Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
NOW
Same Day - That Evening
Dash
S yd doesn’t like it when I go out at night alone, but I’m only popping over to the restaurant. I need beer and Dad’s signature wings. I also need to be away from the house, but we’re not gonna talk about that, except to say that my “avoid Stacey Alderchuck” plan is back on. After whatever the fuck that was earlier, I need to reestablish gravity.
Dad’s finally home, but I haven’t seen him yet. I might be a grown man, but I’ve never wanted to run to Dad as badly as I do today. Bet he’s in his office already. Probably hasn’t even unpacked yet. He’s a workaholic and it’s so him to find out what he’s missed at the restaurant before he’s had the chance to shower.
I haven’t opened the door yet, but the music’s already loud from the outside. What’s going on? Opening the door, removing the only thing muffling the sound, it’s as loud as a nightclub. A crowd’s gathered around the bar, forcing me to push my way through.
What the …?
Some of Stacey’s hair’s held back in a pony, while the rest of his wavy curls tumble over his angular face. They sway with his movements as he flings bottles in the air in time with my dad. He’s wearing an unbuttoned pink Hawaiian shirt, not the standard issue Wicklow uniform, which means they were goaded into this ridiculous show of testosterone.
It’s an old Swinging Blue Jeans song, the whole act’s timed with the music. Dad showed Stace the movie Cocktail, and Stacey had to learn it all. They flip the shaker cups behind their backs in sync, catching them, draining a long pull of vodka into the metal cup.
Stacey’s so damn beautiful, and his sleeve cuffs stop right at the crest of his powerful biceps. Those biceps do something to my insides every time they squeeze. He wore the jeans with the tears up the legs, his sun-kissed skin pokes through.
My hand clutches and twists my T-shirt as I watch, mesmerized. Heat burns across my skin. Fuck, what’s wrong with me? I’m engaged. I can’t have an attraction to my best friend. I should never have had it in the first place. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t be in this mess if attraction were all it was. There’s something fucking possessive lurking in my veins. I branded Stacey as mine forever ago and there he is, out there being not mine.
I take a calming breath and exhale whatever arousal tried to bloom. My gaze falls on two bright blond heads seated at the bar, clapping their hands like over-excited schoolboys. My heart freezes in my chest, and if I were made of ice, I’d crack and break apart. The sight of them makes everything ache. They’re perfect. They’re happy-go-lucky. Things I’m not and never will be. I’ll always have a sliver of darkness tainting me.
It doesn’t take an expert lip reader to be able to decipher what they’re saying.
“Good job, Hockey Daddy.”
Yuck. C’mon, Stace. You can do better than them.
There’s a breeze, relieving some of the stuffiness of the packed pub, and arms encircle me from behind.
“Better watch who’s sneakin’ in behind you, bud,” a familiar voice says in my ear.
I spin. “Casey? You’re back!”
Sutter and Casey have been away. Sutter played for Boston last season, and they had a big Stanley Cup win, which unfortunately means Casey, who plays for Vancouver, had a big Stanley Cup loss. None of that stood in the way of true love.
They took a vacation. First, they stayed with Sutter’s shady-ass friends in Langley for a few days. Then it was summer camp as counsellors, which I’m gonna need to see someday to believe is real. After that, not sure what they got up to. They left around the same time Stacey returned, but we haven’t heard from them in a couple of days. Knowing them, Sutter was balls deep in Casey and this is the first time they’ve come up for air.
Stacey and Casey might look the same, but they’re very different people to me. It’s like looking at another version of Stacey, free of the problems we have. Sutter’s a growling minotaur coming in behind him.
“The fuck, Alderchuck,” Sutter says. “I’ll be taking that back.” He rips Casey away from me, and instead of being mad, my friend’s beaming, loving the possessive attention.
He sinks into Sutter and holds up his left hand. “We have news.”
Gleaming on his ring finger is a simple white gold band with two diamonds tucked neatly on each side.
“You couldn’t wait five fucking seconds, Alderchuck?” Sutter says, nibbling on Casey’s ear.
“Nope. Only reason I haven’t told Jack yet is because you confiscated my phone.”
“Yeah, because like I told you, I figured you want to tell your brother first, and I knew you wouldn’t wait.”
“And like I told you, Stacey’s the last person I’m telling. He’s gonna lecture me. Not looking forward to that. Oh, sweet! They’re doin’ Cocktail. C’mon, babe, you gotta see this. It’s so cool.”
Casey drags Sutter, his new fiancé, through the crowd. Okay, that’s fucking weird. I barely got used to them together, and they return from their summer camp gig engaged? It checks out, though. Those two are all or fucking nothing. The most impulsive motherfuckers to exist. I don’t know if Stacey’s gonna lecture him. Old Stacey would have. This new version? Who the fuck knows?
