Chapter Sixteen August #4
Mrs. Jones nodded before turning her attention to Brady. “And who’s this? The infamous boyfriend your mom’s told me so much about?”
Nick froze.
Brady was a little behind him; there was no way Nick could see his reaction. However, he could see Jenna sliding nimbly through the crowd, brow furrowed in determination, as she made her way to them.
“There you guys are!” she said, voice light and smile a little too fake.
“Nick, I think your mom needs help getting stuff from the kitchen? Brady, why don’t you help me and Terry with the tablecloths?
” Not giving him a chance to respond, Jenna grabbed Brady’s arm and tugged him in the opposite direction.
Nick didn’t bother to check if his mom actually needed his help.
Instead, he went right for the house, through the living room, and back to his room.
There might be a box or two of his stuff from school in the closet, but it wasn’t really his room anymore; it’d long ago been converted into a guest room.
That didn’t matter now; it was still the most comforting place on the property.
He took a seat at the edge of the bed, willing his mind to go blank and his heart to stop pounding.
One after another, worst-case scenarios presented themselves.
Brady snapping at him. Brady ignoring him forever.
Brady quitting the Jagr Bombs to get away from him.
Worst, Brady shrugging it off because how could he be upset when he’d never cared about Nick that much anyway?
Before he could spiral too far, Nick pushed himself to his feet and looked out the window. He could make out the edges of the picnic, guests talking and laughing without a care in the world. Slowly, Nick managed to calm his breathing and unclench his fists.
It was stupid to run. He was worried about Brady freaking out, and here he was, freaking out.
It took longer than he cared to admit to find the nerve to go back outside. He barely had the wits to stop by the kitchen and grab a bag of straws to lend an air of truth to what Jenna had said, as if his mom had actually needed his help and he hadn’t run away like a coward.
“I’m overreacting,” he told himself, and took a deep breath.
His hand was on the screen door, but he couldn’t make himself push it open.
“This isn’t intuition, this is me being childish and panicking.
I’m projecting onto Brady. The worst that is going to happen is he’ll be annoyed that I ditched him for half an hour. ”
Intuition or not, his stomach wouldn’t relax, and he felt like he wanted to throw up.
Jenna saw him first, and she shared a pinched smile with him. “Not a disaster but not great” was how he read her expression, and he decided he should completely ignore the whole thing for as long as he could.
Basically the same approach he’d been taking.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said smoothly. Or it might have been smooth if he weren’t clutching the bag of straws like a life jacket. “Dinner ready?”
There was a pause, like Terry and Jenna were holding their breath to see if Brady would say anything.
He didn’t.
“I saw some people head to the grill. Wanna drop those off and meet us there?” Jenna offered diplomatically.
Dinner wasn’t agony so much as an awkward display of Jenna filling the silence with chatter, Terry trying to help while being completely off topic, and neither Nick nor Brady saying much of anything. He didn’t want to stare, so Nick surreptitiously stole glances whenever he could.
Brady was… quiet. He didn’t say much unless asked a question directly, and even his facial expressions were muted.
True, he was never a particularly expressive person, but now even his eyes seemed dull and disinterested.
The only positive Nick could find was when he stretched his legs out under the picnic table toward Brady, their knees knocking together, and Brady didn’t pull away…
but he didn’t relax into the touch, either.
Great. Another thing to overanalyze.
They muddled through their burgers, beer, and dessert with stiff conversation.
Brady did lighten up a bit when everyone started grabbing wood for the bonfire, the physical exertion providing an opportune distraction.
By the time twilight settled over the farm, though, he looked mentally and physically exhausted.
“Hey,” Nick said and knocked their shoulders together. “Wanna get out of here?”
Brady hesitated. “We can stay a bit longer if you want…”
Nick shook his head. “Nah, I’m beat. Besides, if we stay too long, we’ll get roped into singing around the fire.”
“Really?”
“Probably not, but we shouldn’t risk it.”
They snuck out. They didn’t bother with goodbyes, only waving at the few people who noticed their departure. Nick’s car waited for them at the edge of the driveway, and it wasn’t long before they were on the shitty gravel lane that led to the main road.
“You have fun?” Nick asked hesitantly. If he was going to pretend nothing weird had happened, they had to talk, right?
Brady was staring out the passenger window at the moonlit sky. “Yeah. Good group. Everyone was really nice.”
“It helps that you didn’t wear a Pens jersey,” he joked. Even to him it sounded stilted.
“Damn, you should’ve suggested that earlier.”
