Chapter 2 #2
Maybe it came down to pheromones. Chemistry.
One-sided chemistry. Dabbs had always been fairly indifferent to him, which stung.
Crushing on Dabbs was a bit like being a kid again, desperate for his parents’ attention.
With the divorce, joint custody agreement, and living out of two homes, Ryland had felt .
. . forgotten. Add in being the youngest of three, and it was like waving both hands in the air, trying to get his parents to just look at him, and instead they saw right through him.
Apparently, now was the time to think about how untethered he’d felt back then.
Fun.
Bellamy, as familiar now with Ryland’s childhood home as Ryland and Jason were, led Dabbs up the porch steps and into the house.
Ryland had asked Dabbs out just this past spring, and Dabbs had turned him down with a gentle “I don’t date people who are mean to my teammates.”
That had stung. Thinking about it made his stomach clench in remembered disappointment and his scalp prickle with shame. He didn’t want to be the guy Kyle Dabbs looked at and saw a bully.
He wanted to be the guy Kyle Dabbs looked at and saw . . . well, a potential love-interest at best, and a friend at the very least.
Except, Ryland was no longer being mean to Bellamy. So if that was the only obstacle . . .
He popped into the phone’s frame again and waved. “Sorry, folks, I’ve got to sign off,” he said, interrupting Jason’s monologue. “Stay tuned tomorrow: I’ll be going live at Maplewood’s annual Fourth of July ice cream festival.” He ended the live and said, “Bellamy’s here.”
Jason’s grin split his cheeks. He set aside the jar of maple butter he’d been showing Ryland’s viewers and headed out of the shed.
Ryland followed more slowly, determined to play it cool.
He met the group inside the house, where Bellamy was telling Jason about his week being a camp counselor at his team’s annual hockey camp.
Dabbs stood at the kitchen table, where last night’s Scrabble game between Ryland’s dad and stepmom rested, the board littered with a dozen tiles.
Arms crossed over his chest, biceps bulging, Dabbs frowned at the available tiles on his side of the board as Ryland moved to stand across from him.
“Hey,” Ryland said, his mouth going dry when Dabbs’ gaze met his. “How’s your summer been so far?”
Dabbs leaned his forearms on the top of the high-backed kitchen chair on his left. It sent his biceps straining against his blue T-shirt. Ryland forced his gaze off them.
“Well, let’s see,” Dabbs said, his voice a deep timbre that stroked along Ryland’s skin.
“Bellamy and I just moved into a new place, so there are still boxes of crap taking up floor space in the kitchen. One of the kids at hockey camp this week decided the ice was too slippery, so he sat out almost every activity. And one of my dogs swallowed a bee.”
Ryland gasped. “Oh my god. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” Dabbs regarded him for a long moment, his expression softening. “Nice of you to be concerned though. How has your summer been?”
“Oh, its . . . ” Ryland stumbled over his words for a moment, still stuck on Nice of you to be concerned. “Fine. Good. I can’t top any of that, but my niece did puke candy all over my feet when I picked her up from daycare last week.”
Dabbs made a face. “Gross.”
“I was wearing flip-flops.”
Dabbs made gagging sounds.
“Imagine trying to get vomit out from under your toenails.”
“Oh god, stop talking.” Dabbs straightened and covered his mouth with the back of his hand, as though his gag reflex had engaged.
“On a lighter note, I built a canoe.”
“You . . . what?”
“Built a canoe. Well, me and six other people. We took part in a canoe-building workshop in Glen Hill over the past two months, and we built a communal wood strip canoe. We even took it out onto the water last week.”
“Did it float?”
Putting on his most scandalized Southern belle impression, Ryland brought his hand up to his chest. “Excuse you. Yes, it floated. Rude.”
Dabbs chuckled. “Sorry. You just don’t seem like the woodworking type.”
“Oh, I know how to work wood.” Ryland gave Dabbs an up and down glance. “Very, very well.”
He wasn’t sure what to expect from Dabbs. For him to be so turned on that his cheeks pinked and he stuttered over his words?
Dabbs, coolly confident in a way Ryland had never managed, did neither of those things. Instead, he drawled a lazy, “Me too,” and added three tiles to the Scrabble board, adding w, o, and d to an existing o.
Wood.
Ryland had to laugh, surprised by this aspect of Dabbs’ sense of humor. “Not exactly what I meant.”
Dabbs grinned. “Wood for eight points, plus a double letter score on the w for a total of twelve points. Your turn.”
Swearing under his breath—word games weren’t Ryland’s strong suit—he added a g and a t to an existing e, netting himself four points for get.
“It’s okay,” Dabbs said. “We can’t all be good at everything.”
Ryland laughed. “Oh, you did not just go there.”
“Hey, are we heading out to dinner, or what?” Jason called from the front door. “I’ll drive.”
“Do you play darts, Dabbs?” Ryland asked, grabbing his wallet from the table in the foyer.
“I’ve played a game or two,” Dabbs said hesitatingly. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret admitting that?”
Ryland grinned. “You’ll see.” And followed the group out the door.
* * *
Ryland had always enjoyed the atmosphere at The Striped Maple.
Located on Maple Street—Maplewood’s main strip—it was always busy.
The pub had a traditional feel with its dark paneling and dim lighting.
Tonight’s tunes piping through the speakers were a bland mix of the current Top 40 songs, which Ryland had stopped listening to after the third sounded like the second sounded like the first.
Not that he was here for the music. He was much more interested in the six-foot-four gray-eyed, ginger-haired team captain sporting a half-inch of beard.
As Dabbs held his dart at chest height, gearing up to throw it, Ryland sidled up behind him, pressing the front of his right shoulder against the back of Dabbs’ left.
“They used to have amateur dart competitions here when I was a teenager,” Ryland said in his ear. “I won three years in a row.”
