalie is still down.

“That’s a shitty way to win,” Ruby says as he leans into my side.

We do win. We’d already been up by one, but the accidental goal really seals the deal. The last fifteen minutes are the ball being kicked and guys chasing it. I see some fancy footwork that never fails to impress me. I don’t think I’m that coordinated.

Ruby detaches from my side as soon as the last whistle is blown. He wraps his arms around Alka, hugging him tightly and kissing him unabashedly. I suppose if there was a win in this situation, it’s that Ruby no longer feels the need to hide their relationship. So he doesn’t.

I join them a few seconds later as the team gathers around the bench. “Nice game, Coach,” I say, kissing his cheek.

Alka smiles. “We did okay.”

“Go coach. We’ll wait for you,” Ruby says as he lets Alka go.

Alka kisses us both again before turning to the team. Ruby and I step away. We spend a few minutes with our friends who attended the game to show Alka support, but they break off to head home before too long. I will never forget how much they stepped up to show Alka a solid front when he needed it.

Those are the kinds of friends Ruby should have had on the team. Instead, two of the men he thought were friends were the complete opposite. Thankfully, Reeve turned out to be a good guy. He and Ruby still talk sometimes.

“What do you want to do while we wait?” I ask.

Most of the time, we just linger around the bleachers, talking to whomever until Alka’s finished for the day. Sometimes, we head to the café to get drinks. Sometimes dinner if we’re too hungry to wait until we get home. A few times, we’ve gone back to Ruby’s dorm and shared a couple orgasms .

“Let’s go check out the hockey arena,” Ruby says, surprising me.

“You thinking of taking up hockey instead?”

He laughs, taking my hand. “No. Lix is looking for something to invest in, and he keeps forgetting to check out the arena when he visits so he asked me to.”

“Ah. Then let’s go.”

The rink isn’t far, though from the outside, I can tell that it’s relatively new. We’re talking the last five or six years. The last decade at the most. Either that or the school is really good about keeping it looking amazing. With Rainbow Dorset, it could seriously be either.

I push the door open, and we step foot inside. It looks no less new and shiny than the outside. We look around before stepping through one of the doors that leads down to the rink below. Even the seats look new.

“Well,” Ruby says as we make our way down, “I don’t think this is what he has in mind.”

“I was thinking that too. We must have missed the plaque dedication when it was opened, but if I had to guess, it hasn’t been very long.”

He shakes his head. “Same.”

We stop at the bottom, and Ruby leans against the glass. There’s a small, soft smile on his face.

“You ever play hockey?”

“Eh,” he says, shrugging. “Lix is fifteen years older than me, so by the time I could walk, he was in the middle of his second-to-last year of high school. There’s a picture of us on the ice together. I’m barely one, so I can’t stand on my own for shit. But I’m all bundled up with these tiny skates on, and my brother is holding me upright by my arms as he glides me around the ice between his legs. I have the biggest smile even though my nose and cheeks are rosy red because it’s so cold. It’s one of my favorite pictures. ”

“That’s sweet.”

Ruby nods absently. “I think I might have played hockey if Lix was there when I was growing up. Don’t get me wrong. Even though he was playing hockey and rarely home, we talked all the time. Constantly. He was the best big brother ever. But I think because he wasn’t there, my interest in hockey never fully formed. When I was eight or nine, I signed up for soccer. If Lix was ever disappointed, I never saw it. He celebrated every damn moment I was in soccer as if he were proud of me just for running across the pitch.”

“He sounds like an amazing man,” I say.

“He is. One of the best people I’ve ever known.”

I lean into his shoulder as we stare out at the ice for a few minutes. It’s quiet. There’s distant sounds of people moving through the building. Otherwise, it’s just us.

“Roux?”

Ruby tenses beside me as we turn around. My instinct is to get between them or maybe tie this asshole to the ice and pay someone to run him over with the Zamboni a couple times.

Jeff Doherty comes toward us down the stairs. Ruby doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t respond at all except to watch him guardedly. Jeff’s eyes flicker to me briefly, and he stops half a dozen stairs up.

“I want to apologize,” Jeff says. Beside me, Ruby tilts his head slightly. Surprised? Indifferent. I’m surprised. “Professor Zarek was right. I was threatened by your talent the second you stepped onto the field. During that first practice, I kept thinking, Where the fuck did this guy come from? I was jealous of your skills and how you worked so damn hard but made it look effortless. When Coach told us about you two being together, that was all I heard. Nothing else. Not that you met before school. I conveniently disregarded that he’d removed himself from the position where he could give you special treatment. I convinced myself that you were only so good because you were dating our coach, and if you were no longer on the team, then you weren’t competition.”

Ruby nods, shrugging.

“I’m sorry. Everything I did was just a dick move. It was shitty. I’m sorry I treated you that way.”

“Okay,” Ruby says. I distinctly note that he doesn’t say he forgives Jeff. Sometimes, people don’t deserve forgiveness. Jeff’s actions were the lynchpin that forced Ruby off the team. In my opinion, he doesn’t deserve Ruby’s forgiveness either. Let him sit with that for a while. Let him remember that he interfered with not just one man’s career but with another man’s possible career path—even if Ruby didn’t intend to go pro.

Jeff shifts, maybe waiting for Ruby to say something else. When he doesn’t, Jeff gives him a nod and backs up one of the steps behind him.

“I also want you to know that I didn’t put Greer up to that. I didn’t know he was doing it. It wasn’t something we talked about, and I’m not even sure where he came up with the idea,” Jeff adds.

Ruby shrugs.

Once again, Jeff nods. “Okay, uh… I’ll see you around.”

Ruby mimics Jeff’s nod, and we watch him turn around and climb the cement steps out of the stadium seating. Ruby turns back to the ice and leans against the boards again. I give him a minute without saying anything, then I rest my hand on his back. “Ready to go find Alka and bring him home? I think that game deserves a celebration.”

He smiles. “Yeah.”

I pull him against my chest and kiss him. There’s simply nothing I love more than when one of my men sighs as they give me their weight, trusting me to hold them. To keep them from falling. Maybe it being more than a simple gesture of physical trust is all in my head, but to me, it feels like they’re trusting me with every part of them. Not just to keep them from hitting the ground but from ever falling in any part of their lives. I will always be there to hold them up.

“Love you,” Ruby murmurs.

I smile. “Love you too, darling.”