Chapter 23: Egotistical Puckboy: Chapter 23

IT’S easy for Anton and me to fall into a rhythm, and I never thought I’d love away games as much as I have this season. It’s easier for us to hook up when we’re rooming together instead of doing the stupid cloak-and-dagger bullshit sneaking around Boston when we’re home.

The coaches and team management are happy that we’re behaving like good little boys and getting along, though there are still stories about us in the media across the entire spectrum from us hating each other to we’re getting married and having a surrogate carry our babies.

Either way, the team doesn’t really care what might or might not be going on with us because we’re winning every damn game.

We’re on a streak, and we’re all holding our breaths for the inevitable day where something goes wrong and breaks it.

Today, we have a quick morning skate to stay loose, and then some of us get the rest of the day off. Some—as in the lucky ones. Us unlucky ones have to go home and get ready for the B’s annual charity gala. Black-tie event. Stuffy, rich people wanting to meet hockey players. Begging for donations for the thousands of different charities the B Foundation contributes to.

Fun times.

Like I told Anton when he dragged me to the animal shelter, I don’t mind the charity work. It totally has a purpose. But our schedule is so grueling, all I really want to be focused on during the season is hockey. The in-between times should be reserved for fucking and resting. Oh, and eating.

I’m a simple man. Food, sex, sleep, and hockey. That’s all I need.

I don’t need to get all dolled up in a penguin suit and schmooze rich people while I can’t even get drunk because we have a game tomorrow.

After our skate, in the locker room, Anton approaches me. “You get tapped for that dinner tonight too?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“Want to, uh, go?”

“It’s mandatory, so yeah.”

“I mean … with me.”

Okay, this is new. I glance around at the rest of the guys stripping down to see if any of them are in on this. Like asking me out in front of everyone is some elaborate prank. No one is paying attention. When I look up at him, usually meticulously neat black hair a mess and expression guarded, I can’t make out what he means.

I lower my voice. “Like a date or …”

“I figure we live close by, we both have to go, but never mind—”

“I’ll go. With you.”

“Meet at mine at seven?”

My smile is almost painful.

Anton hits the showers, but I stay at my cubby, trying to dissect what just happened.

He didn’t answer my question if this is an actual date or not. Maybe it’s as friends. And, scarily, maybe I don’t want it to be.

Anton’s relaxing around me more and more, which is great, but now he might be overshooting it. I wanted public acknowledgment as a friend and teammate, nothing more. Does he think I need public dates? Or is this wanting public dates?

Or is this his way of being friends?

Am I freaking out at the prospect of more? Surprisingly, no. And I don’t know why that is either.

I’m not sure of anything, especially the answer to why Anton is different than anyone I’ve ever been with before.

Normally, I’d freak out at his demand for exclusivity. Initially, I didn’t want to agree to it because that’s not how I operate. Knowing there was an end date on it made it easier for me, but now … I don’t see an end date in sight, and I’m weirdly okay with it.

I try to shake all those thoughts free, but they come back intermittently throughout the day.

I think about Anton when I get home and hit the gym to stretch out my muscles from this morning’s skate, when I’m grooming my beard and manscaping my junk to get ready for tonight, and particularly when I’m donning my tux and getting ready to show up at this gala together.

I doubt any more could be said in the media about us, so arriving together isn’t going to cause a stir. It will look like we’re teammates.

Yet, there’s a ball of nerves in my gut as I text Anton that I’m leaving and to meet me out front. I can’t tell if it’s from dread or excitement.

Anton confuses me in the best possible way. Or the worst. It could be either. Or both. I’m a confused mess, and it’s all Anton’s fault.

One thing I do know is when Anton steps out of his building, I’m not prepared for seeing him in a tux.

A tailored suit, sure. I see that every other day.

But a tux? With a bow tie and his Armani jacket?

I’m hard just looking at him.

His hair is back to usual—perfectly styled and parted on the side.

He climbs into my passenger seat. “Couldn’t even come up to knock on my door like a gentleman? Why am I not surprised?”

Instead of a smartass remark about there being nothing gentlemanly about either of us, nothing passes my lips. My analytical side kicks in again, and I overthink every word in his sentence until nothing makes sense.

Was I supposed to pick him up from his door like it’s a date?

“Wow, you really hate being charitable,” Anton says. “It’s the animal shelter all over again.”

“Huh?” I pull out onto the road.

“You look tense. What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up. Other than my dick. You look hot.”

Anton releases a small smile.

“And I don’t look too bad either,” I prompt.

“You scrub up nice.”

“You mean for a fuckboy?”

Anton sighs. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, and I will deny I ever did, but … you’re not a fuckboy.”

“Oh no, are you dying? Retiring? Is the world ending? Did I miss the alien zombie invasion? Or are you trying to make us crash?”

“Yep. I take it back already.”

“You can’t. No backsies. That’s how it works with actual compliments, not the half-assed ones you throw at me sometimes.”

“You really don’t want to push me right now, Ez. I’m on the brink of making things really uncomfortable for you.”

“Uncomfortable how? You gonna reach over and tease me through my pants? Ooh, road head?” I reach for my fly, but his words stop me cold.

“You’re not a fuckboy, but you act like one because deep down you don’t want to feel the rejection your parents inflicted on you your whole life. You treat people as disposable so they can’t do it to you first.”

I grip the steering wheel tight and grit my teeth.

“I told you,” Anton says.

“That’s some grade A psychoanalyzing you did there, but you’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“People are disposable to me because I’m literally too much of a fuckboy to care about anyone but myself.”

Anton stares at me for a moment, and I can feel the heat of his gaze on the side of my neck, but he turns away and looks out his window.

