Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Enzo
Axel thinks Gaby was pretty.
I mean, she was. Of course she was.
I yank my jersey over my head and try to focus on the upcoming game. The fabric catches on my ear. Way to reassure the team about my physical prowess pre-game.
“You good?” Axel asks from beside me.
“Fine.”
He frowns but doesn’t push.
I stand and stretch. My shoulders won’t loosen. Even in the locker room, we can hear the crowd roar. My former crowd. The people who used to cheer my name and now—
Now they’ll boo.
“Heads up, Enz.” Axel tosses me my stick. “Let’s destroy them.”
I catch it and almost smile.
On the ice, everything simplifies. There’s the puck. There’s the net. There’s the satisfying crack of my stick connecting, the cold air burning my lungs, the roar that rises when—
When the other team scores.
Shit.
Diego—my former linemate, my former friend—skates past me with a grin. “Miss us yet?”
I don’t answer. I focus on the next play, then the next. Axel feeds me a perfect pass, and I bury it in the top corner. The LA fans go silent. Our bench erupts.
Axel crashes into me, arms around my shoulders, helmet knocking against mine.
We win 4-2. Axel and I both scored once.
In the visitor’s locker room, the guys are celebrating. Axel is in the middle of it all, grinning, golden, perfect.
We’re best friends. We’re co-parents. We’re... whatever we are at night, when the lights are off and his hands are on me and I can pretend it means something.
“Bellanti! Knight! Press room!” Coach jerks his thumb toward the door.
The press room is packed. We just made it to the playoffs—it’s official.
Axel grins and takes a seat beside Coach. I lower myself into the chair next to Axel, the table a flimsy barrier between us and the crowd.
God, I hate press conferences. Ever since Jason’s went so terribly, I’m more aware of all the things that could go wrong. The only reason I’m here is because Dmitri was deported.
Under the table, Axel’s knee presses against my thigh. He doesn’t look at me, but I steady underneath the sudden warm pressure.
I press my lips together to stop from smiling.
“Mr. Knight,” one reporter says. “You and Bellanti have been playing brilliantly.”
“We have.” Axel flashes his media smile, the one that shows all his teeth.
“But in an interview after Bellanti joined the Blizzards, you told the media that he would be a horrible addition to the team. Your language was incredibly strong.”
The room goes quiet. Someone coughs.
Axel’s face whitens.
Beside me, Coach reaches for his water glass. His hand isn’t steady. He takes a long sip, buying time, then sets it down with exaggerated care. His smile stretches too wide, the kind that makes you look more nervous, not less.
Axel’s knee pulls away from mine. His fingers drum on the table, then stop. When he speaks, his voice is lighter than it should be, pitched up at the edges.
“Well,” he says. “I was wrong…”
I lean forward. “I’ll answer that question.”
Axel’s head swivels toward me. His lips part, but nothing comes out.
He passes me his microphone. It’s heavier than I expected. The reporters lean forward, pens poised, cameras refocusing.
God, I hate interviews.
But I hate watching Axel flounder more.
“Axel had a very valid reason to believe I was unsuitable for the team,” I say.
My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
“He is the best judge of character I know. We were best friends from the time we were eighteen when we were assigned as college roommates, and we played together for years. All that affects our hockey positively. But three years ago, through no fault of his own, I stopped speaking to him.”
The room is silent.
“My best friend. The best, most wonderful person I know.” I grip the microphone tighter.
My knuckles whiten. “I believed he’d done something reprehensible.
But he hadn’t. I never bothered to confirm it myself.
I should have. I wish I had. But I didn’t.
Axel’s concerns about me were absolutely reasonable, and it was right of him to warn Coach and the team.
I’m the one who owes him an apology, not the other way around. ”
I set the microphone down. The click echoes.
Axel is staring at me. His mouth is still open. His eyes are glassy in a way I’ve never seen at a press conference.
“What was the nature of this misunderstanding?” a reporter asks.
Axel grabs the microphone before I can. “It was a personal matter.” His voice is firm.
A few reporters try follow-up questions—”Can you elaborate—” “Was this related to—”—but Coach leans into his mic.
“Let’s get back to the game, folks.”
Finally, mercifully, it’s over.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Axel says, once we leave the press room.
“I didn’t want anyone to think poorly of you. You don’t deserve it.”
His eyes go tender. “Let’s get out of here.”
Axel hurries us out of the press room. The bus is waiting for us at the arena, and we pile in. Axel sits beside me, and Finn and Evan smirk.
We drive to the hotel. Tomorrow we play Anaheim.
Axel stays beside me as we exit the bus, and he stays beside as we get our hotel keycards, and he stays beside me as we go up to our hotel room.
We pile onto the elevator, crushed behind other hockey players and tourists who stare at us blankly—probably trying to figure out if we’re professional athletes, spies, or exceedingly healthy businessmen from Silicon Valley.
Axel glances at my keycard. We’re on separate floors.
“Maybe we should go to my room to, um, talk about Luca.”
“Luca’s in bed,” I say. “It’s late on the East Coast.”
Axel frowns, and Finn stifles a laugh.
“I think you should go, Enzo,” Finn says. “Kids are important.”
“Okay,” I say. “Did you hear from Patricia? Did something happen?”
“Everything is fine. We FaceTimed with Luca this afternoon, before the game, remember?”
I nod. “Then why…”
Color climbs his neck. He looks away, suddenly fascinated by the elevator buttons.
Does Axel just want to hang out with me? Hang out with me like we do in Boston? When I sleep in his bed?
God… That’s probably a sign, right? Do straight men really invite their gay friends into their beds, then give them handjobs and blow them so they can fall asleep?
I don’t think that’s a thing.
I hope it’s not a thing.
Because maybe…
Hope surges through me, dizzying and dangerous, moving faster than the zoom of the elevator. I should probably smother the hope growing in my chest. But maybe I don’t need to do so.
“Okay.”
Finn winks. “Have fun with your... toddler discussion.”
Noah elbows him. “Be nice.”
“I’m being very nice. I’m not saying anything about—”
The elevator pings. Noah grabs Finn’s hand and practically drags him out before finishing the sentence.
The elevator pings again. This time we’re on Axel’s floor, and this time I exit with him. We walk side by side over the thick carpet. Axel swipes his keycard against the door, and when the light flashes green, I follow him inside.
The door clicks behind us.
We are alone.
We stand there, watching each other.
His blue-green eyes have gone solemn, and my heart bounces, like a puck that has been slammed into the air and hasn’t crashed to the ice yet.
Then he tentatively touches my hand. I tremble. It’s Axel. Of course I tremble. Then he takes my other hand in his.
He rubs his fingers over my hands, as if getting to know their shape.
I stay silent. My heart is racing, racing, racing, and maybe he can tell, because his eyes soften. He pulls me closer to him.
“I want to kiss you,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Well.” He looks at me, nervous.
He’s never kissed a man before. Is he looking at my stubble? My wider jaw? Realizing he doesn’t want this after all?
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
I’ve been waiting for him for a decade.
Then Axel pulls me toward him. I link my hands around his neck, and he bends his head down.
Oh, God. He’s going to kiss me.
Ten years of yearning, and now he’s going to kiss me.
It can’t be real. I must be dreaming. But then—
His lips brush mine. They’re soft and tentative and testing.
Then his tongue sweeps against mine, and my knees nearly buckle.
He catches me and hoists me into his arms, pressing me against the wall. His mouth finds mine again, and he kisses me like he’s been waiting too.