Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Reid
David and Benji start with the questions the moment we sit down to eat.
“So, do you have siblings?” David asks.
“Are they as annoying as mine?” Benji follows before Luka can answer, and I roll my eyes, but their need to know all about the guys I work with isn’t new.
At my party, I had to keep bailing out the team when they got stuck in a round of twenty questions with these two.
They mean well, at least I think they do.
They’re just young and get excited by the celebrity of it all.
Not that I think I’m a celebrity. What even is the definition of a celebrity?
I guess I perform in front of thousands of people, am interviewed by the media, and get paid way more money than I ever thought I would to play the most amazing game in the world. Does that make me a celebrity?
“I’m an only child,” Luka says, twirling spaghetti onto his fork and shoveling an impressive amount into his mouth. The last time I saw him open that wide, his lips were wrapped around my cock, and that image flashes in my mind, giving me an instant semi.
“Didn’t you two already look up all his info when he signed with Philly?” I ask, and both of them blush.
“Yeah, but you can never trust what the media says,” David explains.
“Yeah, like they said you were dating that actress you helped out of her car that time. Then there was David’s girlfriend, who they thought you were living with because she was here like every day.”
“She was like a decade younger than you too,” David adds, and I can see Luka’s smile out of the corner of my eye.
“That’s not a huge difference,” Luka says. “I hear lots of people prefer older guys.”
“Actually,” David says, waving his fork in my direction. “I’m pretty sure she only started dating me because she wanted to get to you, so that tracks.”
“Really?” I ask, and he nods.
“That’s not very nice,” Luka replies, and David shrugs.
“It’s been like that for years. I mean, for me it’s pretty easy to weed them out when I tell them he only likes—“
“People his own age,” Benji interjects as he shoves David in the side, causing him to spill his cup of water over the table.
“Dude, what’s your damage?” David yells, standing before the water drips over the edge and onto the floor. I’m up in a split second, grabbing paper towels to mop it up, and Luka helps move David’s plate and cutlery to the open spot on his other side.
“It was an accident,” Benji claims.
“Sure looked like it,” Luka says with a raised brow.
“Boys,” I begin as I retake my seat across from Luka. “He knows, so you can relax.”
David’s mouth is open in disbelief, while Benji’s is in a wide grin.
“Really?” Benji asks.
I nod.
“That’s great,” David finally says, turning to Luka. “Maybe you can help us convince him to start putting himself out there. I swear it’s been forever since he’s gotten any.”
I almost choke on my mouthful of pasta, and Luka laughs.
“I think he’s probably doing alright on his own,” Luka says, but neither one of them believes him.
I don’t actually date, not really. Mostly because I’m too busy with these two plus my NHL career, but also because I don’t want who I’m dating to be the only thing anyone asks me about in interviews.
I’ve seen it happen to other out players exactly that way.
They answer politely, but I can see the image they’re trying to project falter just a little.
I like that I have something that’s just mine, even if until now that something was actually nothing at all.
I didn’t plan to hook up with Luka—okay, so I booked a hotel room, so I did sort of plan that—but what I mean is, I didn’t mean to fall for him. He got under my skin from day one, though, and every day since it’s been harder and harder to ignore the way he makes me feel.
“Enough about me. Do you know when you need to be in Savannah for tryouts?” I ask Benji.
“Three weeks, then if I make it into the team, I’ll move out there after your playoffs.”
“You mean after we win the cup?” Luka says, and the boys gasp.
“Luka doesn’t believe in superstitions,” I reassure them, but both are just staring at him with their mouths open.
Luka shrugs. “It’s not that I don’t believe there could be some kind of mystical forces at play. I’ve just never found that talking about winning has had any effect on me actually winning.”
David scootches his seat a little further away from Luka, and I chuckle.
“Relax, you won’t catch the bad juju,” I say.
“You don’t believe in that stuff either, do you?” Luka asks.
“I don’t like to wear the same underwear every game or refuse to wash my socks or anything like that, but we all have our thing.”
“Really?” Luka asks, leaning forward. “What’s your . . . thing, then?”
I twirl spaghetti onto my fork.