Dabbs turned his head a fraction. His gaze landed on Ryland’s lips for a too-brief second before traveling lazily upward to meet Ryland’s eyes. “I don’t know why that surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t. I’m good at everything I try.”
Dabbs chuckled, and Ryland felt it in his chest.
“Not Scrabble,” Dabbs countered, turning back to the board. He let his dart fly. It hit the wall.
“You’ve got Scrabble; I’ve got darts. Here’s your refill.”
Dabbs took one of Ryland’s beers with a murmur of thanks.
“So, tell me.” Ryland edged around him, brushing up against him as he did so, gratified at Dabbs’ sharp intake of breath.
Whatever Dabbs’ hang-ups about dating him had been back in the spring, they clearly didn’t apply now. Or perhaps they did, but Dabbs wasn’t letting that get in the way of a little harmless flirting.
Ryland sat on the arm of a nearby couch and gestured with his beer. “What do you think of my town so far?”
Dabbs retrieved his dart from the floor. “I haven’t seen enough of it to judge. It’s pretty, though. Ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Who are they?” Dabbs tipped his head in the direction of Jason and Bellamy, sitting at a four-top by the pub’s front windows with a couple of guys Jason and Ryland had grown up with.
“The guy on the end, that’s Conall. He bartends here, so he’s probably on a break. The guy with the shaved head is my best friend, Denver.”
“You’re not going to introduce me?”
Ryland rolled his lips inward, let them out with a pop. “Con flirts with everything that moves, and Denver’s been known to be a bit of a ladies’ man, and I want your attention on me tonight, so . . . no. I’m not.”
Dabbs paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. “There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. Let’s start with the fact that I’m not a lady.”
Ryland waved a hand. “Figure of speech. He loves all genders equally. Kind of like me, although lately I’ve been into tall team captains who know how to crush their opponents on the ice.
Don’t suppose you want to get out of here and grab a milkshake at Red’s Restaurant, just the two of us?
” Because he could already see the rejection on Dabbs’ face, Ryland waggled his eyebrows and added, “We could go together like Timbits and coffee.”
Laughing, Dabbs sat on the rustic coffee table. “Appealing to my Canadian roots. Clever. But are you sure you’re not trying to get into my pants just to pry the secret of how to win the cup out of my head?”
Ryland was about to tell him that he didn’t just want in his pants—he wanted in his heart too—when the rest of Dabbs’ sentence registered. “Um, excuse you. We are going to win the cup next season, with or without your precious secrets.”
“You think so?” Elbows on his thighs, Dabbs loosely held his beer between his knees, looking so effortlessly sexy that Ryland almost couldn’t stand it. “This was the first time in six years that the Pilots made the playoffs. Think you can keep the momentum going?”
Ryland smirked and toasted him with his beer. “Watch us. If we meet in the playoffs again next year, it’ll be a completely different outcome.”
Dabbs winced. “I’m sorry about how that went down.”
“No, you’re not.”
Dabbs blinked, perhaps at Ryland’s vehemence or at his words, Ryland wasn’t sure.
“Yes,” Dabbs insisted. “I am. We wanted to win, but sweeps like that just make us feel like assholes.”
“But probably also really happy.”
“Sure,” Dabbs said with a laugh. “Both things can be true.”
Ryland slid off the arm and onto the couch, his knees brushing Dabbs’ through their jeans. Setting his beer aside, he planted his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Okay. I’m going to ask. What’s the secret to winning the cup?”
“You’re not going to like the answer.”
“Try me.”
“Honestly? Teamwork.”
Ryland groaned. “Seriously? Come on. Way to point out the obvious.”
“Teamwork, hard work, persistence. Also, we really, really hate losing.”
“Find me an athlete who doesn’t.”
“But you have to hate losing more than you like winning.”
“You’re losing at darts, though,” Ryland pointed out.
Dabbs’ smile slid through him like hot chocolate on a cold winter’s night. “Darts is low stakes,” Dabbs said. Rising, he placed his beer on the bar, grabbed a dart, and stood several feet back from the board.
“Want to up the ante?” Ryland asked, resuming his seat on the arm of the couch.
Dabbs threw the dart. It hit the edge of the board. “I’m not taking a bet I’m guaranteed to lose.”
Ryland pouted.
“You can tell me about that nose ring instead.”
Ryland went cross-eyed trying to look at the tiny silver diamond in his right nostril. “I got it done right after the playoffs. I forget it’s there unless I need to pick my nose. It gets in the way.”
Dabbs let out a bark of laughter. “Not many people would admit to that.”
“To what? Nose picking? Everyone does it even if they won’t admit it.”
The amusement didn’t exactly leave Dabbs’ face, but as he looked at Ryland, taking him in slowly from head to foot and up again, banked heat entered his eyes.
Amusement and heat. Now there was an interesting combination.
Like Dabbs had said—both things could be true.
“It suits you,” Dabbs said, his voice a rumble that sang along Ryland’s nerves. “The nose ring. Here.” He held out a dart. “Your turn.”
Rising, Ryland took it and went to stand behind the line drawn on the floor that denoted where a person was supposed to throw from.
Feet shoulder-width apart, he let the rest of the pub fall away—the music, the conversations, the laughter, the clink of cutlery against plates—visualized where he wanted his dart to go, threw . . .
Dabbs whistled. “Bullseye.” He leaned around Ryland, his chest skimming along Ryland’s shoulder and upper back as he grabbed his beer. “You haven’t lost your touch.”
Shivering at the contact, Ryland met his gaze. “I never do.”
Dabbs’ eyes flared, proving that he wasn’t as indifferent to Ryland as he’d feared.
Tucking that knowledge into the back of his mind, Ryland grabbed a second dart for another turn.