Chapter 20 #2
Michelle had left the morning they were set to arrive back in California.
In a text, she said it was her work schedule, and she regretted missing Rowan.
But as much as he enjoyed Theo’s mom, being in the same room as her and Theo at the same time felt like a bad idea.
He and Theo were too precarious for external examination.
Especially by someone who had a front-row seat to how weird they were with each other as teenagers.
He wanted to fling himself into Theo’s arms when he got home, but he managed to be normal. He didn’t know if anything had changed for Theo in the days that had passed.
Once Vic had headed out, and Theo and Rowan ordered dinner, and Rowan dug out the trinkets he’d picked up for Theo on their roadie. He also found a New York license plate magnet with his name on it at the actual airport.
Theo was on the couch in the living room, and Rowan tossed the handful of things into his lap, then sat down on the chair kitty-corner to him.
“What’s this?”
“Just bringing a little NYC back to you.”
“Ro,” Theo said, picking up the magnet and running his thumb over his name. “My name is never on these things.”
“I know. There were a million of them. Every name. Not my name, of course.”
He held up the saltwater taffy next.
“I dunno if you still like that stuff, but I figured maybe you’d want it. You’re just the only person I know with such bad taste.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Don’t make a tooth joke,” he said with just enough of a smile to see a peek of the cute gap in his top teeth. He turned the Statue of Liberty keychain over in his hands. “And Lady Liberty.”
“You’re seeing her with your own two eyes,” Rowan joked. He didn’t know what to say. These things had felt light-hearted when he’d picked them up, but now there was an intimacy that he’d overlooked. These weren’t casual gifts, even if he hadn’t spent more than a collective fifteen bucks on them.
“That was really sweet of you.” There was a beat as Theo continued to stare at Rowan’s gifts in his hands before he spoke again. “You are trying really hard right now.”
The directness surprised him. Fuck. He was trying really hard.
“I don’t want there to be bad blood between us. I know the past couple weeks have been weird, but the past several months have been weirder for me. It’s important to me that you like me.”
“Why now?” Theo asked. When he looked up at Rowan, his eyes were glassy. “You made your clean break from me. It was clear you didn’t want me then. You said goodbye. You moved on. I moved on. People finally stopped adding you into any statement they made about me.
“And now you’re here, in my city, on my team, on my line, in my house, giving me saltwater taffy like we’re still Jaguars.”
“Didn’t want you then?” Rowan asked. “What do you mean?”
“You dropped me as fast as you fucking could.”
“T, when I decided to stop texting you, it was because I truly believed you didn’t want to hear from me. Every time I sent you a message or gave you a call, it seemed like I was bothering you. I was giving you space. I figured if you wanted to talk to me, you would call me. And you didn’t.”
“Every time we talked, all I heard about was your magical life in the NHL.”
“That first year was really hard,” Rowan said. He remembered reaching out to his friend for comfort and feeling rebuffed.
“Okay, well, I was still living on an OHL stipend in a shitty apartment with my mom while people made comments about how I was a waste of a top-five pick. And then you’d call me up and tell me about scoring goals in the NHL.
You won Rookie of the Year while I was still playing with literal children. It was fucking mortifying.”
“Shit,” Rowan said. “Oh my God, that is exactly what happened.”
“Did you just realize?” Theo laughed at him, and a bit of the tension diffused.
“You were mean to me when I got here because all this time you were remembering me being a giant asshole to you. And all I was remembering was how the circumstances of hockey pulled us apart.”
“And then for the next several years I went from always hearing your name with mine, to always hearing it with Felix’s.”
“Which is why you were so mad when he stayed over.”
Theo groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Yeah, dude. Because I felt fucking replaced by the most important person in my life.”
Rowan was receiving a lot of information. It wasn’t far from what he and his mom had talked about when he was home, but hearing from Theo how badly he hurt him was ripping him apart. He hadn’t really believed what his mom had suggested.
A tear slipped from Theo’s eye and Rowan stood to pull him into a hug.
Theo was so much bulkier than he was when he was a teenager, but he smelled the same.
Rowan saw a bottle of the same cologne he had worn forever in his bathroom when he was helping him post-concussion.
A reminder that in a lot of ways, they were both the same people they were back then.
“I need you to know how much Felix is not a replacement for you. Obviously because he’s straight. And because our friendship, while important to me, was never on the level that ours used to be on. And because I’m not over you.”
He hadn’t planned on saying it. The words just came out, flowing with the other things they were talking about.
“What?” Theo’s voice was a whisper.
“Why do you think I ended up here? Of course, I wanted to go to a contender. But there were plenty of teams who looked good and had cap space. Most teams were offering me basically the same thing. Playing hockey for money with strangers. The Serpents were the only ones who could offer my friend back.”
“Rowan.”
“What?”
“That is terrifying.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you break my heart again, I will not survive it. I tried to keep my distance from you so this wouldn’t happen. And then, God, you really didn’t understand how bad you hurt me.”
“I know I am not always the best at...feelings. If I knew I was hurting you, I would have done anything to make you feel better.”
Rowan brought a hand up to cup Theo’s cheek. The last time they’d stood like this, Theo had been in a different body. Now his jawline had sharpened up. His body was muscled and hairy. He’d gotten older while Rowan wasn’t looking, and Rowan had never been more attracted to him.
“I never want to break your heart again.”
“What kind of conversation are we having?”
That was a good question. Rowan felt like he had tripped and fallen into the deep end. He had no other choice but to swim.
“I understand if this isn’t something you want, or are interested in. But I have spent the last eight years searching for something to fill the hole in my heart, and, Teddy. It’s only you. It can only be you.”
“Fuck,” Theo said, pulling away to take a breath and shake his hands out. “I have spent so much time imagining you apologizing to me and begging me to take you back. This feels like I’m hallucinating.”
That sounded promising. It was better than the way Theo had looked at him at the beginning of the season, for sure.
“What can I do to reassure you that you are not hallucinating?”
“What if we try this, and hockey rips us apart again?”
“I don’t want to sound like an arrogant asshole, but I’m pretty sure I can figure out a way to keep us together, if that’s what we want. Plus, I am hopefully not as much of a dumbfuck as I was when I was eighteen.”
That got a little laugh from Theo. He took Rowan’s hand. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“When I showed up in September to you shooting lasers out of your eyes at me, I didn’t think you’d ever want to talk to me again. If you would give this another chance with me, Theodore, I would be the happiest I have ever been.”
“The full name and everything.”
“And everything.”
“I want this. But we can’t just jump back into the thing we were doing when we were kids. I want to be friends again first.”
Rowan couldn’t keep his smile normal. He was sure he looked goofy, but he was so happy, even just to hear Theo was willing to give their friendship a try again. Even if that’s all Rowan got, he would be happy.