Chapter 16
SEBASTIAN
The drive to Bell and Ethan’s house took us along winding coastal roads where the sun glinted off steely blue water like diamonds.
Taylor had one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the center console between us.
I kept having to stop myself from reaching for it, practice for tonight.
We were heading straight into a situation where touching him would give everything away.
“You’re quiet.” Taylor glanced over at me as we wound around a tight bend in the road.
I looked down at the bottle of wine resting in my lap and traced the raised label with my thumb. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull this off.”
His hand shifted on the console, his pinky finger brushing against mine for just a second before he pulled it back. “You don’t have to be anyone but yourself.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. Myself around you is pretty damn obvious.”
Taylor’s mouth twitched into an almost-grin, then flattened, small twin lines forming between his brows. “I don’t need to say anything tonight about … you know. We can just be two guys having dinner with my married friends.”
My first instinct was to take the easy out. To say, “Yes, let’s do that.” But I could still see the look on Taylor’s face earlier when he’d pointed out my hypocrisy around Wyatt compared to what I was willing to risk for him. With him.
I hadn’t had the balls to explain the real reason I’d behaved so recklessly that night. It wasn’t about trusting Wyatt more than Taylor. It was jealousy—small and ugly and festering since the day Wyatt and Celine announced their engagement.
I didn’t love Wyatt. It wasn’t that kind of jealousy. I simply hated how easily he’d put me aside. We hadn’t discussed anything beforehand; I’d simply been told to fall in line. He’d wounded my pride.
And after Celine’s condo edict, I’d been feeling extra wounded.
A small part of me wouldn’t have cared if I’d blown the whole thing up just to spite them.
For one brief moment out on that dance floor, I’d let myself imagine destroying everything just to take them down with me.
The fantasy had flooded me with something hot and electric, and it was satisfying enough that I only barely managed to recognize the edge I was standing on.
I hadn’t cared what happened to Wyatt.
With Taylor, I cared too much.
But I didn’t want him to make himself smaller to accommodate my uncertainty about what this was or where it was going. I didn’t want him coming out to his friends for something that might fall apart in a month.
But I also couldn’t keep asking him to hide while I figured out whether I was brave enough to let this be real.
“No,” I said, the word scraping out of my throat. “That’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?” Taylor asked, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel as he turned onto a tree-lined street where houses sat far back from the road.
“Yeah. We’re good.”
He slowed the car as we approached a white, modern farmhouse-style house with a wraparound porch. A silver SUV sat in the driveway next to a vintage red Mustang in what looked to be pristine condition.
“Wow. Nice car.”
“But not as nice as my Corvette." He flashed me a grin, daring me to argue, but I couldn't.
I wasn't your typical car guy, but the second I laid eyes on it, I'd fallen deeply in love. It might have had something to do with the fact that it reminded me of James Dean, one of my first crushes, but I was keeping that to myself.
We pulled behind the SUV, and Taylor put the car into park. Through the windshield, I could see movement inside the house—someone tall passing by the window.
“Ready?” Taylor asked.
“Not really,” I answered truthfully. “But let’s do this anyway.”
I grabbed the wine while Taylor retrieved the six-pack of beer from the back seat. The front door opened before we could even knock.
The man who greeted us was taller than Taylor but shorter than me, with blond hair pulled back into a bun, his blue eyes bright with warmth.
He wore loose-fitting jeans that looked soft to the touch, with a white t-shirt that clung to his body, showing off the kind of physique that should only exist on statues and superheroes.
His feet were bare, his toenails painted a bright, glittery pink.
Stryker Bell, captain and right winger of the Maine Marauders, and one of the NHL's first openly out players.
He pulled Taylor into a one-armed hug, clapping him on the back. “Right on time.”
He turned toward me, openly assessing. Measuring. It was the same sort of assessment I typically used when sizing up a situation.
But it was more than that, too. There was an almost territorial quality to the way his gaze moved from me to Taylor and back again, as if he was trying to decide whether I was worthy of his teammate.
