5. Drake
CHAPTER 5
DRAKE
I hadn’t realized how awful living in a hotel room had been until Loki walked into the room and sat in my suitcase while I was unpacking.
Damn, that cat was huge. When stretched out in the suitcase, he took up one entire side, almost. And this was a full-sized one, not a carryon. I gave him a pet on the head. “I’m gonna need to get the rest of that stuff out, buddy.”
He pushed his head against my hand and started to purr, which sounded kind of like a motorcycle engine.
So I moved on to one of my other suitcases.
I hadn’t brought that much with me. Suits. Some casual wear. T-shirts and shorts. I wondered what Jon wore around his house. I’d seen him in a suit and in chaps and a leather jacket, and in Otters team sweats. Also half naked in the locker room. Those tattoos of his were something else.
Loki took an interest in everything I touched, and fuck, he was… long and massive and loudly purring at me.
“I guess you really are marking me as yours, huh?” This smoky dark lion of a cat. Felt weirdly odd to be part of something in Jon’s life other than hockey .
His giant cat liked me. Life couldn’t be that bad, could it?
Eventually, despite Loki’s help, I got all my clothes put away in the huge closet, my toiletries unpacked into the bathroom, and my few books, tablet, and laptop set down on the desk. One of the windows in the room looked out toward the side of the house. I could see both the road and the edge of the woods behind, depending on which why I stared.
This place was kind of amazing. So different from my apartment in downtown Pittsburgh, though I loved that space, too. I felt— liminal. I think that was the word… caught between two times and spaces. I was an NAPH player playing in the PHL and I felt like a failure, but also I had so much of my career ahead of me. I wanted to tell Jon about my life, what was rattling around in my head, but I didn’t even know where to begin. He’d shared an awful lot of himself with me in the past—God, had it only been two days? And this place, this peace. Stress and worry peeled off me just being here, but what was left was—a hollowness. I’d been fine on the ice this morning, but now?
I didn’t know what I was now. Liminal. Between.
Fuck. I picked up my phone and scrolled through my contact list until I got the sports therapist I’d had sessions with my first season. Put my phone back down. Sat on the bed and pet Loki, who crawled into my lap.
And that’s where Jon found me when he climbed the stairs from the ground floor and appeared at the open door.
“I see Loki has decided you’re his now.” Jon’s smile was magnificent. “The little traitor.”
“There is nothing little about this beast.” I scratched under Loki’s chin. “You’re a big, beautiful monster, aren’t you?” I crooned at him .
Loki closed his eyes and, remarkably, purred louder.
Jon chuckled. “He likes you a lot. He’s friendly with everyone, but your lap is the first one he’s ever gotten in on day one.” He shifted his gaze around the room. “You settled in?”
“Yeah, as much as I can. This is so much better than a hotel.”
“I know, right?” he said.
When he wasn’t smiling, Jon looked like one of those sly foxes, like a trickster deity. But smiling like that? He was—I don’t know—a prince. Something out of a storybook. Perfect. Beautiful.
Yeah, I’d been swept off my feet. He hadn’t even kissed me yet. What the hell would it be like when he did?
I ducked my head. “Thanks again. I know you said you do this a lot, but I was… I was shitty coming in here and you didn’t…”
“Drake.”
I met his gaze. His smile was softer. “It’s all good. Turn the page.” He nodded in the direction of the steps downstairs. “Come down and eat.”
I followed him down to the dining area off his kitchen. Jon filled the silence, as he sometimes did. “I forgot to ask you how you like your steak, so I did one medium and one medium rare and you can have either.” He leveled me with a look. “If you want it more done than that, tough. I’m not burning it for you.”
I laughed outright at that. “I usually order medium rare, but I’m fine with either.”
He indicated the seat I should take, so I sat. Along with the steak, there was also a heaping amount of salad, and some kind of mixed grain and vegetable dish, plus a bottle of red wine. All of it looked good .
“You cook often?” A lot of the guys in Pittsburgh got meal services, even the guys with partners. I understood, really. We eat a lot, have particular dietary needs, and fuck if I wanted to cook that much. Plus, many of the guys have kids and given our travel schedule—well. I didn’t envy their partners having to run a household by themselves a good portion of the year.
He shrugged in a way I was taking to mean “yes but I’m going to downplay it.” “I like to cook,” he said. “Honestly, though, it’s so much easier to cook for two than one, so I’m grateful for the company.”
