Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
SLONE
April
“You’re melancholy as fuck,” Ewen stated from across the office we shared. “Again.”
An ache settled in my teeth from the bone-crushing clenching when I clamped down to keep the ‘Fuck off’ locked inside. It wasn’t the first time he had said those words to me since Nashville, and I knew it wouldn’t be—
“I thought for sure getting a boy under you—”
That turned off the filter. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Do you…”
I glared at him. If a human could have lasers for eyes, mine surely would burn his ass to a crisp at the moment.
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Ewen’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Wow! Okay. Touchier subject than I thought.”
He wasn’t wrong about any of it. Touchy didn’t encompass how and what I’d been feeling since Nashville. Nearly two months had passed with no contact from Trey. He had my number. I told him to use it.
He hadn’t.
Not even a text the night we returned and had to fight a blizzard to get our asses back home. I’d almost called Will to ask him to check on Trey and his teammates, but before I could even voice the thought, Ewen took my phone and told me to harness the creepy shit.
The silence spoke volumes. Trey didn’t want me. Or he did, and he didn’t want to risk being with a dominant man who owned a kink club and referenced spanking his ass more than once if memory served.
Whatever the case may be, I shot my shot and came up short.
Nothing to do now but lick my wounds and get back to living in the rut.
And to finding my way out of it, because even if I never heard from the boy again, he showed me I’d been living life in the shadow of my former self and I needed to step out into the light.
“Have you called him?” Ewen asked, interrupting my thoughts and dragging me back to a conversation I didn’t want to have. Ever.
“No.”
“Why not?”
My face shifted without permission. One would think the reason I hadn’t picked up the phone would be obvious to my best friend. But then I remembered Ewen, love his stupid soul, was clueless at the best of times and an idiot all the rest of the time.
“Don’t give me that look. If you want the boy, go claim him.”
“Fucking stop!” I shoved to my feet, yelling. My voice echoed in the room. “I know you think you’re helping, but you’re not. It’s been two fucking months, Ewen. Eight motherfucking weeks. I’ve not heard from him, and I’m not going to. So, drop it.”
“Seven,” he muttered.
“What?”
“It’s been seven weeks since we got back from Nashville.”
I shook my head, my nostrils flaring with rage. “You’re a motherfucking prick.”
Ewen opened his mouth, but it shut when I leveled a gaze at him while leaning forward, my hands braced on the desk.
“And for the record,” I said, “I didn’t get the boy under me.
I don’t fuck drunk, and you know it. The kid walked into EDGE and downed more shots than the rest of us combined.
Then he poached drinks, Ewen. He drank shit off tables left behind by others.
He was absolutely fucking hammered. He could’ve been roofied for all I knew. ”
I walked out of the room, slamming the door behind me. Downstairs in the gym, I changed into my workout gear, stepped on the treadmill, and punched the buttons until blood pumped through my veins and sweat poured from my body. It didn’t help.
Trey Malachek lived in my head rent-fucking-free. Thoughts of him plagued my days and my nights. My last sight of him, watching him climb into his truck and drive away, fucked me up. And I wasn’t any better two months later.
“Hey,” Ewen said when he appeared in front of the treadmill. “I’m sorry.”
I nodded in response. Anything else risked me screaming at him like a madman. He didn’t deserve it, and I hated losing my shit.
He held out his hand, a bright purple Post-it note pressed between his crossed index and middle fingers. “An olive branch.”
What the hell had he done? I must’ve asked out loud because he said, “I called Will.”
“Fuck no. Absolutely not. The kid knows—”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Take the damn number and call him.”
“No!” I yelled, smacking the treadmill’s stop button and snatching the Post-it out of his hand before stomping over to the smoothie bar and beverage center.
Electric purple paper turned dark plum when doused with water, but it did nothing to hide the numbers scrawled diagonally from bottom to top in permanent fine-tip marker.
A rubber spatula shoved the offensive square into the garbage disposal, and I flipped it on.
“Slone. Buddy, I’m worried…”
The spatula bounced off the backsplash at the sound of his pleading voice. I threw the switch to shut off the grinding metal racket of the disposal before whirling around to face him.