All I know is that if I have to watch the sex-doll twins bat their eyes at Stacey for another second, I’m gonna rip them apart. Sutterchuck is a great distraction for me. I should follow that distraction. Newsflash: I don’t. I push my way to the front of the bar—it’s practically my bar top since I know Dad’s leaving this place to me—and squish myself onto an empty stool. They’re the only yahoos who are seated, the rest of the crowd’s standing.
Stacey almost misses his perfectly timed catch as I sit, fumbling the metal shaker cup, but, thanks to his athletic reflexes, he gets a firm grip on it.
The hair on my neck prickles. Eyes. The twins’ eyes on me. What’s their fucking game? Are they set on keeping my Alderchuck? Yeah, no. I’d sooner see them tossed in a truck and dropped off in the middle of nowhere. We’re friends with Sutter now. He seems like the kind of guy who could make that happen. If he won’t, Rhett definitely could.
Stacey finishes his drink-mixing dance by pouring the contents into the two martini glasses in front of Trent and Alex. Espresso martinis with a foamy top layer. They cheers and down the drinks, opening their throats like I’m sure they have for his dick. Their tongues dart out in sync to swipe the creamy white left on their top lips. The obvious innuendo isn’t lost upon me.
Dad pours his drink for a customer and someone lowers the way-too-loud music. The crowd disperses, returning to their seats, except for Casey and Sutter. They join us at the bar top.
“Wat’cha doin’ here, Dashie?” Stacey says.
“I’d like a drink,” I snap.
“Oh, uh, I’m not really working, I’m—” My glare cuts off whatever the fuck he was gonna say. “I got you,” he says instead.
I’m a beer guy, but I’m also the guy who loves a French 75. Stacey knows. He also knows I like mine with extra lemon and Empress gin rather than the standard well gin. I don’t get the same high-performance show, but Stacey always puts a little flare into his cocktails. I get to watch those massive biceps of his go to work again as he shakes my drink over ice.
He slides the flute into my hand, his fingers graze mine, and little bubble-pop tingles float over my knuckles and down my arm. I don’t miss the furious anger in his stare.
“How come he gets rewarded for being a fucking brat, Daddy,” Trent complains.
“Language, sweetheart,” Stacey says, but his dark eyes stay on me. Know what? I’m gonna cut out his damn tongue if he calls either of them that one more time.
“This a good moment to tell you we’re engaged?” Casey says. That’s him trying to break up my and Stacey’s weird-ass silent fight over … damned if I know.
“You’re what?” Stacey’s head snaps to Casey. He reaches across the bar to grab his hand and take a full look at the ring. Huh, was this enough to pull Stacey from the weird hippy haze he’s been living in this past week? Stacey smiles. “That’s great, bro! Congratulations. This calls for a celebration. Everyone, you hear that? My little brother’s engaged. Drinks on me.”
Loud whoops and whistles sound through the place.
“I’m your twin brother, asshole, but thanks,” Casey says.
The real bartenders pull out bottles of champagne and pour for the whole restaurant. Stacey saunters from behind the bar and the twins follow like lost kittens. God, I hate them.
I down my drink like it’s a shooter. Fuck this. I’m getting plastered tonight. I hold out my glass for the bartender.
“To Sutterchuck,” I say, and send it down the hatch. “You can leave the bottle,” I tell the bartender.
Stacey doesn’t like that. He can read me like a book by this point and probably knows what I’m up to just not why I’m up to it. He doesn’t stop me, but his eagle eyes keep me in their sights.
“Tell us about it,” Stacey says. “How did he finally ask you?”
Casey gets a sparkle about him. “He got down on one knee in the dark, buck naked, nothing but a headlamp on.”
“Yeah, still have the fucking scar to prove it. I knelt on a rock,” Sutter says, lifting his chest.
“You didn’t have to stay down there like that, dumbass,” Case says, but it’s clear Casey’s glad he did. As if he slayed a dragon or whatever.
Sutter takes that as his cue to crowd around Casey, staking his claim all over again as if Sutter knows he needs it. I’m not into Sutter, but when he does stuff like that, I get … something. A furling through my body. The announcement of a need I didn’t know I had. Or maybe I did, but I don’t like to think about it. It’s a thing I don’t get from Syd.
“I’d kneel on a thousand rocks for you, kitten.”
Blech. When did Sutter become Prince Fucking Charming?
“So, when’s the wedding?” I ask. I don’t think I can hear any more about wedding proposals.