That look… yeah, that was interest, though it was pretty obvious he was trying to downplay that, too. While we ate, I fished around for something to say, and skittered over everything that had been churning around in my head all day. “You talk about your dad a lot… what about your mom?”
His eyebrows rose, though not in any defensive way. “Oh, well, most people know my dad and of course he had a huge impact on me skating in the first place, then all the noise about me… but Mom… Mom is…” He seemed to search around for words. “She’s so strong. Put up with a lot from the media because she wasn’t a typical hockey wife. Had her own career. Kept her own career. Hell, kept her name. But like Papa, maybe more than Papa, she wanted us happy and fulfilled in whatever way we chose.” He paused. “She cried the day I got my first NAPH goal. She also encouraged me to buy the bar when I told her I was thinking about it. Helped me with the financial planning and all that. Thought it was a good investment and also good for the community. It’s a little conservative out here, so she thought having a safe space for queer people was important, for both me and others.” He gave another one of those shrugs .
“It was only my mom and me,” I said. “She’s the only one on my birth certificate. Got pregnant in college with a hookup, and the dude wanted nothing to do with her or a kid. When she chose to continue the pregnancy, he signed over all his rights, then vanished.” Which was ironic, I thought, given those DMs I’d gotten. I pushed some of the salad around. “But it was good, growing up. Hard—we didn’t have huge amounts of things. She was an accountant, and her firm was really flexible, so when I wanted to keep playing hockey, she made it work.”
Jon somehow knew when not to fill silences, too. We both ate a little more before I added, “I think that’s why I sometimes think it’s a fluke I even made it to the NAPH. I’m not typical. I had a lot of used or hand-me-down gear as a kid. We could only donate so much to the teams… all that.”
He made a sour face. “That’s one of the things I wish were different. It’s expensive. It’s hard on kids who are disadvantaged or minorities.” He met my gaze. “Sorry you ran into that.”
“I mean, there are more and more programs to try hockey for free. Scholarships. All that. I was better off than some other kids, so I shouldn’t complain that much. But—I guess it sank into me. And this season…” I shook my head. “My rookie season was unexpected. Everyone, including me, thought I’d slow down the next season.”
“But you didn’t.”
I’d scored fifteen goals my rookie season. Twenty the next. “No. And this year, everyone thought I could score thirty, you know? Get fifty points. But obviously…” I gestured dismissively. “I had, what, five points and a single goal? Then they waived me. Then no one claimed me.”
There was that sour face again. “Being claimed or not is about timing and cap and roster space. Really good players pass through all the time.”
“Yeah, I know that. Except I don’t, you know?” I shook my head. “I guess— When I first joined the Lions, the team put me in touch with a sports psychologist. It helped the transition. I keep thinking I should call her, I guess.”
He gave a small nod, then added with a gentle voice, “It might help. Don’t think it’ll hurt.” His cheeks ruddied, and he looked down at his plate. “I studied sports psychology a bit, when I became captain, because I didn’t want to screw people up and I figured it might help.” He nodded again. “Yeah, that’s a good idea to call her.”
“’Cause I’m messed up in the head?” I tried to sound playful.
He huffed a laugh. “We’re all messed up in the head, Dragon.”
I don’t know why hearing him use his nickname for me warmed my heart so damn much, but I couldn’t help smiling back at him. “I guess.”
He got that fox look again. “Want to cheat and have dessert?”
I laughed. “Sure. Can I clear the table?”
We both got moving. Dessert, it turned out, were these brownie bars with raspberries and chocolate chips. Rich, but not as sweet as I’d expected. “Don’t tell me you bake.”
“I don’t bake,” Jon replied. “I leave baking to the pros. I stalk bakeries and figure out their best treats, then I give them money.”
“See, that’s the way to do it.” I raised my wineglass in a mock toast.
After we’d finished everything, I helped Jon clean up. “How’d you get into riding?” I gestured toward a ceramic jar he had in the shape of a motorcycle .
“Tried it once and loved the freedom of it. Reminded me a lot of hockey, strangely. I think that was the only time Papa ever grilled me about anything I’d done… buying a bike. I mean, I had to get a license to ride and all that. I took some classes at a local community college. And I’m as careful as I can be.”
