Chapter 50
ELIJAH
Five minutes go by in a flash.
Five minutes where I’ve sat in my SUV, staring at the grey pillar in front of me, trying to focus on my breathing.
All I can say is that I’m grateful for how quickly the melatonin coupled with the Trazodone had me falling asleep last night.
I didn’t want to leave Jayden and Fin last night. It’s been so long since I felt something more than fear alongside my need. I’ve never felt so anchored. More grounded in a moment than I did watching them dance. Their bodies rolling and grinding together. Their mouths eating at each other…
It was perfect.
They are perfect.
I can’t control the eager drum in my chest at the thought of them. At the thought of watching them again.
Jayden’s hands on Finley’s skin. Her body melting with his.
Fuck.
There aren’t enough minutes in a day to stop me from losing myself to the thought of them together. I don’t think there’s anything in this world that can stop my body from reacting to my spiraling thoughts.
It’s a problem. Because I need to get my head in check. To show up to the training session this morning. To keep my wits about me around Coach and Connie.
Dragging my ass out of my SUV, I glance around the empty parking lot. Everyone has a rest day before the team gets back to hustling tomorrow. Which means the facility is completely silent, barring the soft folky song that’s playing on the radio when I walk in.
As I head to the locker room, my phone chirps and just like that, the anxiety that I’ve been feeling since I woke up this morning lifts a tad when Jayden’s name flashes up.
Good luck with Coach. Let me know how it goes.
Before I reply, another message pops up. A photo this time.
When I open it up, my heart trips over itself. Finley’s asleep on Jayden’s bed. Still in my jersey. Her hair a tangled mess on his pillow...
As I zoom in on her, I notice the reflection in the full-length mirror to the side of the bed. Jayden. His stare is on Finley. Not on his phone. His eyes are stuck on her with that goofy expression on his face that makes me certain this is right.
I can’t stop smiling. Zooming in on Finley and then on Jayden. On Jayden, and then on Finley.
I can’t wait to be done here. To go home. To her.
To them.
I’m so engrossed on the message I’m typing out, I don’t see the person in front of me until it’s too late.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say, glancing up.
Fuck.
Ice drops through my skull to my toes. Ryker. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Is this how it’s always going to be between us?” he asks, shoulders tugging back so he’s maybe an inch taller. “We used to be friends.”
“Used to be,” I say, pocketing my phone and stepping past. “I was your friend until you showed me who you really are.”
“Stop.” His fist hooks my shirt. When I yank away, he twists tighter in the navy cotton. “Stop pretending you didn’t want it. Everyone saw you looking. Not just him. Not just me. They all saw you stare at me. Watch me…”
“If I’d been watching you, I would’ve seen what a piece of shit you are before it was too late.” His mouth curls; his knuckles grind into my side. “Get your fucking hand off me.”
This time when I pull, he lets go. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ryker says.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night.” I shoulder him aside.
I was always too nice. Not anymore.
“You think you’re so innocent?” He stomps after me, that nervous lisp the guys used to mock hissing through his teeth. “You think you didn’t ask for it with the quiet glances, the secret smiles… it was the same then with me as it is now with Morrow.”
The sudden stop cracks pain behind my eye. Nausea heaves.
“Get his name out of your mouth,” I say, turning. “You were never like him. You could never be him.”
“Hi, Coach Hallman!” A bright voice cuts the charge. Cecilia from PR stands a few feet away with an envelope. “Hey, Elijah,” she adds, waving.
“Cece,” I manage, forcing a smile.
Last time I saw her, she handed me the photos—Jayden, Finley, and me. Ryker and me at the community rink.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she says, looking between us. “Here are the tickets for the team, plus food vouchers. I’ve included the player meet-and-greet itinerary. We’ll send the jerseys once sizes are confirmed.”
“Thank you. The kids will appreciate it,” Ryker says, sliding the small envelope into a larger manila one he pulls from his back pocket.
DO NOT BEND is emblazoned in red on the corner. Same as on mine.