Casey takes Sutter’s bear-paw hand. “Actually, we were hoping everyone would join us in Vegas just before training camp.”
“Shit. Why so soon?” I ask.
“Because Sutter wants to own me on paper.” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t bother trying to explain how wrong and how not a thing that is.”
“Yeah, because I’m not wrong and it is a thing, Alderchuck.”
“Is it still gonna be Alderchuck?” I ask. Sutter doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to do hyphens.
Casey facepalms. “Don’t start this argument again.”
Sutter shrugs. “Not much of an argument, kitten.”
“Do you two ever agree on anything?” I ask.
“No,” they say at the same time and that’s cause for them to break down with laughter. They rub noses and Sutter nips at his jaw before he sucks Casey’s bottom lip into his mouth.
Is everyone gonna be like this all summer? Because I’m gonna riot if they are.
“Please be a Sutter, baby?” Sutter nuzzles his lips against the place on Casey’s neck where he has a tattoo of his soon-to-be husband’s love bites.
Casey must see something there. He’s wavering. Holy shit, Casey’s totally gonna cave.
“You can add Alderchuck to your name and have Sutter as your surname—I want to be The Sutters.”
He watches Sutter as if he’s remembering something. “Yeah, I want that, too.”
Oh. My. God. What’s happening? What dimension did I fall into?
“No takebacks,” Sutter says. He kisses him to seal the deal.
“I feel that. When I marry my The One, I’m making him an Alderchuck,” Stacey says with a lot more aggression than I’m used to hearing from him. His eyes flick briefly to me, long enough for my body to burn. “To The Sutters.”
Syd’s last name is Smith. We were gonna hyphenate—his idea to be fair and all. But I find myself swallowing, hearing Stacey say that so fucking decisively.
I’d be an Alderchuck. I would have gladly been Dash Fucking Alderchuck.
We all drink to the Sutters. A twin sits on either side of Stacey. Thank fuck he doesn’t touch them, but my skin still itches. God. I need a fucking drink—more fucking drinks. Where the hell’s Dirk? He’ll drink with me. Know what? I’m gonna make sure everyone drinks with me.
“Jerry?” I say to the bartender. “Tequila for me and my friends. Keep ‘em coming.”
T he world spins, so I try to close my eyes only to find they’re already closed. Fuck, I’m fucked. My insides have become a sadistic tilt-a-whirl. Swinging over the side of the bed, my stomach heaves the last remaining remnants of bile from it into a … bucket? I don’t get to wonder who put it there, I’m just grateful it’s there. The morning fills with awful retching sounds coming from the very bowels of me.
There’s a warm hand on my bare back, a hand I’d know in the darkness, out of my mind, half dead.
“Get it out, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. The name he calls everybody, apparently.
“Get … g’orff me.” I’m less than graceful, hungover as fuck. My brain decides to torture me with a memory from last night— Stacey carrying my drunk ass out of the restaurant because I’d already puked in one of the washroom stalls. Me screaming, “I don’t wanna go home yet. Don’t you dare make me go home yet, asshole,” while I beat on his back.
Fun times.
I wipe my gross mouth with the back of my arm.
“There’s some Advil for you and water,” he says as softly as he can, but it’s still too loud for my head.
I groan and throw myself on my back. It forces me to look up at him. Wait, he’s only half-dressed in pajama pants and his eyes are half open, hair flying all over the place. Did he just wake up?
“Did you sleep with me?”
“No, I … look, I was afraid you were gonna drown in your own puke, Dash,” he says with bitterness souring his tone.
Oh, is he displeased with me? Good. Because I’m pretty fucking displeased with him. Old me might have cared, might have cowed under his disappointment, but new me considers it a great fuck you.
“Where did you sleep?” my gravelly voice asks.
“On the floor.”
“What’s wrong with my bed?” Nothing was wrong with it before he went on his trip.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate anymore.”
“Because I’m getting married?”
“Yeah, because you’re getting married. I shouldn’t be the one telling you that.”
“No one should. Nothing has to change, Stacey.” My stomach heaves again, but I fight it down this time. There’s nothing left in me to expel.
Stacey sighs. “Shh, c’mere, Dashie.”
He pulls me into his arms. I melt into him, becoming part of him. This is where I’ve wanted to be for the past week, but my stubborn ass wouldn’t allow it. Familiar fingers wind through my hair, distracting me from everything. My churning stomach fades into the background.
“You’re getting married, Dash. That changes everything.”
“B-But, it hasn’t.” Syd and I were long-distance, which is what almost ended us until he made time for me. He’s rich, he doesn’t need to work, he does it to fill his time and because he likes it. He took a huge step back and moved to Kelowna to be closer to me during the season, which was so fucking sweet. That’s how we rekindled things.