But it was still a dangerous pass time. This time, I was the one to give him room to continue.
“I don’t ride in bad weather. Avoid highways. All that. Red Dog scoffs at me sometimes for that, but he’s a far better biker. I know my limitations. I still love it, though.”
I didn’t ask who Red Dog was. I suspected he was someone from the bar. “Yeah, that’s what keeps me from thinking about it. Just—I wouldn’t trust myself. At least with a car or truck, something bad happens and there’s airbags and stuff.”
“Exactly,” Jon said. “It’s fun, but it’s absolutely okay to be that person who only goes out on a nice day and sticks to familiar roads, you know?”
“Well, you do look hot in the leathers.”
That got me a smile that set my heart racing. “I know.”
Well, fuck. Suddenly, I was very warm and I’m sure my sweats weren’t hiding my interest at all. “Was that a date?” I flailed my hand at the dining table.
That got me a cackle. “Do you want it to be?” Before I could answer, Jon turned his three thousand lumen smile down to something less blinding. “It’s been an eventful day, and we have a couple hour bus ride to Harrisburg tomorrow. Let’s come back to that later.”
Probably the best plan. I wanted Jon. A whole lot. He was—well, basically a walking wet dream. He was also nice, and sweet. And the captain of the team I was on. Still… “I want that dinner date,” I murmured .
His answer was equally soft. “So do I.”
When I met his gaze, I saw the same desire I felt smoldering there and felt the attraction that crackled between us.
It was only a matter of time—the right time. Which wasn’t now, given everything I’d talked about with him tonight.
But I had no doubt, we’d get to those dates pretty soon.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Kara, the psychologist I’d worked with before, texted me back pretty quickly. Nor that she set up an online appointment for the next morning before I had to head in for practice. I almost felt silly as I sat there waiting in the “lobby” of the connection. I felt a ton better today—probably because I’d slept like a rock the night before. It was so quiet at Jon’s. Loki had curled up near me and purred while I nodded off. He must have wandered back to his dad at some point, because he wasn’t with me when I’d woken. Now, I’d shut the door completely and waited for Kara to join.
When she did, I noted her hair had gotten longer, but she still had that shrewd look and that comforting background in her office. “Hi, Drake. How are you doing?”
“Fine,” I said, automatically, then huffed at myself. “Well, not that fine, I guess.”
“Uh huh. What’s going on?”
I spent the next several minutes blathering it all out. The shitty start to my season. Getting sent through waivers and not being claimed. All the stuff I felt that I’d hinted at with Jon came tumbling out. Hell, I even told her about Jon and the bar and discovering he was captain and how stupid I felt because I should’ve known who he was.
“And now you’re living at his house.”
I felt my face heating. “Yeah, but he’s not pressuring me or anything.”
Kara nodded. “In fact, from what you’ve said, he’s deliberately holding back, but not out of rejection.”
“No, I know. He’s… really just… thoughtful, I guess. Kind. I mean, I haven’t dated a lot of people, but mostly they’ve been concerned about themselves. It’s like Jon’s takes me into consideration.”
“Partners should,” she said.
Partners . That word rattled around in my brain, and I shook it away. “But that’s my love life—or what might be my love life. I need help with the hockey part of things.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about that.”
We did, but it was all the same stuff I’d told her before, though I added in the conversation with Jon about loving hockey and trying to find that again. “I guess I just want to prove that I can still play.”
“Prove to who? Jon? Yourself? The Lions?”
That dirtbag , my brain supplied. “Oh, shit,” I said.
I’d screen-capped the direct messages on my Instagram account before I blocked the fucker, just in case. You’re probably just like that bitch. She wasn’t good for anything either. It’s amazing you even exist.
“Drake?”
“Uh. So I got some weird messages this summer, from a guy claiming to be my father.”
Kara paused, obviously taking in the information I’d just chucked at her out of the blue. I wonder if I’d looked like that the first time I’d read jerkface’s first message. “Go on,” she said.
“At first, I thought it was someone trying to defraud me or something, but the guy’s name was correct, and Mom’s the only other person who knows his name.”
Kara paged back through her notes, probably trying to remember my family situation. It’d been a while since we’d talked, so I filled her in, giving her close to the same recounting I’d given Jon. “I’m positive it was him.” I paused. “He wanted money. A bunch of money. Said I owed him, since he was my ‘dad.’” I air-quoted the last word. “I told him, very politely, that he gave up all rights to me, my mother raised me, and I have no obligation to him because he donated a little bit of genetic material to me. He said some pretty shitty stuff after that.” I filled her in how I’d handled the situation.
