Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Luka
Benji leads me toward their two-story, cottage-style home.
The front porch is weathered and creaks under our heavy steps as we make our way through the door.
Stepping over the threshold brings back memories of visiting my grandparents when I was younger.
They lived in the country, and their porch wrapped all the way around their house.
I’d spend hours riding my little red and blue three-wheel bike in laps around it while my parents watched from the porch swing.
Like their place, Reid’s house holds the charm of the generations that came before him. It’s clear in the warm wooden floors, and the old, mismatched picture frames lining the sage-green wallpaper, that this is not just a house, it’s a home.
“Wow,” I say before I realize the word has escaped my lips.
Benji stops guiding me forward. “Yeah, it’s a little run-down, but—“
“It’s great,” I say, turning my head in his direction. “Did you grow up here?”
He nods.
“It was our grandparents’ place, then our parents’, and now . . . well, I guess it belongs to all of us.”
“Damn right it does,” Reid says gliding past us. “I’ll get started on dinner, shall I?”
“Not too much chili this time, please,” David calls from the room on our right, and Benji leads me that way.
I linger a little, watching Reid walk up the hallway, his ass picking up in perfect rounds with each step.
I should have booked a room, then I could be all up in that.
I try to shake away the thought before I get a boner and have no way to hide where my brain is.
Reid’s house isn’t exactly the type of place I expected a hockey god to live.
Guys like Reid are on good money; most of the players in his shoes are living in fancy modern condos.
I used to see them post photos of themselves in their big stark living rooms and wonder where they put all their stuff.
I mean, I like a clean and organized room, don’t get me wrong.
In truth, I’m a little neurotic when it comes to cleanliness.
Cosmo loved that about me in college; it meant that our shared bathroom was always spotless, and he never had to lift a finger to get it that way.
But this place feels like a home. My parents liked to move.
Dad being in construction often meant that the houses we lived in were ones he was fixing up to flip.
I didn’t mind. Well, not really. But it was nice to spend a few years just in one place in college.
I guess that’s why I’m struggling to look for my own place now.
This is the first time Dad’s bought something new that needs zero work.
It’s not a place they plan to flip; it’s where they want to live so they can watch my games and be close to me.
I want that too. If I’m being completely honest, I want what Reid has.
A house that feels like a home, like I belong.
Benji sits on the worn brown-leather couch and taps the seat beside him.
“You can sit here,” he says, like I’m the new kid getting on the school bus on my first day.
“Don’t be weird. You can sit wherever,” David says, shoving his brother’s leg on his way past.
“I’m not being weird,” Benji replies, his cheeks brightening just a little, and he turns to me. “He’s teasing me because I used to think you were hot.”
“Used to. Does that mean you don’t anymore?” I ask with a chuckle.
The blush deepens and he opens his mouth, but no words come out.
“Relax, I’m messing with you. I know I’m hot. Do you think we should offer to help Reid with dinner?” I ask but David shakes his head.
“Dad Bro’s got it.”
I take one last lingering look up the hall and then sit beside Benji.
Not close enough that he’ll get the wrong message, but not so far away that he’d worry about whether he offended me or anything.
I don’t want things to be weird between Reid’s brothers and me.
Especially if Reid and I keep spending more time together, we’re bound to be around his brothers more too.
Fuck, would he even want that? I mean, he has to want to at least be friends, right?
If he’s brought me here to meet his brothers and have dinner with his family.
He could have just taken me to a hotel to hook up, but he didn’t.
Except, maybe that’s exactly why he brought me here.
Maybe he has zero intentions of hooking up with me ever again, and this is his subtle way of saying, “Let’s just be friends.
” Urgh. I don’t want to be just friends.
I need to stop stressing and just wait to see where this goes.
“So, why Dad Bro?” I ask. The question has been lingering in the back of my mind since I first heard them say it at the pizza place.
“Cause he’s our brother but sort of our dad too, like he had to pretty much raise us,” Benji explains.
“I get that. What I meant was, why not Bro Dad? He was your brother first, right?”
Benji frowns and looks at David who’s wearing a similar expression, then both of them smile and laugh. It’s so similar to Reid’s smile, except theirs don’t send my gut into a swarm of butterflies.
“I guess we didn’t think of that. Huh, maybe we should call him Bro Dad,” David says, but then, like they’re reading each other’s thoughts, they both shake their heads.
“Nope, too late to change it now,” David laughs.
“It’ll be Dad Bro forever,” Benji adds, and then he switches on the television.
While the rest of the house so far has been homey, and I guess sort of old-looking, the television is anything but.
It takes up eighty percent of the wall, and when he switches on the replay of our last game, it’s almost like I’m sitting on the bench watching it in real time.
Reid pops his head around the corner, and we all look up.
“Garlic bread, yes or no?” he asks and both boys cheer.
“Yes.”
“I was asking our guest,” Reid goes on to say, his eyes lingering on me, waiting for my reply.
I shrug. “Got to give the kids what they want,” I say, and right there, that’s the flurry I love.
“You know you’re not that much older than us,” Benji says, fast-forwarding the game.
“I’m more mature than I look,” I reply.
“Sure you are,” he laughs, and then pauses the television right on a shot of me sticking out my tongue at Cosmo. “Wow, those camera guys can really zoom right in.”