I rarely wilted under anyone’s inspection, but something about this man's appraisal gave me pause. It was as if with just one look, he was able to identify and catalog every chink in my armor. For a heartbeat, I felt the urge to retreat, but fought that instinct back.
“Well, aren’t you pretty?” The corner of Bell’s mouth twitched, and he shot me a wink.
Heat crawled up my neck into my face as Taylor made a choking sound beside me.
“Jesus Christ, Bell,” he wheezed.
“What? I’m just making an observation.” He extended his hand in greeting. “You must be the college roommate Taylor told me about.”
“Hopefully only good things.” I shifted the wine bottle to my left hand and reached out with my right, gripping his tightly. “Sebastian Carruthers. Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure’s all mine.” He glanced down at the wine in my hand and grinned. “And you brought the good stuff. Come on in.” He guided us into the house, closing the door behind us. “This way.”
“T-Mo?” I asked under my breath as we followed Bell through the foyer. “Your college teammates called you Moree.”
Taylor’s steps faltered, and he stopped to look at me in wide-eyed shock. “You remember that?”
“Yeah. I mean, of course.”
“I didn’t think you paid attention to stuff like that.”
Oh, I’d paid attention, all right—to the way his teammates could sling their arms around his shoulders or ruffle his hair, the way they’d drape themselves over him at parties, half-drunk and laughing, and hanging on his every word.
No one ever looked twice at teammates being physical with each other like that. That was just what hockey bros did.
I’d been so jealous I could barely stand it sometimes. They got to touch him without consequence, while I had to measure every accidental brush of our hands. They got to use cutesy nicknames for him, where I had to fight every instinct not to call him “baby.”
And when he’d call me “bro” in that same friendly, casual tone he used with them, it had felt like proof that we weren't special. That what we had—what we did—was just more of the same easy affection he gave everyone.
I’d let that jealousy get the better of me.
Despite the attention I’d paid him back then, I’d missed what actually mattered.
I’d been so focused on noting every touch his teammates got that I didn’t, that I hadn’t seen the way he looked at me differently.
How he treated me differently, too. How he’d wait for me after class, even when it made him late to practice.
How he’d remember things I’d mentioned once in passing and bring them up weeks later.
Taylor had loved me—maybe not with words, but in every small choice he made where I was concerned.
“I wish I’d paid better attention.”
The words hung between us, Taylor's throat working like he was trying to figure out what to say, and I couldn’t look away from him even though I knew I should.
“You want a minute?” Bell asked, his voice cutting through the moment.
My head snapped toward him. His expression had turned gentle, his mouth going soft at the corners. It was the kind of look that said he’d once stood exactly where I was and understood what was happening.
Well, that didn’t take long, I thought.
Not even ten minutes here, and I’d already given myself away.
Taylor cleared his throat. “Nah. We’re coming.”
“Back this way.” Bell gestured for us to follow him. “Come meet my husband.”
The living room opened into a large kitchen with a marble-topped island and wall-to-wall French doors that led out onto an expansive deck. Through the glass, I spied a dark-haired man standing at a built-in grill that looked to be professional-grade.
Bell plucked the wine from my hands as we passed through the kitchen. “I’ll get this opened. You know where the glasses are, Taylor.”
Taylor pulled two bottles from the six-pack of beer and twisted off the caps. Then he retrieved a couple of glasses from the cabinet next to the refrigerator and passed them to Bell, who filled them nearly to the brim. He handed me one, then moved toward the door and slid it open.
“Hey, babe," he said, addressing the man at the grill. "Taylor and his bestie are here.”
Ethan Harrison looked up, his mouth quirking up and to the side. It wasn’t quite a smile, but close. “Hey, T. Long time no see.”
“Tell me about it,” Taylor said, stepping onto the deck and handing him one of the beers.
Ethan took it with a nod of thanks, then hung his tongs on a hook on the grill and wiped his hands on the towel draped over his shoulder.
I stepped forward, the rich smell of charred meat and smoke hitting me immediately. I extended my free hand. “Hi, I’m Sebastian. Thanks for having me.”