“Did you tell your mother?”
“God, no. She doesn’t need that shit. You’re the only one I’ve told.”
She stared at me. “You’ve been carrying this around for months, alone?”
“I mean…” I shrugged, though that itchy feeling in my brain started creeping in, “It’s not a big deal?”
“Do you believe that?” She cocked her head. “Because it sure sounds like it’s a big deal and you’ve bottled it up, to me.”
The itching headed down my back. “I guess it is affecting me. Because I bet he’s loving the fact that I’ve been playing like crap and got sent down to the minors.” I shook my head. “It shouldn’t affect me.
“But you want to prove to him that you can still play hockey at an elite level?”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Maybe?” I squeezed the word out. “I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
She gave me a comforting smile. “It’s not stupid, it’s human.” She paused. “You were hit with a pretty heavy emotional burden unexpectedly. That’s enough to throw anyone off their game, both metaphorically, and in your case, actually.”
I gripped my head. “Ugh. Okay. Maybe.” I looked up. “So how do I get through it?”
“Let me offer you some suggestions for overcoming that train of thought.”
Together we worked through some tools and coping mechanisms. Stuff I already knew, but kind of fell out of using when I was doing so well. Then we set up a time to follow up, and we ended the session.
I rubbed my face. That had been exhausting, and I still had a practice, a bus ride, and a game ahead of me. When I wandered downstairs, both cats and Jon were in the kitchen. The cats were swatting at each other on their cat tree—with Thor taking the higher ground over his monster of a brother, though Loki trilled when he saw me, and trotted over.
Jon, sitting at the island on a stool, smiled over his coffee cup. “He really does like you.”
I gave Loki a pet on the head. “I guess so.” Loki rubbed up against my legs and followed me when I went to give Thor a pet, too. “I talked to my therapist this morning,” I said while focusing on the cats.
“Oh? How’d that go?”
I rolled my shoulders. “Hard. We dredged up some shit I didn’t want to deal with, and now I have to.” I finally met his gaze. “You were right. Something did happen.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Oh my God, yes.” I was dying for a cup.
He rose. “How strong? Do you want anything in it?”
“Strong, and no. Black is fine.”
He whipped up something using some complicated- looking coffee machine and presented me with a cup that smelled like it might revive the dead. It was absolutely perfect, and I groaned appreciatively.
When I sat next to him at the island, he bumped my shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it? You can stay no, but sometimes sharing the burden helps a little? I’m sure you have things worked out with your therapist though.”
Was that…nervousness I sensed between that tumble of words? I took a sip of coffee and thought about what he asked. “I…want to talk about it. But when do we have to be at practice?”
He flipped over his phone, which had been laying screen down, and there was a photo of Loki and Thor as his lock screen and the time in big, bold numerals: 9:03.
Maybe enough time. We didn’t have to be on the ice until eleven. I spewed out a version similar to what I’d told Kara.
When I’d finished, Jon gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “That’s a lot.
“That’s what Kara said.” I sighed and sipped my coffee. “I did let it get to me, but the thing is, I’m most angry about what he called my mom, and I don’t want to tell her it happened, but I guess I have to? She doesn’t need that old shit dredged up.”
Jon grunted, then drank a mouthful of his coffee. His brows creased, then smoothed, and he met my gaze. “Your mom is strong, and I bet she wouldn’t want you to carry all of this by yourself. I think you should tell her.” He toyed with his cup. “Obviously, she’s not useless! She raised you! Has a good career, from what you said. She probably won’t be surprised by anything that asshole said, just mad he said it to you.”
That was all true. Maybe I could call Mom and tell her. I glanced at the time on Jon’s phone, then finished my coffee. “We should get ready to go.” I’d already laid out my suit, so it was just a matter of cleaning myself up and putting it on. When I made to rise, Jon caught my hand.
“Hey,” he said, those dark eyes of his full of emotion. “You’re not useless, either. And you’re wanted. We want you.”
The Otters. I could almost believe that. “What about you?”
God, that smile and that laugh. “What do you think?” He gave my hand a squeeze. “Go put your suit on, Dragon.”