“Okay, so maybe not all the time, I’m not,” I concede. He hits play again and we watch for a few minutes before Benji breaks the comfortable silence we’d settled into.
“How did you get him to do it?” Benji asks, and David pauses the screen again.
“What?” I ask, suddenly wondering how much Reid told his brothers about us.
“We thought he’d never do something like that,” David adds.
They can’t be talking about what we did last night. No way did he tell his brothers that we hooked up. I mean, I was close with the guys in the frat house, and some of them used to share stories, but Reid is like a dad to these two. That would just be weird.
“Ummm, I didn’t really have to convince him. Like, it was totally consensual. That’s a weird word. I just mean like . . . he was into it. No, that’s weirder.”
“Dude, are you okay?” Benji asks, and I rub the back of my neck with one hand, the air suddenly thick, sweat prickling the flushed skin on my face.
“Actually, can I use your bathroom?” I ask.
“Sure, second door on your left,” Benji replies, and as I walk away, I hear David’s voice.
“Maybe he blackmailed him into doing the trick play.”
Of course, they were asking about the trick play. Fuck, I’m an idiot.
I splash my face and wash my hands, the scent of orange, ginger, and lemongrass filling the tiny room as the soap lathers into a million tiny bubbles.
It smells exactly like Reid. I check the bottle, and find it’s not just a hand wash, it’s an all-in-one body wash.
I snap a shot of the label with my phone, determined to find where to buy some when I get home.
Half the battle of leaving that hotel room was crawling out from under his scent.
Now I’ll be able to smell him whenever I want. Okay, that even sounds weird to me.
I head out, but instead of returning to the boys, I decide to check if Reid wants a hand.
The narrow hallways are lined with photographs—many of the three boys when they were younger, usually with who I assume is their mother.
She was beautiful. Her hair was the same rich golden-brown Reid has, and the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles is just like hers.
I let my gaze linger on a photo of them cuddling up together on the same old leather couch in the living room.
A Christmas tree is off to one side, and his younger brothers are by their feet opening gifts.
“That was a good Christmas,” Reid says, and I jolt.
“Sorry, I wasn’t snooping, I was just . . . I was going to come in to see if you wanted a hand, then I got . . . distracted, I guess.”
“That’s okay. I find myself slowing down through the hallways myself. Like the images of all the happy memories will somehow make it feel like they’re still here.”
“Do they?”
“Sometimes,” he says, as he reaches up and gently touches the photo I was just enamored by. “Sometimes it just makes me sad.”
“I’m sorry.”
He turns to me slowly, a softer half smile on his lips that barely hides the hurt in his eyes.
“It’s okay,” he says.
“It’s not. But you will be,” I reply. He brushes the side of my face with the back of his fingers, leaning in a little as he tucks my hair behind my ear.
My body’s a bundle of nerves, electricity humming through me from his touch to my core.
He’s so close I can taste his sweet scent, and my mouth waters in response, urging me forward.
But we’re in his home, not a hotel room, and his younger brothers are just down the hall watching hockey and waiting for their dinner.
This is not the time or the place to do this.
If his brothers don’t know about us, I’m not going to blow up his world just because I’ve never felt like this for anyone before.
I can’t do that to him. He deserves better than that.
“We should check on dinner,” I say, stepping to the side.
“Umm, sure, okay,” Reid replies, a hitch in his voice that sends a pang to my chest.
“Don’t worry, we’ll continue that conversation later,” I turn back briefly to say, and the smile illuminates his face as he follows me into the other room.
The second I’m through the door, I spot the bunch of sunflowers sitting in the middle of the kitchen bench, and the single sunflower I left for him today resting on the windowsill.
I lean into the bunch and breathe in their subtle earthy scent.
“I’m building a nice collection of those,” Reid says as I sit and lean on the bench, watching him cook.
“I wanted to do something to show you I wasn’t regretting—“ I glance over my shoulder as if I can somehow see through the wall between his brothers and us.
“What happened?” he finishes for me, and I spin back.
“Exactly. Do you?”
“No. But it could make things a little difficult.”
My heart sinks.
“Because of your brothers?” I lean in and whisper.
He laughs.
“Fuck no. They’d be ecstatic. Maybe even a little impressed.”
“Impressed, really?”
“Well, Benji was telling me just a week or so ago that you were the hottest rookie to join the league.” After the words leave his mouth, instant regret flashes across his face. “I shouldn’t have . . .”
“I won’t say anything,” I reassure him, and he relaxes a little, but I can tell that sharing what his brother told him isn’t sitting well.
I’m an only child, but it was like that with Cosmo and me through college.
It’s like the bro code. You never lag on a brother.
“He practically told me the same thing himself in the living room before, it’s fine. It’s sweet, actually.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm,” I reply as I reach across and dip one finger into the sauce and pop it into my mouth.
“Sweet how?” Reid asks, his gaze transfixed on my mouth, and I remove my finger and lick my lips slowly.
“Why? Are you jealous?” I tease.
“Should I be?”
The room’s silent for a moment, and even the sounds from the living room appear to drift away.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I am kind of into older guys,” I say, and he turns his attention back to stirring the sauce.
His lips curl up at the corners. “I noticed.”