What the fuck?
I look at him. He gives me nothing as Cecilia excuses herself.
Accusations climb my throat, but the pinch behind my eyes slows me. What would he gain from stalking me, Finley, or Jayden? From sending photos? To what end?
Plenty of people use those envelopes.
Still, I step back and make it plain. “Stay away from me. Keep Jayden’s name out of your mouth or I swear to God, I will ruin you.”
“Sure,” Ryker scoffs, tossing a look over his shoulder that stokes my anger as I stomp to the locker room.
Whatever game he’s playing this time, I won’t be a part of it.
Coach and Doc left half-way through my training session, and since then, it’s taking everything in me not to think the worst.
My head was still all over the place from my encounter with Ryker, and it fucked with me. I just couldn’t ground myself. That’s the whole point of the biofeedback training. To teach me to deal with my shit so that it doesn’t overwhelm me.
I failed.
Coach left with nothing but a “Meet me in my office after your session with Dr. Armstrong”.
The session that I didn’t show up to because I didn’t have it in me to hash more shit out with her today.
“Fancy bumping into you here.” I pause mid row to find Connie standing by the bench press. “I thought you might have overslept after last night’s party, so I was going to put our session to good use and workout.”
While I figure out what to say to her, she traipses through the weight area in her fancy athleisure.
It’s obvious she has no idea what she’s doing when she picks up different weights, testing them out before she decides to move on only after a few seconds.
Meanwhile, I go back to rowing, knowing full well that it’s not going to fix the wreck in my head. Only problem is, now I can’t focus on distracting myself with her loitering around me with her passive aggressive energy.
When she starts touching the big weights, I know I have to say something, so she doesn’t hurt herself because of me.
“Step away from the weights.” Connie looks over her shoulder at me with a cocked brow.
Even in her athleisure clothes, she looks so out of place in here that I’m uncomfortable for her.
Getting up from the rowing machine, I wipe myself down, so I’m not covered in sweat when I grab an aerobic step platform from the stack in the corner and take it to the matted area. She’s watching me while I pick out a couple of five-pound dumbbells and take them to the mat too.
“You always start light with weights. Light weights and more reps. When one goes up, the other comes down. Try this,” I wave her over, picking up a weight in each hand and showing her a basic step-up routine with alternating dumbbell curls.
Stepping to the side, I hand her the dumbbells as she fidgets awkwardly. “I’m a runner,” she tells me.
“It’s always good to expand workouts so our bodies don’t get used to—”
“Not what I meant,” she chuckles, shaking her head as she turns away from me and tries out the step-up routine. After a few seconds, Connie looks up at me, impressed with herself, “Not bad. I could do this for a while, no problem.”
“Good. You do ten alternates and then you should add a lunge.” I show her what a step with a lunge would look like in front of her on the mat, before I add, “Do ten with lunge and then you repeat the routine. Maybe try five reps, then take a two-three-minute break, and go again.”
“Okay, how about I work out, and you talk?” She asks, continuing with the step-ups.
“I don’t want to talk today.” There’s too much going through my head for me to filter what comes out of my mouth, and she’s too good at prying.
“Then why did you arrive on time for our session?” Connie doesn’t look at me. “Goodness, this burns a lot faster than I thought it would.”
“Because your body isn’t used to it,” I chuckle at her frown before I answer her question, “I came to work out.”
“Before physio? Obviously, I don’t know much about fitness, but it sounds counter-intuitive. No?”
It’s pointless trying to work around her questions when her job, that she is highly acclaimed for, is to pry answers out of people. That’s a battle I’m never going to win, so instead, I ask, “How did you know I was here? On time?”
“I saw you at reception.” The knowing tone of her voice gives me pause, and I know she notices me stiffen because the rhythm of her workout stutters. “Who was that you were talking to?”
“Nobody,” I reply, heading to the Z-press on the other side of the mat.
Connie doesn’t adjust her position to face me as she asks, “Do you make a habit of getting cross at nobody?”