They rode on in silence, the car jostling on the uneven road until it finally hit asphalt again. They passed a few other driveways scattered through trees and brush, and Nick tried not to count the seconds.
“You wanna head to my place tonight?” he offered. “Could finish watching that movie we started the other night…”
As much as he wanted this whole thing behind them, he didn’t want their night to end so abruptly. He longed for more time to gauge how Brady was reacting. Maybe Jenna was right; maybe they’d reached the point where they needed to hash things out so that little, random moments couldn’t shatter them.
“I dunno…” Brady sounded genuinely conflicted, which made Nick’s heart ache more.
There was a real problem here, some unspoken thing between them. Nick wasn’t sure how to cut it down or take it apart before it festered.
Clearly Brady didn’t know either.
“Y’know what?” Nick said, changing tacks. “I got a radar gun. We could pick it up, grab some sticks, and head to a parking lot to see who has the hardest shot?”
Brady turned, eyes sparkling in the dark. “I do,” he said. “Easily.”
“Big talk. You gonna prove it?”
“If I have to.”
“Then put your money where your mouth is.”
“Are you saying we bet on who has the hardest shot? Because if you’re putting money on yours, you could just hand it over now.”
Nick wanted to scream in relief. Hockey was always the way through to Brady. This wasn’t what they should be talking about, but they were talking. “I wasn’t saying we bet money per se…”
Eyes on the road, he could only imagine Brady raising a curious eyebrow. “And what exactly would we be betting, then? You gonna wear my Pens jersey when I smoke you?”
“I was thinking sexual favors. But if you’re willing to risk wearing a Caps jersey, who am I to—”
“No, we’ll do the sex thing. Not that I’m going to lose, but just my luck I break a stick or you rig the radar or something.”
“Ovechkin broke a stick in the hardest-shot contest once—”
“Please do not compare me to Ovechkin.”
“Greatest goal scorer of all time, but okay.”
He couldn’t explain the eagerness that took them over.
They stopped by Nick’s place and grabbed the radar, sticks, pucks, balls, and a few beers.
There was a high school nearby, abandoned for the summer, and he was pretty sure the teacher’s parking lot backed onto the woods nearby. Perfect place to set up.
“You ever used that thing before?” Brady asked as he watched Nick perch the radar against the curb.
“Nope. Hope it works.”
He flicked the switch, and it lit up with red zeroes.
“How we doing this?” Brady asked.
“NHL rules? Three tries, best of the three is the speed you keep.”
“Puck or ball?”
“I was hoping for the puck, but I think we’d scratch my sticks on the pavement.”
Brady nodded. “Fair enough. We warming up first—?”
“So you can figure out the best way to use the radar gun? Fuck no. You’re up first, then I go, and so on.”
“You’re gonna lose anyway,” Brady said with a smirk. He grabbed a ball, stick-handled it a bit (frowning no doubt at the curve on Nick’s stick), and then took his first shot.
“Twenty-seven miles per hour. Not bad. I mean the pros score in the nineties, but—”
“Eat shit, Nicki,” Brady said. “Pros. On ice. With a puck. And a skating start. Do better and then you can talk.”
Nick followed suit, stick-handling to get a feel for the ball and the ground, then took a shot. The radar paused before showing a clear 29. He grinned widely as he handed the stick back to Brady.
“Best of three,” Brady reminded him, then effortlessly let the next ball rip. 35 mph.
Over his next two tries, Nick managed another 29 and a 32. Brady’s last one earned him a 34. And then for fun, they went several more rounds. Nick improved to tie Brady’s 35, but Brady slowly worked up to 42 mph.
“All right, you win,” Nick sighed. He was sweaty despite the slight chill in the night air.
“I don’t know what you expected. Defensemen always win hardest shot.”
“Once again, pointing out that Ovechkin has—”
“Didn’t your boy Carlson win and have a faster shot than Ovi? Like one year later, there he was, first All-Star game, and he outdoes his own captain?”
Nick stared at him, then a smile broke out on his face. “You know stuff about the Caps,” he accused playfully.
“It’s the All-Star game,” Brady said defensively. “I don’t have to watch Caps stuff to see that.”
“Yeah, but you watched and you remembered and you brought it up.” Nick slid into his personal space and wrapped arms around his waist. He was dying to kiss away Brady’s pout. “And you won. So… my place or yours?”
A flash of panic (or maybe it was fear, but it was something) went through Brady’s eyes. He rested his forehead against Nick’s, melting into the touch.
“Yours.”