“I watch golf in the locker room, and tape my stick the same way every game.”
“That’s not superstition,” Luka says as he finishes off the last of the spaghetti on his plate. Wow, he ate that fast. I guess he liked it.
“They could be,” I reply.
“No, you watch golf because you don’t want to see predictions from any of the sports reporters on who’ll win or how they think a team or player will play, and you tape your stick that way because you’ve spent years trying out different patterns and find it works best for your hand grip and at the other end, the control and spin of the puck. ”
How does he know that?
“Is that really why?” David asks.
“Yeah, I guess, but how did you know that?” I ask.
“You’re Reid Raines. Any hockey kid dreaming of a life like yours would know that.”
“Aww, were you a fan?” Benji asks in a sickly sweet voice.
“Always,” Luka replies matter-of-factly, and it brings a warmth to my chest.
“You are pretty epic out there,” Benji adds, and then the conversation shifts to Banana Ball. I leave them to it and head into the kitchen to get the ice cream out to soften.
The boys take their dessert to their rooms, and Luka goes to sit on the stool at the counter, but I jerk my head toward the back door for him to follow me.
The sky out tonight is clear, and the cold air hits the second we’re through the door, but both of us are used to the cold.
My back yard is one of the biggest on the block, and large trees my grandfather planted as saplings border the entire space, making me almost forget that we even have neighbors.
An even bigger oak tree is centered along the back tree line and holds the tree house my father and grandfather built together when my dad was a boy.
Down the front of the tree trunk, boards are nailed into it to create a ladder that moves higher up the trunk as the tree grows over the years.
I sit on the old porch swing and lean back, looking up at the night sky.
“We can talk out here. The boys will be up in their rooms for most of the night now.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Luka asks, sitting beside me. He nudges the swing into a slow rhythm and pops a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.
I turn to him blankly. “Really?”
“Just kidding. Soooo, we hooked up, and now you want to tell me it was a mistake, right?” he asks.
“Is that what you think? Is that why you left?”
He shakes his head. “I wanted to come back the second I walked out the door.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I ask, gripping my bowl of ice cream in hopes it will help steady my nerves.
He shrugs. “I figured that was even weirder than leaving in the first place.”
“So you don’t regret it?” I ask, my pulse quickening.
“I’m sorry if that’s what I made you think,” he says as he lays his hand on my thigh. A rush of warmth rises to where his hand is and then spreads through my whole body.
“I guess I didn’t really know what to think. It’s not like I’ve ever been in this situation before.”
“So your brothers were right? You don’t date?”
“No. And until you came along, I thought I was okay with that.”
“And now?”
“Now, I don’t know how I’m going to be your captain on the ice and your . . .”
“Lover, bed buddy, boyfriend?” he interjects, and the last one makes my heart skip a beat. But it’s way too soon for that, isn’t it?
“You know what I mean,” I say, and he shrugs.
“We can try, though, can’t we?”
“And if it’s too hard?”
“Then we deal with it. I don’t want to not even try just because it might be hard.”
“Okay, so we’ll be completely professional, teammates first. At the rink, at official team events, we’re captain and rookie only.”
“And when we’re not, I get to kiss those perfect lips,” he says, and then he glances up to the windows on the second floor.
“The boys’ rooms are at the front of the house,” I say, and he takes my bowl, and his, and puts them on the ground then straddles my legs. The seat swings out in a slow rhythmic motion, and he links his hands behind my head.
“Is this okay?”
“Perfect,” I say, cupping his ass, and he leans down and kisses me.
His mouth is soft, and as his fingers slide up the back of my neck and tangle in my hair, my cock throbs.
“I want you so bad,” I moan into his mouth, lifting him as I stand. He links his legs around my waist, and he grinds himself over my bulge as I walk us toward the oak tree.
“Up,” I say, breaking our kiss. And he follows my stare up to the tree house.
“Is it safe?”
“Would I ever put you in harm’s way?”
He smiles widely, kisses me quickly, then unclasps his legs from their hold around me and starts making his way up. He moves slowly, flexing his ass with each rung.
“Tease,” I say as I follow.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asks, looking back over his shoulder.
“Whatever you want.”