After adjusting the weights on the press, I lean into it, debating what to reply. “Ryker and I used to know each other back in the day.”
“Ah, so he’s not a nobody. He has a name, and you have a past together.”
“No,” I grit, lifting the bar from side to side and holding between each alternation. “We’re not like that. It’s not… I’m not…”
“You’re not what?” She asks, out of breath while I continue lifting and holding.
You think you’re so innocent?
You think you didn’t ask for it?
Stop pretending you didn’t want it.
Everyone saw.
“I told you I don’t want to talk today,” I growl, heaving the weights from side to side as fast as I can. My bones scream like they might snap.
“How about I talk, and you listen, then?” Connie puts the dumbbells down before she sits on the step facing me while I hang over the Z-press.
Glancing up at the clock, I take stock of the time. “I have to meet Coach in twenty.”
She nods. “Yesterday, we talked about Presley Tomes, why you dislike him… homophobic sack of shit comes to mind.”
“He is,” I growl down at the floor, focusing my mind on my breaths and my blood pulsing to my hands until it throbs in my fingertips.
“Today we’ve talked about Ryker and—”
“Hardly. He’s not worth talking about.”
“I see.” I side glance at her through the loose strands of hair that have escaped during my workout. I expected her to be watching me or something, but instead she’s examining one of the dumbbells. “Is Presley worth talking about?”
“No.”
Connie nods, picking up the other dumbbell and pushing to her feet. Surprisingly, she goes back to the reps I showed her.
“Is that why you don’t want to talk?” She asks, focusing her stare on the whitewashed brick wall ahead.
I shrug, and she continues working out. Leaving me with my thoughts again while I get up and look around the gym for another way to silence it all. To exhaust myself to the point that even my brain gives up.
There is nothing that catches my eye. Not a single thing that screams catharsis, like when I tell her, “I didn’t want him to do it.”
It’s one phrase that can be spun a billion different ways, but it instantly lightens the weight in my chest.
“I didn’t ask for it. For any of it.” Connie continues with her workout; not having her eyes on me makes it easier to just spit the words out. “I didn’t want Ryker to kiss me. I’m not like that.”
“You’re not like what?” She asks, holding her lunge with her eyes screwed shut. Her voice quivers with her effort when she alternates. “You’re not gay?”
“No. I’m not… I don’t…”
“Breathe, Eli,” Connie says, her tone stern. “You’re panicking like I’m here to judge you, but I’m not. Many straight men kiss other men, and it doesn’t mean a thing. Sometimes you’re experimenting. There’s nothing wrong with exploring who you are.”
“That’s not what I mean, Connie.” Dropping my ass on the press bench, I focus on my feet. “I don’t go around kissing people, experimenting… exploring or… whatever. I’m not good with people.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, I don’t think I feel things the way others do.”
Connie heads toward me with the weights in her hands. Once she’s placed them back in their place, she drags the shorter stack of aerobic steps over and sits on them. “Everyone feels things differently.”
“I know that. I know that people feel things differently, but I don’t know how I feel most of the time. Sometimes I see people and I recognize that they’re attractive, but it’s like it doesn’t translate to the rest of me.”
“What about Finley? Something translated there.”
“I’ve known Finley all my life. She’s sweet, loyal and spirited, and she’s kind. Like Jayden, you know he’s funny and warm, and—” I stop.
My brain catches up with my mouth too late.
Fuck.
“We’re friends,” I say, hoping it’s enough to distract her from my ramble.
Connie smiles at me softly. “Needing an emotional connection to feel sexual attraction isn’t as uncommon as you think, Eli. There’s nothing wrong with that. With you.”
“Are you going to tell Coach about—”
Shaking her head, she leans closer. “About what? Your sexuality has zero to do with your ability to play brilliant hockey. It’s up to you if and when you share that with anyone outside of this room.”
A weight is lifted from my shoulders, making it easier to breathe as an overwhelming sense of relief floods my chest.
Maybe talking to Connie isn’t a terrible thing.