Chapter 15
JACK
“What the fuck is a lake effect?” Kulie asked.
“That.” Anty pointed emphatically out the hotel restaurant’s window at the thick blanket of white that had dropped on the city overnight. “That is the lake effect.”
Kulie cocked his head, clearly still confused.
Saffron started speaking to him in Russian, gesturing outside and up at the sky. Presumably, he was explaining the lake effect to Kulie in their native language.
At the next table, I sipped my coffee and stared out at the snow. My stomach was tied in knots. It had been for a while now, even more so since Devon and I had talked in the stairwell a few days ago. This morning, it was a tangled mess, and Devon was only part of that problem.
The Grizzlies’ last couple of games had been a mixed bag of morale.
The worst part was the injuries. Rizz was day to day after a mild concussion in the Belleville game.
Arts was still being evaluated after the game in Brampton; he’d stayed behind along with one of the trainers, and he would most likely meet us back in Abbotsford.
I hadn’t gotten any updates on him yet, but given the way he’d fallen and his inability to put weight on that right leg, my money was on a torn ACL.
His season was likely over. Good thing we had a couple of spare forwards with us, or we’d be fucked.
Though the injuries weren’t great, the team’s overall performances were encouraging.
Brampton had been an unfortunate 3-2 loss after a well-played game.
The game in Belleville had started sluggish, with two goals against in the first ten minutes, but the guys had rallied.
They’d tied up the score at 2-2 by the end of the first, fought hard for the next forty minutes, and went into overtime with a score of 3-3.
In the end, Abbotsford lost in a five-round shootout, but we got a point, and especially after the shit season this team had been having, a fight like that was good for morale.
Next game. We’d win the next game.
We had, too—our trip veered north to Sudbury, where we had a decisive victory that included an empty net goal from Devon that put us up 4-1. I’d wondered on the way down to Buffalo afterward if we could end this road trip with two wins in a row.
The question right now, though, was when and where our next game would actually happen.
We were due to fly out right after we played Buffalo tonight, but at the moment, both the game and the flight were questionable thanks to last night’s blizzard.
The snow was still falling, and it was forecast to continue all day.
The whole city had ground to a halt, as it sometimes did thanks to the weather phenomenon Saffron was currently explaining to Kulie.
Erie’s lake effect liked to bitch-slap Buffalo with snow that had to be measured in feet.
The city was as accustomed to that as anyone could be, but there was only so much you could do to work around that much snow, especially in the immediate aftermath.
Right now, we were waiting to hear if the game was canceled. Ditto with our flight home.
As I sipped my coffee and picked at my breakfast, I hoped like hell Buffalo pulled off a miracle.
Even if we couldn’t play hockey tonight, I was desperate for that flight home.
I’d still be staying in a hotel, since my rental house wasn’t quite ready yet, but I’d be…
home. Ish. I’d have my car. I’d be able to get the fuck away from the team and breathe a little.
Away from the team. Right. Because the Grizzlies were what was driving me insane right now.
I fought the urge to steal a glance at Devon, who was sitting with some of the guys a few tables over.
I hadn’t heard his voice in quite a while; he was quiet this morning.
Or at least not participating in the bantering and chirping.
He’d been that way the last few days—dialed in on the ice, kind of checked out the rest of the time.
I was worried about him. Worried I’d put him in that headspace. Worried there was something else going on. He was a lightning rod for most of my thoughts anyway, and now that I had a reason to be concerned… Christ, it was a wonder I concentrated on anything.
I had forced myself to take his advice, though. After we’d talked in the stairwell, I’d made a profile on Leathr. With a little liquid courage thanks to the hotel’s minibar, I’d activated my profile and perused the app.
It turned out to be a lot like all the other hookup apps out there, just with a focus on kink.
Reading through people’s kinks and limits had been…
educational. I’d quickly compiled a list of things I had absolutely no interest in trying; to each their own, but I was zero percent interested in anything involving bodily fluids.
And I kind of missed who I was before I typed “what is sounding?” into a search engine.
I wasn’t about to judge people who were into it, but me? Absolutely the fuck not.
I’d been reading through some other submissives’ profiles when a message had come through from another user. He wasn’t the first, and given some of the messages I’d already received, I’d been seriously guarded when I’d opened it.
To my very pleasant surprise, it wasn’t a dick pic, nor was it a solicitation for a butthole pic, and he didn’t introduce himself as “the man who’s going to beat your slutty ass until you cry.
” Like that could be hot and all—God knew it had been when Devon had done it—but maybe lead with something a bit less aggressive?
This latest message was more civilized.
Sanjay
Hi, your profile sounded interesting and your pics are quite nice. (wink emoji) I’m Sanjay.
Before responding, I’d gone to his profile.
Turned out Sanjay was a little younger than me, but he had years of experience in kink.