“I said no. I meant no. I’m not a fucking stray dog. I won’t beg for scraps.” I turned to leave only to stop, and without looking over my shoulder at him, I gritted out between clenched teeth. “Do not follow me. And do not bring up his name again.”
And with that, I strode out of the gym, up the stairs, through the front entrance to the sidewalk that ran along the street EDGE sat on. The moment I stepped outside, I took off at a dead run despite having put in at least half an hour on the treadmill in the basement.
An intense workout had always been where I found peace, but when things got bad, I always turned to my salvation: running.
For as long as I could remember, the rhythm of my feet striking the pavement and the burn of oxygen entering and exiting my lungs was where I found comfort and relief and, sometimes, answers.
I didn’t expect to find any of that this time.
I shot my shot, and I missed. Horribly. Maybe I pushed too fucking hard.
Maybe I didn’t push hard enough. Maybe I should have asked for his number instead of leaving the ball in his court.
Maybe if I kept running, I’d eventually come to my senses and realize the kid was only sowing some wild oats with an older man, like a taste test or some such nonsense.
I didn’t know, and I told myself I didn’t care.
I did, though. I cared—a lot.
It was the lie I told myself so that the rejection didn’t bite so hard.
That was also a lie. What was one more? I’d told myself so many since Nashville. So fucking many.
The connection between us wasn’t what I thought it was.
Lie.
The chemistry wasn’t as volatile.
Lie.
The blowjob wasn’t that great.
That was probably the biggest one of all.
The kid sucked my soul out of my dick, and I just handed it over.
The sight of him on his knees in front of me, my cock stretching his mouth wide, the noises he made, the way he came undone without a touch—all of it lived rent-free in my skull.
I’d woken up covered in cum several times in the last two months as if I were still a pubescent teen who barely knew what his dick was for.
The scenery passed in a blur. The historic downtown changed to skyscrapers of the business district and then to the lush, manicured outdoor spaces of… Fuck.
The U.
I stopped, my gaze sweeping the area.
Double fuck.
I stood on the street where downtown and the business district met the campus of Manchester University—Trey’s school.
The hockey arena sat just up ahead, and across the street sat Trey’s dorm.
Or what I assumed was Trey’s dorm. Will mentioned once that, unlike some schools, The U required college athletes to live on campus.
So, it would make sense that he lived in the dormitory closest to the rink unless The U took after the Marine Corps.
Sure, you’re assigned to a Navy ship in San Diego, but we’re going to house you an hour north on a good day and on a completely different military installation.
The door to the building opened; voices carried toward me, but it wasn’t any of the guys I knew from the trip to Nashville, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was fine. Or it would be as long as I got my stupid ass off this street and back to the club.
I started to turn, but the sound of the glass and metal door opening again stopped me. This time I wasn’t so lucky. Trey’s voice pierced the air that finally turned from winter to spring.
“Guys! Wait up!”
“Fuck that, Captain. You hurry your nepo ass up. I’m fucking starved,” called a guy in the front group. He’d turned around when he yelled and was now facing Trey. And me.
“That little shit…” I said, taking a step forward.
Toward Trey and the ass munch talking shit.
The movement, or maybe it was the guy staring at me like a deer in headlights, but either way, something spurred Trey to look over his shoulder.
His gaze landed on me like a dropped Olympic barbell holding max-out weight.
Those beautiful, sexy, soulful eyes widened almost comically.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. His face, hell, his whole body, was so damn expressive.
But then a soft smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and my heart felt as if he wrenched it from my chest. And the feeling only grew when one of the twins came out of the building behind him, looked my way, and shoved Trey toward the guys ahead of them while the teammate looking back toward us yelled, “Someone scheduled the rink after us, guys; we’ve got to hustle our asses if we want to get a decent skate in. ”
Again, I watched him walk away from me. Only this time he looked back.
That tiny glance sparked an ember of hope.
Stupid? Yes. Of course it was. The boy hadn’t lifted the phone to call or text me even once in two fucking months.
It didn’t matter, though, because just the sight of him checking to see if I still stood there watching him was enough.
He disappeared through the arena doors, and I turned for home, weak-kneed and not from the half marathon I ran this morning either.
No. The only thing, the only one, responsible for how shaky my legs felt was the six-foot-three, two hundred-pound, twenty-one-year-old hockey player that just walked away from me for a second time.