Ryker
RYKER
Rachel lets out a squeal so loud it makes people turn their heads, lets go of Sawyer’s hand, and sprints toward Lake. She jumps, and he catches her. They both laugh, she wraps her legs around Lake’s waist, and they hug each other tightly.
These last few days, ever since our little Christmas break ended, he’s been kind of quiet. Or at least it feels like it. I can’t really explain it. It feels like his mind is a million miles away, but at the same time he’s trying to hide it.
This is the first time in almost a week that he hasn’t looked silently tense.
“Longest flight ever!” Rach declares.
Sawyer and I shake hands, and then Rach hugs me too.
“Oh my God! I’m so glad we’re on solid ground again,” she says. “I’m tempted to kiss the floor.”
“Is international travel already losing its flavor?” Lake asks with a laugh.
“You spend fourteen hours in a steel can in too-narrow seats and tell me how you feel.”
Lake picks up Rach’s suitcase, and we head for the exit. We find our car, throw the bags in the back, and climb in.
“How was New Zealand?” Lake turns so he can look at Rach and Sawyer in the back seat.
“Green,” Sawyer says with his customary small smile on his face.
“Really pretty.” Rachel lets out a dreamy sigh. “A hundred percent would’ve stayed longer, but you were all, ‘But Rach, I miss you so much. You promised to spend New Year’s with meeeee.’ What choice did we have?”
“I asked you what your plans were before heading to Europe,” Lake says dryly.
“I can read between the lines.”
They grin at each other.
“Have you heard anything from Kelly?” Rach asks. “He hasn’t replied to any of my messages in, like, two days already.”
“He said he was coming yesterday, and I haven’t heard anything from him today, so I don’t think he’s changed his mind.”
Rachel nods. “Well good. Otherwise we’d have to go all the way to Boston to drag him here, and I’d really prefer to start drinking sooner rather than later.”
Let’s face it, New York City isn’t the ideal place to spend New Year’s Eve, but we’ve got a game on the second, so traveling anywhere would be even more of a headache. Nolan, one of my teammates, is throwing a party, so that’s where we end up. It’s a typical house party, if a typical house is an apartment in Lenox Hill with private rooftop access and a view of Central Park.
Kelly lets out a low whistle when we walk into the apartment.
“Oh, so you’re, like, rich rich.” He tilts his head to the side when he looks at me.
“It’s not my place,” I say.
“You associate with the owner. I can fill in the rest.” His eyes wander up and down me, shining with mirth. “Yeah, I can see it now.”
“Keep it in your pants,” Lake says from behind us. “He’s taken.”
“Shh!” Kelly turns around and presses his forefinger to Lake’s lips. “Let me appreciate this moment.”
“Find your own moment.”
I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something off about Lake’s tone. He says it almost absently, like his mind is somewhere else.
“I haven’t gotten laid in three months. Let me have this one.” Kelly sends me one more look and winks, but then something else catches his attention. “Hell yeah, they have shots.” He disappears into the crowd.
Rachel hooks her arm through Lake’s.
“Champagne first because we’re classy, and then tequila because champagne hangovers are the worst.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lake says as he throws me a smile over his shoulder.
I follow them into the crowd.
The apartment might look opulent as fuck, but when it comes down to it, the party isn’t much different from your regular frat parties in college. Somebody’s filled the bathtub with ice and bottles of alcohol. People are playing video games in one room and dancing in the other. I’m pretty sure I saw a keg somewhere. It’s loud and chaotic. The doors that lead to the rooftop patio are wide open, but there are so many bodies packed into the apartment that the cold doesn’t even register.
I grab another beer—my second and last for the evening, or I’ll be useless tomorrow.
I’m leaning against the wall, eyes on Lake. He’s busy destroying some dude I don’t know at the pool table. We migrated to this room a little while ago. The music is quieter here, so you don’t have to shout to be heard over it. The view is better, too, with Lake regularly leaning over the pool table as he lines up his shot.
He’s drawn a bit of a crowd by now with how good he is, and since word seems to have spread that Lake is yet to lose, they’ve started making bets.
I’m both proud and turned on. Lake’s also laughing and talking to people, looking way more relaxed than he has been in the last few days, which is nice to see.
Kelly appears from the crowd and comes and leans against the wall next to me. He eyes Lake for a few seconds before he snorts into his beer.
