Chapter 3 #3
Ryland lunged at her with a growl. She toppled onto the bed with a squeal, falling into the space between Ryland and Dabbs, high-pitched laughter ringing throughout the bedroom as Ryland tickled her.
The sight of uncle and niece playing was almost insufferably sweet. Ryland was as unguarded now as he’d been when he’d been looking at the fox den in the middle of the night, giving Dabbs a small glimpse into the man behind the flirty attention seeker.
The way he handled his niece with both care and affection hit Dabbs right in the chest, and all those parts of him that were determined to deny his attraction to Ryland began to unfurl.
Before they could wave hello, Dabbs sat up and flung the cover off.
Callie, pinned under Ryland’s much larger frame, peered at him upside down. “Are you coming to Frozen Fest?”
Dabbs couldn’t help but smile at her. She was cute with her button nose and dark hair the same shade as Ryland’s. “Depends,” Dabbs said. “Will there be ice cream?”
Her eyes lit up. “All the ice cream in the world.”
“Wow. That’s a lot of ice cream.” He tweaked her nose. “I guess I have to go then.”
“Woo-hoo!”
“All right.” Ryland rose from the bed, a giggling Callie over his shoulder. He set her down gently by the door. “Go wake up your Uncle Jason.”
“Tasha already did that.” Callie flounced out the door, yelling, “Frozen Fest!” at the top of her lungs.
Ryland watched her go with a laugh. “Christ.” He stretched his arms up and grabbed the top of the doorframe. The movement exposed a minuscule strip of skin between the bottom of his T-shirt and the top of his boxers, but it was enough bare skin to send Dabbs’ thoughts tumbling over each other.
He wanted to kiss the middle of Ryland’s back, right there.
He wanted to sweep his palms up Ryland’s ribs.
He wanted to turn him around and look into his eyes before he dropped to his knees.
Ryland’s legs were on full display. His thighs too. His arms.
But there was something about that tantalizing strip of his lower back that teased Dabbs into near incoherency.
“Hello? Dabbs?”
Dabbs grunted assent.
“I asked if you wanted coffee.”
“Hate the stuff,” Dabbs confessed.
“Heh. Me too. See? We do have something in common—other than hockey, anyway, which is a big one.” He barreled on before Dabbs had a chance to respond, switching topics almost faster than Dabbs could keep up.
“We have tea if you want. Hot chocolate. Juice. Apple cider. Maybe? No, we definitely have apple cider. Come on, get up. You heard Callie.” He moonwalked out of the room and sang, “It’s Frozen Fest day. ”
Chest feeling too tight and too warm all at once, Dabbs smiled into his pillow as Ryland yelled, “Hey, Callie! Did you know it’s Frozen Fest day?”
Fuck, his joy for life was infectious, and Dabbs was still smiling when they arrived at the festival.
From what he understood, Maplewood prided itself on its monthly festivals. The annual Fourth of July Frozen Fest was ice cream-themed, and, in his ignorance, Dabbs had assumed a farmers market-style event where all the vendors sold different flavors of ice cream.
If a wrong-answer game-show buzzer could’ve gone off in his head, it would have as they approached Maplewood City Park. This was no small farmers market—it was a full-on festival, and it was already so busy despite the day’s heat that they’d had to park several streets away.
“We’re meeting Rob at the ice cream flavor contest,” Brie announced, referring to her husband. She marched on ahead of them, one of the kids’ hands held tightly in each of her own. “Meet up with you guys later?” She disappeared into the crowd without waiting for an answer.
“We’re going to Special Blend to grab a muffin or something,” Jason said. “Want anything?”
“I’m good,” Ryland said as Dabbs shook his head.
Jason and Bellamy left, leaving Ryland and Dabbs alone under the shade of a tree.
“Come on,” Ryland said, adjusting the brim of the Moon Meadows Maple Farm hat on his head. “Let’s look around.”
On top of the ice cream flavor contest, there was a coloring station for kids, a make-your-own sundae station, an ice cream-themed photo booth, a kids’ zone with the face painting Callie was interested in, and live music.
Several A-Frame signs also advertised an ice cream eating challenge, an ice cream-inspired drag show, a parade, and later, fireworks.
There was also a market—Dabbs hadn’t been wrong about that—with vendors selling both ice cream and other food products, as well as merchandise and artwork.
Dabbs browsed through a display of cheap plastic sunglasses while Ryland wandered off to peruse a stall selling homemade spice blends, and when Ryland returned, he said, “Do you need new sunglasses?”
“No.” Dabbs pushed his own higher up the bridge of his nose.
“But you do. You’ve been squinting since we got here despite the hat.
