Chapter 34
Xavier
You’d have thought the crushing disappointment of not seeing Artemis after my game would have dissipated over the past couple weeks.
Spoiler alert: it hasn’t.
The disappointment isn’t a quiet thing either. It’s loud, prickly, living behind my ribs like a feral animal that hasn’t been fed since the night he walked out of that rink without looking back.
The weather’s taken a colder turn, everyone’s buzzing with travel talk, and since Thanksgiving is in the rearview, the halls are well and truly decked with eleventy bazillion Christmas lights.
Everyone’s in the Christmas mood. Except me. Every twinkle light feels like a personal attack. Like the universe is mocking me with cheer I can’t seem to scrape up, no matter how many peppermint mochas I chug. And I’ve had a lot.
There’s a black hole in my chest that’s growing by the day. This long-distance relationship was fun when I thought we could simply nip back and forth every few days to visit, but shit isn’t that easy when you’re, well, me and Artemis it seems.
The distance felt manageable when we were sprinting toward each other every few days. Now it feels like we’re both drowning in opposite oceans, waving through storms that never fucking line up.
Our game schedules aren’t lining up either. Other than our next face-to-face game in the new year, there aren’t any more games on the calendar where we can even go and watch each other play.
I tighten my scarf around my face as I walk into the frigid wind toward Brewd and Butter, where Lachlan, our team captain, is mandating study sessions to make sure none of us end up being benched over the coming weeks because of our grades.
Thanks to the giant, brooding distraction in the next state over, it’s taking every ounce of my time and energy to keep my GPA anywhere near a three-point-five.
I might be constantly compared to my brother at every fucking turn, but if I get a higher GPA than him, if I ace my degree and give myself something other than hockey to rely on as a career, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll inch myself out from under his heavy shadow.
I’m so goddamn tired of chasing a shadow that doesn’t even know it’s blocking my sun.
But am I even good enough to get that high a GPA?
Doesn’t feel like it right now. It’s like I’m walking uphill in all directions, weighed down with a 200lb weight.
The doubt is a slow poison. It’s easy to swallow, but impossible to spit out.
I can’t ask Artemis to help either. Turns out, he’s flunking a capstone class, one of the core components of his degree. I can’t figure out how he went from “I’ve got this, I’m acing this, don’t sweat it,” to “I’m failing strategic management, and might not pass business policy either.”
Actually, I do. He’s not sleeping, he’s barely eating, and he’s putting every, single spare moment he has into this fucking corporate takeover he’s engineering.
Artemis said he smells a rat. The FAA, Department of Defense, and antitrust regulators tried to block the merger because of national security concerns that no one could name.
He’s fighting it, because of course he is. That’s what my guy does. But other than send him a constant supply of very naughty treats he claims he shouldn’t be eating, along with the occasional tub of protein powder, and berating him nightly to get some sleep... I feel so fucking helpless.
Ironically, strategic management integrates all prior business knowledge. It’s the big class that ties everything together. Artemis is living the class in real life, but he’s just so on the back foot, that his schoolwork is what’s slipping through the cracks.
Even Ares has reached out to ask if I can shake some sense into him. Actually, his message said, “fuck some sense into him,” but I didn’t want to get into the nitty gritty details that his brother still hasn’t let me top him yet. Good boys don’t kiss and tell, right?
I push open the door to the coffee shop, welcoming the warm gush of cinnamon-laced air that hits me in my cold as fuck face.
My phone pings with a message from Artemis. I’m now that pathetic man who has everyone else in the world silenced but Artemis has his own ringtone. And he’s on full volume.
Is dick-whipped a thing? Like pussy-whipped but for gays? Because that’s what I am.
Ice Prince: One of my critical suppliers pulled out. Manufacturing has ground to a fucking halt. My father is doing all he can to sabotage this merger. And that’s without even knowing who’s behind it.
My stomach drops as I approach the counter. All he needs is for shit to get even worse. He’s going to work himself into an early grave.
Ice Prince: Sent a trusted friend to do a site inspection yesterday. He found a number of equipment issues. Our manufacturing plants need massive, costly upgrades to meet safety standards.
Ice Prince: And by ‘ours’ I mean the new company. To be clear.
Ice Prince: I’m unravelling.
My pulse spikes. Not because he’s melting down, but because he’s finally letting me see it, telling me about it. Letting someone like him be vulnerable is like watching a glacier crack from the inside. And the sound is fucking deafening.
Ice Prince: Remind me again why I’m doing this.
Goal Daddy: To be honest, the rest of us don’t really know. But it’s important to you, so it’s important to me. I’m not surprised your dad’s being a dick, it’s par for the course for him. I am surprised he’s cut corners in the manufacturing plants. So much for elite aeronautics. I’m sorry, baby.
Ice Prince: I love it when you call me baby.
That makes me smile, despite the sad, hollowness in my bones. It’s pathetic how fast he can pull a smile from me with a few words. If he asked, I’d probably mail him a kidney too. Maybe both. Who even needs kidneys?
“Who’s next?”
I order a round of drinks for the group of very studious hockey players under Lachlan’s watchful eye in the corner, and an entire apple pie which makes my chest hurt. As much as Brewd and Butter makes good fucking pie, it’s just not on the same level as Get the Fork Out in Iowa.
