Chapter 27
Jacks
Iwoke up to the smell of something burning. It wasn’t anything aggressively burning. I doubted it was a fire-department, evacuate-the-building situation, but there was the unmistakable scent of coffee being murdered by someone who didn’t know what they were doing.
I blinked against the morning light leaking around the edges of the curtains where blackout didn’t quite meet sill.
The sheets were navy, not my usual gray.
The pillow smelled like clean soap and someone else’s shampoo.
The mattress was a whole lot nicer than mine, the kind with buttons and heat sensors and shit.
This was Skyler’s apartment.
I was in Skyler’s bed.
I’d stayed.
The memories of the previous night—and early this morning—surfaced in a rush that made me pull the covers tighter and grin into the pillow like an idiot.
I squeezed my eyes shut and watched hands exploring my skin, felt his lips on my neck, reveled in the way he’d whispered my name like it was something sacred.
And before that: the couch, the Thai food, Sister Act playing to no one.
And his confession in the dark.
This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
I pressed my face deeper into the pillow and let myself feel it—all of it—the happiness and the terror and the fragile, reckless hope that maybe, just maybe, this could work.
Another wave of burnt coffee smell drifted in from the kitchen, and I swear I heard a pot or pan being morally compromised.
I climbed out of bed, found my boxers on the floor, and pulled on my green button-down without buttoning it. The hardwood was cool beneath my bare feet as I padded down the hallway toward the source of the commotion.
Skyler stood at the kitchen counter in his silky black shorts and the white T-shirt, frowning at his coffee pod machine like it had tried to filet his pinky toe.
Two mugs sat on the counter. One contained something that resembled coffee, at least in color.
The other contained something that more closely resembled tar.
“Morning,” I said from the doorway where I scratched my scalp.
He turned, and his face did that thing where his whole expression softened and brightened simultaneously.
“Hey.” He held up the tar mug. “I made you coffee. Well. I made you something. I’m not sure it qualifies as coffee.”
I crossed the kitchen and took the mug, peering into it, wondering how someone, anyone, could screw up K-Cup coffee. All you had to do was put the pod in the slot and press brew. How could that be difficult?
I swirled whatever was in the mug. The liquid was so dark it seemed to absorb light.
“Did you use five or six pods?”
“I only used three, thank you very much.” He faux snarled in my direction before his expression went sheepish. “I thought it would make it stronger.”
“It made it lethal.”
“Is that bad?”
“Only if you value your stomach lining.” I took a sip anyway.
It was, in fact, the worst coffee I’d ever tasted—bitter and thick and the temperature of molten lava. I swallowed and managed not to wince. “Perfect.”
“Liar.”
“Guilty as charged. This is terrible.”
He laughed, and the sound filled the kitchen, filled me, filled every corner of the morning with something bright and easy.
“I told you I don’t cook,” he said. “The cooking thing extends to all food preparation, including beverages.”
“Coffee in a Keurig counts as cooking? Seriously? Do you ever adult?”
“Um, adulting is hard.”
He was so fucking adorable I either had to laugh or muss his hair—which was already well mussed—so I laughed.
“How do you survive?”
“DoorDash and the grace of God.”
I set the mug down and leaned against the counter beside him.
Our shoulders touched.
Neither of us moved away.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost eight. Practice is at ten.”
“I should go before then, let you do your whole . . .” I waved. “Pre-game ritual. Tape your stick or meditate or burn incense, whatever it is you do.”
“It’s practice, not a game, and it’s not until ten.” He bumped his shoulder against mine. “Stay for breakfast?”
“You going to make it?”
“God, no. I’ll order something.”
“My hero.”
“Me or the delivery guy?”
I barked another laugh. “Definitely the delivery guy. After that coffee, I’m reassessing you.”
He pulled out his phone and opened an app with the practiced efficiency of a man who’d outsourced his entire nutritional existence to technology.
Within thirty seconds, he’d ordered eggs, toast, fruit, and something called an “acai power bowl” that I was fairly certain no straight man had ever ordered before.
That made me unreasonably happy.
While we waited, we migrated to the scene of last night’s various crimes and sat the way we had before everything had happened: cross-legged on the couch, facing each other, with our knees touching.
Except now there was no distance to close, no uncertainty to navigate.
He reached for my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“So,” he said.
“So.”
“Last night was . . .”
“Yeah.”
“And this morning was . . .”
“Also yeah.”
He grinned. “We’re very articulate.”
“We’re emotionally overwhelmed. It’s different.”
His thumb traced patterns on my knuckles, the same absentminded gesture I’d used on his wrist. I wondered if he’d picked it up from me or if it was something that happened when two people started to sync.
“I have to tell Tyler,” he said. “I might combust if I keep this inside. I mean, not this, but, well, you. I can’t keep you inside. I mean, you haven’t exactly been inside me . . . yet. Fuck. I’m babbling. Stop me. Hit me with a pillow or—”
I kissed him.
He stopped babbling.
When we pulled apart, his breathing had steadied.
“You were saying?” I kept my voice neutral.
His head lowered, then only his eyes lifted to meet my gaze.