Ethan’s handshake was firm. “Happy to have you,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to check on the food. “Bell mentioned you’re in town doing some work?”
I glanced at Taylor, not sure how much he’d told his teammate about me or how we’d been passing the time during my visit. “Officially, I’m on vacation for the rest of the week, but yeah, I’ve been talking to some folks about a local campaign.”
Taylor moved closer to the grill, inspecting the spread. “Holy shit, E. That’s a lot of meat.”
Bell smirked and dropped into a chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “That’s what—”
“Don’t,” Ethan said, fighting a smirk of his own.
“When you said Ethan got a lamb,” Taylor said, turning to address Bell, “I thought you meant like, a leg or something. I didn't think you meant the whole damn animal.” He tipped his bottle back and took a swig of his beer.
Two butterflied legs took up most of one side of the grill, while what had to be a dozen sausages sizzled on the other.
“Butcher had a special,” Ethan explained, picking up his tongs and flipping one of the legs. “Buy one, get one free. Seemed stupid not to take advantage.”
Bell laughed. “What he means is, he got excited and bought way too much, and now we’re going to have to eat lamb for a month.”
Ethan pointed his tongs at his husband. “Hey, I froze some.”
“Just like you froze all of that venison your brother gave us last year that we still haven’t gone through.”
Ethan shook his head, fighting a smile as he turned back to the grill.
I glanced at Taylor, and we shared a look of mutual amusement.
The way Ethan deflected Bell’s teasing without heat and how Bell’s grin said he knew exactly how far to push reminded me of how Taylor and I used to be.
We’d had glimpses of that old dynamic this past week, but we were still finding our footing.
Still learning who we’d become in the decade we’d spent apart, trying to reconcile the boys we’d been with the men we were now.
“Grab a seat.” Ethan gestured toward the table with his beer. “This needs another ten minutes.”
Bell patted the chair next to him. “Come sit by me so I can get all the gossip about T.”
I took the indicated chair, and Taylor settled into the one on my other side, his knee pressing against mine under the table.
Ethan stayed at the grill, but he’d angled himself so that he was facing us.
“There’s not much to tell,” Taylor told Bell. “I was pretty boring in college.”
Bell’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, come on! You were a D-1 hockey player. None of us was boring.”
Taylor chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. I played hockey and went to class. That’s about it.”
“No wild parties?” He looked my way, hoping I’d contradict Taylor's version of events.
“We went to parties,” I told him. “They just weren’t particularly gossip-worthy.” The parties themselves weren’t all that notable. It was what we did later that would have made tongues wag if anyone had ever found out.
"Boo. You're boring. I thought for sure you'd have at least one story of some wild hookup."
Taylor’s hand landed on my thigh under the table, squeezed it gently. I turned my head to find him staring at me, and I watched the memory of those nights flicker across his face.
He tilted his head toward Bell, his eyebrows raised. It took me a second, but I eventually figured it out when his head twitched a second time toward his teammate.
This was it.
I gave him the tiniest of nods, my stomach dropping.
“Well, there was one hookup,” Taylor said, dragging his gaze away.
If I hadn't been watching Bell for his reaction, I would have missed the quizzical look he shot me before snapping his attention back to Taylor.
“Oh yeah?”
Taylor swallowed and reached for his beer.
He stared down at it for a moment, picking at the corner of the label with his thumbnail.
“There was this guy, though he wasn’t really a hookup.
We were together.” His eyes came back up to meet Bell's.
“Actually, I was in love with him, but I never told him.
Not properly, anyway. Mostly because I didn't know that's what it was.”
He’d told me as much in Vegas, but hearing him confess it to his friends made those words real in a way I hadn’t let them be until now.
Real in a way I never thought I'd get.
I’d long ago accepted that any relationship I might have someday would have to exist in the margins, nurtured behind closed doors. But sitting here with two married men who’d fought like hell to be together, I suddenly understood that didn’t have to be my future.
I could have what they had.
Taylor and I could have it together.
My vision turned blurry as I reached out deliberately, where there’d be no mistaking my intent, and settled my hand on his. “He was in love with you, too. Still is, I think.”