I miss him. Missing him has settled into my bloodstream. It’s constant, low-grade, but impossible to ignore. I swear my body temperature is permanently a couple degrees lower without him around me.
It’s just that simple. And I hate that there’s nothing I can do to help him. And I hate even more that he won’t just say “fuck it” and walk away from the table.
It’s only going to get worse the longer we’re together, too. The distance will just bruise my heart like a sharp knuckle rubbing back and forth over a sore spot.
He’s as stubborn as his—nope, can’t even think that because that doesn’t bear thinking about. He’s nothing like his father. Alonso de la Pena is a narcissistic asshole, and Artemis is nothing like him.
The guys grunt or nod their hellos as I sit down, and I get a few fist bumps and shoulder knocks as thanks when the barista brings over everyone’s drinks and brain fuel.
I take a selfie with the guys for the socials.
“Stay in school, kids,” “hockey players study too,” all that jazz.
It’s on the tip of my thumbs to write “just missing a special someone,” in the caption but my thousands of followers would dig to the ends of the earth to figure out who the fuck I’m seeing. And he doesn’t want that yet.
Instead, I pull out my phone and send him a coffee delivery from his favorite coffee place and pull out the dreaded books.
Lachlan snaps at a couple of the guys to shut the fuck up about their holiday flights. “None of you are leaving unless I’m satisfied you’re not flunking.” Dude’s a drill sergeant.
After what feels like a year of studying—in reality it’s only been thirty-five minutes—I check my phone. There’s a message from Ares on the screen.
Ares: Real subtle, Xavi. Having coffee delivered in front of everyone is definitely a choice.
A concrete block lies low in my stomach.
Shit. I didn’t even think of who might be with him.
I know he’s not ready to tell his friends and family about us, and given everything that’s going on with him, I mean, I’m not okay about it, but I’m not going to rock the boat about it either.
At least not yet anyway. But if he wants to keep our relationship in the closet for a little bit longer, I’m going to at least sit with him in the darkness while we wait.
Xavier: Shit. Is he pissed?
Ares: I covered for you. Told the group I sent it to him because dude looks like shit. He’s barely awake, drooling all over the table.
He snaps a covert picture and sends it to me.
It does little to help the ache growing in my chest. My guy does look like shit, bags under his dark eyes, ruffled hair from his hands running through it over and over…
but he’s still as handsome as ever. It’s so unfair. How can he be… that good looking?
Even half-dead, he’s stupidly beautiful. It’s infuriating. I look like a potato when I’m tired; he looks like wickedness draped in Gucci-clad exhaustion.
Ares: I can hear your kissy kissy smitten shit from here. *kissing emoji* *love heart emoji*
Ares: Pass the puke bucket *bucket emoji* *vomit emoji* *vomit emoji*
*vomit emoji* *vomit emoji* *vomit emoji*
Ares: You guys are so gross *winking emoji*
Ares: I love you. No, I love you. No, I love you.
Xavier: You okay there, bro? You missing Eloise a little too hard, or what? She’s out of town this week, right?
Ares: *eye roll emoji* *vomit emoji*
Xavier: Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me. *nail painting emoji*
I don’t bother telling him we’re not at the L-word stage just yet. I can’t get his brother out of my mind, so what? My heart does a stupid little swoop anyway. I hate that I’m soft for this man. I hate even more that I don’t actually hate it. It feels so natural, so meant to be… almost inevitable.
So, we spend every precious, spare, waking hour we can texting, calling, or leaving each other lengthy voice notes to answer when we get a second, what’s the big deal?
When we’re not spending waking hours “together,” yes, we’re officially those sad saps who sometimes leave an open phoneline, and I listen to his adorable little snores overnight.
It’s embarrassing how normal it feels to fall asleep to the sound of him breathing.
It’s like I accidentally rewired my nervous system to require one grumpy, Dominican disaster CEO to function.
And when we’re not sleeping together an entire state away from each other, I can’t get him out of my mind.
We’re supposed to watch a movie ‘together’ this weekend.
We’re sending each other a little care package of snacks, and we’ve carved out ninety minutes where we can sit in our rooms and watch the same thing on different TVs and call it a date.
This long-distance shit is for the birds.
Lachlan seems to mistake my heavy sigh for frustration at my studying. “Need help?” He slides into the chair next to me. “Oh, damn.”
His eyes widen at my screen. Double shit. Artemis’s sinfully beautiful face is still on my screen because I got distracted by staring at his soulful brown eyes.
“Don’t.” Panic slams into me like a slapshot to the sternum. I’m not ashamed—I’m terrified of breaking something fragile before it’s even had a chance to become real.
Something in my tone must convey that I don’t want him to out me, to rib me, or to even whisper a goddamn fucking word about the man on my phone because he meets my eyes with the genuineness I’ve come to expect from him and simply nods. “It’s in the vault.”
Relief and disappointment collide so hard in my chest it knocks the breath out of me. I don’t want him hidden. I want him claimed. I want everything. And yet, I want nothing that will scare him away. I want everyone to know I’m with Artemis, even if some of them will be pissed he’s the enemy.
I don’t want to be anyone’s dirty little secret. I want to stand beside him in the goddamn daylight. But right now? He’s put baby in the corner—and I’m too into him to claw my way out.