” He removed Ryland’s hat, set it aside, and plunked a pair of triangle-shaped sunglasses on his face.
“Definitely not those.” He slipped them off and put them back in the display.
Unmoving, Ryland stared at him, his gaze so intense it was a struggle for Dabbs not to fidget under it.
Dabbs selected a second pair, cat-eye shaped in a shade of fire-engine red, and slipped them onto Ryland’s nose under Ryland’s watchful gaze.
“How about these?” Ryland asked softly, and the intimacy of the moment crashed into Dabbs with the force of a slapshot.
Swallowing hard, conscious of the bare few inches of space between them in a way he hadn’t been a moment ago, Dabbs said, “Not quite,” and pulled the sunglasses off Ryland’s face.
He rotated the display, his arm brushing Ryland’s chest and sending prickles of awareness up his spine.
“These.” He removed a pair of square-shaped frames with pink and turquoise diagonal lines and gently placed them on Ryland. “Those are the ones.”
Ryland cocked his head. “Why? Because they’re loud?”
“Because they’re colorful,” Dabbs found himself saying. “Like you.”
“I can’t decide if that’s a compliment or an insult,” Ryland muttered, taking off the sunglasses.
“A compliment,” Dabbs reassured him. “You stand out from the crowd without even trying.”
Ryland’s frown formed slowly. “I still don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“Here you guys are.” Dabbs turned at Bellamy’s voice. He and Jason approached, both of them toting a takeout cup of what was presumably coffee and sparing Dabbs from having to respond.
Because he wasn’t sure what he would’ve said. That Ryland had gotten his wish last night when Dabbs hadn’t been able to focus on anyone other than him at the pub because he stood out from the crowd?
Hell, when Ryland was around, there was no crowd. He glittered so brightly that no one else existed.
“There’s a vendor selling funnel cakes over there,” Bellamy said. “Want to share one?”
“Ooh, yes,” Ryland said, bouncing on his toes.
“It’s nowhere near lunchtime,” Dabbs pointed out.
Ryland and Bellamy stared at him, but it was Jason who said, “So?”
Dabbs let out a laugh.
So indeed.
He purchased the sunglasses, then passed them over to Ryland, who put them on with a grin. “Check it out,” he said to Bellamy and Jason, preening. “How do I look?”
“Like they were made for you,” Jason said at the same time as Bellamy said, “They’ve somehow managed to be hideous yet stylish at the same time.”
“Goddamn right,” Ryland announced, as though he’d chosen them himself. “Now take me to the funnel cake.”
The funnel cake was—naturally—served with a massive scoop of vanilla ice cream and a generous helping of locally made strawberry puree.
Several people waved at Ryland and Jason as they walked past where they were sitting at a picnic table, and Ryland explained with “That’s our cousin Sam,” and “That’s Brie’s high school sweetheart,” and “That’s Hailey.
She used to babysit us when we were kids. ”
“And she survived?” Dabbs remarked, only half kidding.
Bellamy sputtered a laugh.
“Ry did send her running for the hills once or twice,” Jason said.
Dabbs nodded. “I figured he’d be the problem.”
Ryland glowered playfully at them over the top of his sunglasses. “The audacity.”
Funnel cake consumed, they headed back to the market. Ryland, bouncing ahead of them, held his phone up and said, “Guys. Guys! Smile,” and snapped a group selfie.
Bellamy and Jason wandered off to meet up with one of Jason’s friends. Dabbs was about to ask Ryland if he wanted to join them—from what he understood, the brothers shared many of the same friends—when Ryland hit the button to go live before Dabbs could stop him.
“What’s up, everyone?” Ryland said grandly to his however-many fans. “As promised, I’m here at Maplewood’s annual Frozen Fest, which is our ice cream festival extraordinaire. I’m going to give you a tour of the market stalls, but first . . . ”
Before Dabbs knew what Ryland was doing, Ryland had stepped closer and leaned in so they were shoulder to shoulder. “Look who I have with me! Dabbs, say hello.”
Christ. Ryland couldn’t have warned him he was going live? Dabbs forced a smile—what else was he supposed to do? “Hey, everyone.”
“For those of you who don’t know, Kyle Dabbs is captain of the Vermont Trailblazers. Dabbs, tell the viewers: what do you think of Frozen Fest so far?”
“Uh . . . well. You certainly know how to put on a festival.”
“Oh, we’re very serious about our festivals here. Our Halloween festival, Fun and Fright Fest, has always been my favorite. Are there any festivals where you’re from?”