He was upfront that he was married, but his husband wasn’t into kink; Sanjay was fine with taking on long-term subs, but it would not be a 24/7 arrangement or anything monogamous.
He enjoyed a lot of kinks—some I was into, some I wasn’t—but he was emphatic that he respected limits, that safewords were absolutely mandatory, and that he preferred written agreements to make sure everyone was on the same page.
Everything about him screamed safe, sane, and consensual, that phrase I’d been seeing over and over as I’d read up on kink.
And he was hot, too. He was Indian, with mischievous brown eyes and a cute smile.
There was one photo with a slightly more serious expression, and hoo boy, his Dom side came through loud and clear.
Like I could see him putting someone on his knees with nothing more than a downward flick of his eyes.
My heart had fluttered as I’d switched back to the chat.
Hi. I’m really new to this app. Nice to meet you.
Welcome to the app. Are you also new to the lifestyle?
Very. I just had my first experience a couple of weeks ago.
And you enjoyed it?
A lot. Turns out I’ve been needing this for a long time. So now I’m looking to explore it more.
Sitting here now at the breakfast table, my eggs getting cold as my stomach wound itself in knots, I felt weird about that conversation, which had been ongoing ever since the other night.
Well, no. That wasn’t true. The conversation had left me giddy and excited. Especially as we’d started dancing around the subject of meeting in person. Even more since we’d agreed to meet for coffee tomorrow afternoon.
But it had also left me off-balance and uncomfortable. Apprehensive, and not just because the weather outside threatened to keep me in Buffalo and delay my date with Sanjay.
And that discomfort only got worse when, two tables away, Devon’s laughter rose above some of the other voices.
“You’re such an asshole, Claus,” he said, still laughing. “What the fuck?”
I had no idea what the context was. What Claus had done to warrant the laughter or the title of asshole. All I knew was Devon’s voice made my neck prickle. It made guilt churn in my painfully knotted stomach.
That didn’t make sense. I wasn’t cheating on him. Hell, he’d stopped just short of making me a profile on Leathr and shoving my phone into my hands. He wanted me to do this. He wanted me to meet someone like Sanjay so I could get what we both knew I couldn’t get from Devon.
“Jack?” Amy’s voice shook me out of my thoughts, and I looked up to see her and Tori fixing puzzled expressions on me.
“Hmm? What?” I sipped my cold coffee. “Sit down, sit down. Sorry, I was thinking.”
“I see that.” Amy furrowed her brow as the two of them joined me at the table. “Everything all right?” She gestured at my plate. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen bacon last more than thirty seconds in front of you.”
I glanced down at the two strips that had been languishing on my plate this whole time.
“Oh. Uh.” I shifted in my chair and picked up one of the strips.
Cold and leathery. Great. Still, I bit off a piece just to convince them I was okay.
It did not taste good, but I didn’t let it show.
“Just, you know…” I gestured with the remaining strip at the windows. “Concerned.”
They both glanced at the snow, and Tori frowned. “Something tells me the absolute best-case scenario is the team playing in front empty stands tonight.”
Amy laughed dryly. “That’s optimistic. Last I heard, every road within half a mile of the rink is closed.” She picked up her coffee and motioned toward the windows. “I doubt those roads are the city’s highest priority right now.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And the airport’s shut down, too. Even if it’s reopened by tonight…”
“Fuck,” Tori groaned. “I was so ready to sleep in my own bed.”
“Same. Well… my regular hotel bed, I guess.”
Amy eyed me. “You’re still staying there? Haven’t they found you a place to rent yet?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a rental house lined up. It just wasn’t quite ready before we left on this trip. I’ll move in this week.”
“I’ll bet that’s a relief.” Amy wrinkled her nose. “That hotel isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Because we already live in hotels for a good chunk of the year,” Tori muttered.
She wasn’t wrong about that. Anyone involved in hockey got used to spending a lot of time in hotels.
I just hadn’t anticipated spending extra time in this hotel. Especially when there was someone I wanted to meet back on the West Coast.
And when someone I wanted was in this same hotel.
I wasn’t going to finish my food, so I finally gave up, told Tori and Amy that I was going to go check on our flights and our injured player, and got up. As I was busing my dishes, I glanced without thinking toward a table.
Toward that table.
Toward his table.
Devon caught my eye. For about a second, our gazes locked, but before I could read everything that flickered across his face, he broke eye contact. He focused on something one of the guys at his table was saying, though he didn’t seem to be that dialed into the conversation.
As I was heading out of the banquet hall, we glanced each other’s way again.
And again, I couldn’t read everything that registered on his face, only that it made the guilt burn hotter. Was I imagining things? Projecting?
Irrationally certain that talking to Sanjay—never mind meeting him—was a betrayal somehow?
God, nothing made sense. I needed to get out of here. Not just out of the banquet hall, but out of this hotel. This city. This state.
I wanted to get home so I could breathe. So I could meet Sanjay.
So maybe I could finally let go of Devon.