He says something, and it’s so low I miss half of it, but it sounds like “Keep telling yourself that.”

Walking into this function together is no big deal. Getting photographed while a million questions are thrown our way about our friendship is the same old shit on another night. But Anton’s words keep replaying in my head, and it’s taking all my energy to be my usual carefree self.

I manage because I have to. Not for the rich attendees who I couldn’t care less about or because the team’s management expects me to. I need to do it to prove to Anton that he can’t see through me.

Even though he can. He’s the only one who’s paid close enough attention to me to see past the smokescreen. Not even my parents care enough to put in the effort. I make it deliberately hard for people to love me, and I sabotage when they’re getting too close. It’s easier than them being disappointed by who I really am. But Anton sees. And he’s not disappointed.

Yet.

It’s only a matter of time until I screw up though. And I’m not sure how I’m going to get past when it happens because I don’t want to disappoint him. That’s a completely new experience for me.

“Drink?” I ask Anton, and he nods. “I’ll be right back.”

I’m suddenly regretting driving because despite being told not to drink by Coach, I want to drown out all the overthinking.

This is not me.

A presence and familiar cologne appears next to me, along with a deep voice. “What, I retire and you replace me with Anton Hayes?”

I turn to find my best friend, Westly Dalton, standing there, and next to him is his sexy professor boyfriend.

“You escaped prison!” I exclaim, and everyone’s heads in the immediate vicinity turn to look.

“Uh, five kids is not prison.”

“If you say so.” I don’t hesitate to throw my arms around him. “I can’t believe you’re here.” Then I shove him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And ruin the surprise? There’s no fun in that.”

His partner, Jasper, rolls his eyes. “He didn’t tell you because up until a few hours ago, he wasn’t sure he was going to come. He still struggles to leave the kids for longer than an hour.”

I turn to West. “Can I ask you something?”

“I’m scared,” Jasper says. “He’s going to ask for a threesome, isn’t he?”

I hold my heart. “I’m touched you know me so well already. This is fate. We should get married.”

I swear West’s partner loves me. He really does. Even when he inhales a long breath, tells West he’ll be at the bar, and leaves us alone.

“What’s up?” West asks.

“How did you know … like … how did you know you wanted more. Umm, with me?”

West’s gaze narrows. “Why do you want to—” His gaze ping-pongs all over the room, trying to find Anton, no doubt. “Are you and Hayes still—”

I tug on his arm. “Not here.”

There are two doors leading outside to a balcony where smokers can have a cigarette, but there’s no one out here right now.

“Yes, Anton and I are still fucking around.”

West puts his hands in his pockets. “And you’re scared he wants more from you?”

Of course he’d think that.

“I’m scared do.”

West flinches as if I hit him.

“Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about this, but you were and always will be my best friend, even if things got weird for a while, and I don’t know why I’m getting confused over him when I never did with you. It would’ve made so much more sense for this to happen with you, and maybe our timing was off or something—”

West starts laughing his ass off.

My neck burns, my skin tingles, and even as he bends to try to catch his breath, I’m struggling to see what’s so funny.

“Sorry. I’m not laughing,” he says … through laughter. “I just don’t know how else to react to that.”

“Neither do I, but with hysterical laughter isn’t even on my list.”

West stands upright. “Okay. Sorry. I’m done. I swear.”

“You sure?”

His face screws up, and he laughs some more.

“Oh, fuck you. Forget I said anything.” I turn to go back inside when West catches my arm.

“Sorry. Again. I … I don’t think my mind can comprehend this. When we were together, I thought maybe, possibly one day you’d think about settling down but you hadn’t got all the sleeping around out of your system. I was kinda over that scene by the end, and I was waiting for you to catch up. But you never did. Then—”

“Then you found yourself having to move home with an insta-family, and you realized you could never be serious about someone like me.”

“Aww, Ez. That’s not it at all. Our paths went in two different directions. You were in no way ready to settle down. But if you’re standing here telling me that you want to try to have a relationship with Anton, then I’m going to give you all the support in the world.”

“So again, how did you know?”

West is clearly struggling to find the words. “I … realized that when the night ended, I’d rather hook up with you than anyone else. But … don’t take offense to this, it was different with Jasper. With you, I didn’t care if you hooked up with anyone else. With him, I would cut a bitch who looked at him too long.”

I snigger, because we both know that West is all talk. He’s a big kitten who would skate away from fights on the ice.

“How do you feel when he’s with someone else?” West asks.

I start to feel really, really awkward about that. “You mean like talking …” Of course I know what he means, but I suddenly don’t want to admit that we’re exclusive.

“Fucking. Duh.” He eyes me funny.

“I wouldn’t know because he doesn’t sleep with anyone else.”

West looks surprised. “Okay, well—”

“And neither do I.”

“

? You’re exclusive?”

“Would we call it exclusive …” I try for dismissive, but West isn’t having any of it.

“Yes. That’s literally what that means.” He lets out a low whistle. “Are you guys already in a relationship?”

“No.” But when I think about it, we do hang out a lot. And talk. About things other than sex.

“But you want to be?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I pause. “Why him?”

“You’re …” West cocks his head. “You’re asking me why you like Anton?”

“I guess? Because I sure as hell don’t know. We still bicker, and up until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure if we were even friends.”

“What’s changed over the last few weeks?”

“That’s what’s driving me crazy. I can’t figure it out.”

West’s lips flatten.

“What is it?” I ask. “That’s your face.”

“I didn’t realize I had a face that said that.”

“You do, and I want to know what you were thinking.”

“I was thinking that maybe you’re falling for Anton, and because you’ve never done that with anyone before, you’re freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out. That’s not it.”

Oh fuck, is it?