“Sure,” Dabbs said as Ryland angled the phone toward him. He kept his gaze off the comments flooding in. “Canoe Day is probably my favorite. It’s where a bunch of canoeists get together to paddle La Vase Portages.”
“Which are . . . ?”
“They’re a series of portages between Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing. They were used thousands of years ago by First Nations, then by European explorers.”
“Cool,” Ryland said absentmindedly, clearly too busy reading the comments to pay attention. “Viewers are wondering what you’re doing in Maplewood.”
Mostly he was here because Bellamy had invited him along, but Dabbs was done with the impromptu interview. “Just visiting. I’m going to go check out this booth over here. Wanna come?”
Hint, hint: hang up on the world and hang out with me instead.
“Sure!” Ryland said, clearly not getting the hint as he skipped over to a booth selling digital art. “The thing about Maplewood,” he told his viewers, “is that we’re very much into the shop-local trend. Although, considering we always have been, can you technically call that a trend?”
As he continued to prattle on, Dabbs moved out of the phone camera’s frame, casually, so it didn’t look like he was trying to get away. He ended up by a display holding art depicting a tall, skinny, leafy tree that looked like it had arms. A sign labeled it as Mabel, the Maplewood Monster.
Huh. So this was what Mabel looked like. Not at all what Dabbs had pictured in his head when Ryland had mentioned it. He’d imagined something more like the Ents from the Lord of the Rings movies.
He purchased a print of Mabel for his youngest sister, then purchased a couple of beaded bracelets for his other sister and his mom from a neighboring vendor.
He’d lost Ryland somewhere along the way, which, if he was still Instagramming, was for the better.
So he got himself a lemonade from one of the food vendors and found a quiet spot to sit under a tree.
When Ryland texted him a few minutes later to find out where he was, Dabbs texted back, and a few minutes after that, Ryland arrived, holding a paper bag by the handles.
“Hey.” He dropped onto the ground next to Dabbs. “Sorry I lost you. I promised my viewers a tour of the festival, and I don’t like to disappoint.”
Dabbs leaned back against the tree trunk and crossed his ankles. “Do you do lives often?”
Smile slipping, Ryland cocked his head. “You’ve never seen one?”
“I don’t have social media.”
“Yes, you do. I follow you.”
“Let me rephrase. I have it, but I don’t do anything with it. I don’t even have the apps on my phone. My team’s social media manager runs my accounts. We meet once a month to discuss the content for the following month, and she takes it from there.”
“A few of my teammates handle their social accounts that way too. They’re very private.” Ryland seemed to clue into something there because his eyes widened, and he winced. “Shit. I should’ve asked if you wanted to be in my live. I wasn’t thinking.”
Dabbs nodded, grateful Ryland had come to the conclusion on his own.
“I don’t share much of my personal life with others.
My professional one? It can be picked apart by people I don’t know until they’re blue in the face.
My personal one? That belongs to me and the people I choose to share it with.
People will talk, of course, but I don’t have to feed the gossip. ”
“Yeah. I hear you.” Ryland sent him a grim smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Now you know.”
“Yeah.”
He looked so glum that it wrenched something sideways in Dabbs’ chest. “What’s in the bag?”
“Hm? Oh, I got a few things for Callie and Tasha, which, now that I’m thinking about it, they really don’t need.” He gave a short laugh. “They’ve already got a zillion stuffies between them. One of the vendors was selling crochet stuff, and . . . well, this one’s for you.”
Ryland handed him a crocheted ice cream cone with two smiling scoops: one pastel green and one butter yellow.
Charmed and pleased in equal measure, Dabbs waved it in Ryland’s direction. “It has hands.”
“Cute, right?”
“And it’s holding a hockey stick.”
“Do you know Ethan Gallagher? Plays for Seattle? He’s from Maplewood too, so you’ll see random hockey merch almost everywhere in town. Ethan even has a milkshake named after him at Red’s Restaurant.”
Dabbs tapped Ryland’s knee with his foot. “But not you?”
“Eh.” Ryland’s shrug clearly tried for insouciant, but it came across as hurt little boy. “I never asked, so . . . ” Another shrug. “Anyway. Do you like your ice cream cone?”
Dabbs played with its arms. “It’s very cute. Thank you.”
“Her name is Shannon.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Now.” Ryland stood in one smooth motion that made the muscles in his calves bunch and release. “I know you need to get back to Burlington for the dogs in a few hours, so is there anything you want to see while we’re here?”
“Not see,” Dabbs said, rising. “But I do want to eat the strangest, most disgusting ice cream flavor on offer.”
Ryland laughed, the sound settling itself in Dabbs’ chest. “I’ve got just the thing.”