“I have to tell Ty about me and you and all of this. He’s my best friend, and I’m pretty sure he already suspects something.
I can’t walk into practice today looking like”—he gestured at his own face, which was, admittedly, radiating a post-coital glow visible from space—“this, and expect him not to notice.”
“You do look aggressively happy.”
“Exactly. He’s going to ask questions, and I don’t want to lie to him.” He paused. “I’m tired of lying.”
Something about the quiet, certain way he said it, like it was a decision that had already been made, told me this wasn’t up for discussion. He wasn’t asking permission. He was telling me what he was going to do.
And that, more than anything, told me how far he’d come in such a short time.
“Then tell him,” I said. “Just be prepared for others to ask why you’re grinning like you’re being tickled.”
“I am not.”
“Yeah, you are. Should I tickle you to prove it? We can get a mirror.”
“Fuck off. No tickling before breakfast.”
I smiled and nodded. “Wise words, Obi-Wan.”
“Why are you still in my apartment?”
“Because you keep asking me to stay,” I said, only half teasing. “So, back to Tyler and the guys. You’re okay with that? If others start asking questions, too?”
He paused, his gaze drifting before finding me again.
“What if he’s weird about it?”
“He won’t be,” I said with more conviction than I felt. I didn’t know Tyler well. From what Skyler had told me, the guy was solid and would stand by his friends no matter what, but with news like this, no one ever knew how another person might react. I hoped I was right.
“How can you be so sure?”
I shrugged. “You told me about him following you outside in Calgary when you were spiraling. He said, ‘Whenever you’re ready, I’m here,’ without knowing what he was volunteering for.” I squeezed his hand. “That’s not a guy who’s going to be weird about much.”
He nodded, processing. “Erik, too, probably. He’s my roommate on the road. He’ll figure it out.”
“The newly engaged Viking who gave a speech about love so beautiful it made you question your entire sexuality? Yeah, I think Erik can handle it. Besides, Europeans aren’t as uptight as Americans. He probably tried dick a few times before settling on the big P.”
Skyler laughed—a sharp, surprised bark that he tried to smother. “The big P? When you put it like that . . .”
“All I’m saying is that you’ve surrounded yourself with good people. Trust them.”
The doorbell rang, breakfast arrived, and we spent the next twenty minutes eating on the couch again, because apparently we’d silently agreed that all dining tables were decorative. Thank every god that ever existed, he ordered coffee with our food.
The acai bowl was purple and ridiculous and tasted like dessert pretending to be health food.
I stole half of it.
“That’s mine,” he protested.
“Consider it payment for the coffee assault.”
“Fair.”
After breakfast, reality crept in. He had practice, and I needed to work out before my early afternoon shift.
The world outside his apartment still existed, with all its complications and questions and demands.
I gathered my clothes from various locations—jeans from the bedroom floor, socks from under the coffee table, and shoes by the front door where I’d kicked them off a lifetime ago.
When I came back to the living room, dressed and presentable, Skyler was leaning against the kitchen island, watching me with that soft smile again, the one that made me feel like the only person in the world.
“When can I see you again?” he asked.
“I’m off tomorrow night.”
“Come to the game on Thursday. I’ll leave tickets at will-call.”
“What?” My hand stilled on my belt buckle. “You want me at a game?”
“I want you at every game, but let’s start with Thursday. That should give me time to talk to the guys and get past whatever we need to get past.”
“Sky, sometimes it takes a little longer—”
“Not with these guys. You’re right. I was overthinking. It’ll be fine.”
“What about the rest of the team? What about the owner or coaches or PR people? If I’m there, sitting in a player’s seats—”
“They’ll think I have friends outside the team, which, for the record, I don’t but should. You can be one of them. Bring others, maybe a girl, too. They give cover, right?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Beards do that.”
“Beards?” His eyes lit up, and every part of him shook. “Fuck me runnin’. Is there a funny gay word for everything?”
“Pretty much.”
“I have so much to learn. Teach me, Sensei.”
“You’re impossible.” I shook my head. “Okay, fine. I’ll be there Thursday.”
He crossed the room in three strides, cupped my face in both hands, and kissed me. But this wasn’t the desperate, exploratory kisses from last night nor the tentative, questioning kiss from the first time. No, this was something new, something that felt like a statement.
I felt like he was saying, “This is real. This is mine. I’m not letting go.”
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine.
“Thank you,” he said. “For staying.”
“Thank you for asking.”
“I’ll always ask.”
“Then I’ll always stay.”
He kissed me again, quick and light, then walked me to the door. I stepped into the hallway and turned back. He was leaning against the doorframe, beefy arms crossed, that golden retriever smile firmly in place.
“Hey, Sky?”
“Yeah?”
“Crush it at practice.”
His smile widened. “I’ll dedicate every goal to you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Too late. Already decided.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“And yet you keep coming back.”
I was still smiling when the elevator doors closed.
I was still smiling when I reached my car.
I was still smiling when I pulled onto the highway, windows down with January sun warm on my arm and the whole world looking different than it had twenty-four hours ago.
Not because anything had changed.
Because everything had.