“Let me guess. You didn’t have the courtesy to warn any of your teammates that you’d be bringing a pool shark with you?”
“They have money,” I say.
For a little while, we both watch the game silently.
“Can I ask you something?” I don’t fully intend to even say that, but the words are suddenly out there.
Kelly sends me a curious look. “I don’t see why you couldn’t.”
I hesitate for a moment because it feels distinctly like an invasion of privacy.
Then I spend an eternity trying to figure out how to ask what I want to ask, until Kelly rolls his eyes. “Just spit it out. I promise I won’t hold it against you. Unless you want to rent my colon to smuggle drugs. Then I’ll probably give you side-eye.”
I roll my eyes in return. “That’s your hard limit?”
“I draw the line at being an idiot. Come on now. It’s not New Year’s yet, so ask before the year is over, and if it’s offensive or shitty or something we can turn a new page in twenty minutes.”
I tilt my head to the side and frown at him. “What do you think I want to ask?”
He waves his hand in the air in front of himself. “Off the top of my head, it’ll have something to do with the fact that I used to sleep with your boyfriend.”
“It doesn’t,” I say quickly because I don’t need the reminder.
He lifts his beer bottle to his lips and empties it before he puts it down at his feet and straightens himself up. “Surprise me, then.”
I glance toward Lake again before I look back at Kelly. “Has he seemed… weird to you lately?”
Kelly takes his own quick glance at Lake before he focuses on me. “By weird you mean…?”
“Distracted. Restless. Not quite himself.”
Kelly is quiet, chewing on his words for the longest time before he says, “Lake texts me every day. Every morning. Same time. These past few weeks, he’s missed two days and he’s been late a few times. Not ten a.m., but one p.m., for example. It’s nothing—” He blows out a breath and glares at me. “It’s not because?—”
“You don’t have to tell me why,” I say. “I get it. It’s between you two. I just want some kind of confirmation I’m not making this up.”
“I’m no relationship expert, but I suggest asking him directly.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Well, joke’s on you, since he says he’s completely, one hundred percent okay and nothing’s wrong.”
Another bout of lengthy silence follows while Kelly contemplates.
“I imagine, if you’ve never had to before,” he says in a slow and measured voice, seemingly choosing each word carefully, “it’s exhausting to always be careful. With what you say and how you behave. Not impossible or undoable. But exhausting.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
It’s nothing new. That idea. I’ve had similar thoughts over this past year. It’s just hearing it said out loud makes them more real somehow. Instead of a fog, it becomes a concrete wall.
“Then again, what do I know?” Kelly pushes himself off the wall. “It might just as well be med school that’s exhausting. Or adapting to a new city that’s exhausting. Or any number of other things.”
I don’t have anything to say.
Too many thoughts.
Too few words.
Kelly nudges me with his shoulder and walks away, leaving me alone with my many thoughts and few words.
I don’t know how much time passes, but then Lake is in front of me, cheeks flushed and a smile on his face. Right here and now, it’s easy to pretend something isn’t off.
“Hockey players are shit at pool,” he says happily.
“I’m awesome at pool,” I protest.
“Exceptions and rules.” He grins, and the urge to kiss him is overwhelming. What if I did? Right here and now. Without analyzing or overthinking. Just me and him in the moment.
I start to move.
Somebody peeks their head inside the room and shouts, “Almost midnight. Outside. Outside.”
I want to swear out loud, but Lake laughs again.
“Come on,” he says.
We make our way outside. The rooftop terrace is packed to the brim, but it means I can stand as close to Lake as possible. Rach and Sawyer find their way to us, both holding unlit sparklers in their hands.
“Suck it, old, in with the new,” Rach says, eyes shining, her breaths coming out like puffs of clouds.
Somewhere, somebody starts to count down from ten. I join in at five.
“Four, three, two, one.”
Shouts of “Happy New Year” ring out all around us, and everywhere, people are kissing.
I pull Lake into a hug.
“I love you,” I say into his ear.
He grips me tighter for a quick moment before he takes a step back.
“You better,” he says.
He looks around us. At all the happy people. At Rach and Sawyer gazing at each other lovingly, Sawyer murmuring something to Racel that only the two of them can hear.
The look on Lake’s face is full of some kind of reluctant wisdom. The kind where you know something, but you’d rather not have learned it.
And I can’t help but feel like I put it there.
But also…
I have the power to fix this.