Last off-season, Syd and I weren’t that serious, but this off-season, well, I guess engaged is serious. I didn’t think this through. It’s not that I don’t know there’s etiquette to this kind of thing, but Stacey’s always been in a box, he’s outside of the regular rules. I thought I was for him too.
“We haven’t been together in person since Christmas, which was well before you were engaged. I didn’t think it was something that had to be said. I just assumed that we’d naturally drift to, uh, a more appropriate friendship.”
“More appropriate? We’re totally appropriate. It’s the way we all are. I’m like this with Dirk, too, and Casey and Jack.” Well, not so much Jack anymore since Merc. And I guess I’ll have to tone down the cuddle sessions with Casey now that I’ll have Sutter around to growl at me.
Oh.
Oh, I get it.
Our thing kind of ends as we pair up. Dirk doesn’t have a pair yet. I’m the one being paired off.
“Okay, maybe we’re more than what’s considered comfortable to some, but that’s us because of all that’s happened. Our future partners can understand it or hit the dirt, remember?”
He’s still running fingers through my hair. “Yeah, I remember what we said, but we were a lot younger. I don’t think we need to hold ourselves to ideas we had before we knew much about life.”
“But—”
“Dashie?”
“Yeah?”
“If I were Syd, and I found you lying like this with your friend—innocent though it might be—I’d drop his ass somewhere in the Amazon and then I’d proceed to show you where you fucking belong. You wouldn’t ever be in another man’s arms again, that’s for fucking sure.”
A body-wide shiver sweeps through me. Good Lord. Has Stacey always been like this?
I grip him tightly. Hot as that was, I know it also means that he’s saying something else.
“Is this goodbye?”
“What? Never. We just have to change things a little bit. I’m always gonna be here for you, Dash Nolan.”
That doesn’t bring the comfort it usually does. It leaves a hollow dark stain that spreads through my veins. I’m gonna puke again, and it’s not the hangover this time. Sure, we’ve always been best friends, but there was a little something special about us that I could never name.
It’s that something extra he’s saying has to go.
Fuck. I don’t wanna cry. That’s so not fair. He’s only saying what needs to be said. He’s only doing what I should have been the one to do. But I’m so damn selfish. I wanted my cake and to eat it too.
I keep my eyes closed, pretending hangover, which is not that much of a stretch since I’m hungover as fuck. It’s just, it’s not the hangover that’s choking me up.
“We can talk more another time,” he says. Or never. “Go back to sleep, Dashie. I’m not going anywhere till I’m sure you’re okay and you’ll need to be in top form for all the appointments we have today.”
Appointments? Shit. Dammit. I forgot about those. I lined up everything for today as a solution to the time crunch, getting as much as I could planned before the hockey season starts. Me planning this during the season would be a hopeless cause. My and Syd’s compromise was that he travels with my hockey schedule, but he gets to do more of the work he loves in the off-season, so this is on me.
I wanted to show him that I could take care of everything. Just because I’m not a very good adult, doesn’t mean I can’t get shit done. And I can learn. I’m hellbent on learning. Syd’s so mature, and yeah, I guess that comes with age, but it’s also something I should get on top of if I’m gonna be his husband.
“I should get in the bath.”
“Maybe, but you’re not going to,” Stacey says. “You’re going back to sleep. I’ll make sure you’re up in plenty of time to get ready.”
Something nags at me. Would a real adult need someone to tell him how to run his day? Ugh. A real adult probably wouldn’t have drunk his face off because he was jealous of his best friend’s new boy toys. But I’m not letting go of Stacey for nothing. If this is the last time I get to cuddle in bed with him like this, I’m gonna eat it up.
Just as I’m getting settled, my somersaulting stomach forces me to shoot up. Nothing comes out, but my brain doesn’t care. It still thinks it’s ridding me of poison. My eyes are wet by the end of it, my abs feel like they’ve done a million sit-ups.
So not how I want to spend my last ever cuddle session with Stacey. Bet he can’t wait to finally be rid of me.
“God, I feel awful. You don’t have to see this, Stace.”
He hands me a towel this time. “Seen it before, Dash, and if you think I’m going anywhere, you don’t know shit about me. Here, have a little bit of this electrolyte drink. It’ll suck going down, but your body needs the hydration to calm the fuck down.”
Yeah, I know he’s right. I take a few small sips. The sweetness is a pleasant reprieve from the sour taste of bile. This time, I wrap my arms around him with purpose, like I always do but with the intent of imprinting myself into his soul. With the hope that he’ll fucking miss the way I used to feel in his arms.