Chapter 15
chapter fifteen
Hands shoved in the pockets of his faux shearling-lined jacket so he wouldn’t grab Ryland and beg him to stay for one more day, Dabbs stood with Ryland against a wall by Burlington airport’s security gate. “You have your boarding pass?”
Ryland waved his phone. “It’s on here.”
He wore virtually the same outfit he’d worn on the flight to Burlington five days ago—joggers, a hoodie with the pink-and-turquoise sunglasses hooked into the collar, a Columbus Pilots hat, and a nose ring that glinted under the airport’s fluorescent lighting.
Cozy enough not to be uncomfortable on the plane—and for Dabbs to wish they were snuggling on his living room couch while watching tonight’s game instead of . . . here.
They had to say goodbye. For weeks.
Dabbs’ stomach ached, and this time, it wasn’t appendicitis.
“Did you get your bodywash out of the bathroom?”
Ryland nodded. “Yup.”
“What about your other hoodie? It was hanging off one of the kitchen chairs.”
“Got that too.”
“And you grabbed snacks for the plane?”
“I’ll pick something up once I get past security.”
“Your phone charger. It was in the living room last time I saw—”
“Dabbs,” Ryland gently interrupted, his gaze soft. “I’ve got everything I arrived with. And if there’s anything I forgot, you can give it to me when our teams play each other next month.” He gestured at Dabbs’ abdomen. “Think you’ll be healed enough to play by then?”
“Fuck, I hope so. Otherwise, it’ll be a really boring few weeks.”
“It’ll give you time to work on your books, though. Have you thought about what I said? About publishing under your own name?”
“No. Between the Scrabble games, pumpkin carving, and playing naughty nurse, when would I have had the time?”
Throwing his head back, Ryland laughed, and Dabbs couldn’t help but smile at him.
Having Ryland stay with him had been . . . illuminating. Ryland was fun and charming and his joy for life was as infectious as it had been in Maplewood. None of that was a surprise. What he hadn’t counted on was how much he’d enjoy having Ryland’s bouncy energy in his space.
Ryland was patient and gentle nursemaid and naked and naughty nursemaid both.
But, more importantly, he was the man who’d arrived on Dabbs’ doorstep to take care of him, despite his own injury.
He was the man who’d cared for Dabbs’ dogs as if they were his own when Dabbs had been unable to stand upright.
He was the man who had gone live with said dogs this morning while they’d been in the yard out back, for seemingly no other purpose than to brag about the fact that he’d gotten to spend several days with these two cuties. Aren’t you jealous?
He was the man who went live, who posted daily to his social media profiles, because it gave him the attention he’d been so desperate for after his parents split up. He was the man who was determined to be the best for that very same reason.
Dabbs had once wished that he could pull back Ryland’s layers, but he never would’ve expected the universe to grant his wish in the form of an appendectomy and a dislocated shoulder.
And now Ryland was leaving—he was due back in Columbus to start working with his trainer on strengthening his shoulder—and Dabbs was dreading returning to an apartment that would be devoid of laughter and beguiling smiles and cursing at the hockey game on TV and debating the validity of little-known Scrabble words.
“Give it some thought, at least,” Ryland said, and it took a second for Dabbs to recall what they’d been talking about.
“You could always talk to your teammate about it,” Ryland went on. “Owen Cotton, right? The one who illustrates children’s books? He’ll be able to tell you what it’s like to publish under your own name. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the I-worried-about-XYZ-for-nothing.”
“True,” Dabbs acknowledged. He’d talked to Cotton about illustrators, but he hadn’t thought to talk to him about pen names versus given names since, at the time, he’d been dead set on publishing as P.N. Leeds.
Ryland checked his watch. “I should go.”
Dabbs’ chest tightened. He forced a smile. “Have a safe flight. Text me when you get home?”
“I will.”
They’d done the whole goodbye-kiss thing at Dabbs’ place, and then again in Dabbs’ SUV after he’d parked in the airport’s parking garage, and again after that with Ryland pressed against the trunk.
Dabbs’ lips were a touch raw from all the kissing they’d done recently, but that didn’t stop him from wanting one more before Ryland left.
Ryland nodded once, almost decisively. “Okay. I’m leaving now.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t move. He stood across from Dabbs, staring at him with a question in his eyes that Dabbs didn’t know how to interpret. Another nod, and Ryland smiled, an echo of its usual wattage. “Okay. Bye.”
He turned, wheeling his carry-on behind him.
The need to call Ryland back burned the back of Dabbs’ throat, and he bit his tongue to swallow the words. His feet, apparently acting with a mind of their own, had no such inhibitions, and he stepped forward without conscious thought.
“Rya,” he said at the same time that Ryland whirled and strode back to him, his eyes blazing.
“You do know this wasn’t a one-time thing, right?
” Ryland jabbed him in the sternum. “This wasn’t a convenient interlude while we were both laid up.
” Another jab. “When we were in Maplewood, you made a token protest about us doing the long-distance thing, but that’s all it was—a token protest. We will do the long-distance thing. End of story.” Jab. “Deal?”
Dabbs wasn’t exactly the poster child for PDAs, but in that moment, all he could think was Fuck it.
He kissed Ryland. Right there among other travelers saying goodbye to loved ones and patrolling airport security and kids complaining that their suitcases were too heavy, Dabbs kissed him as if they were alone in his bedroom.
Ryland’s hat fell off, and he made a sound of surprised delight that Dabbs would remember forever.
Dabbs tugged him into his body, letting out a groan when Ryland swept his tongue into his mouth for a taste. Ryland clutched the back of his jacket in one hand, and the fact that he stood on his toes to get closer had desire bursting to life in Dabbs’ veins.
Dabbs pulled back only far enough to meet Ryland’s hazel eyes and said, “Deal.”
Grinning like he’d won the Stanley Cup, Ryland retrieved his hat and pointed at Dabbs with it. “Goddamn right.” With a final jaunty salute, he joined the line for security.
Dabbs waited until Ryland was on the other side before he left, a sense of hope and anticipation nearly burning him from the inside out.
That lasted only until his organization’s head of media relations called.
“Hey, Lynne. What can I do for you?”
“Well,” Lynne said over his car’s speakers, dragging the word out. “I’m so glad you asked, because what you can do for me is confirm whether you’re dating Ryland Zervudachi.”
His mind went blank. “Uh . . . ”
“Because I’m looking at a photo of the two of you kissing—which, really, Kyle, I don’t need to see my players in such a passionate embrace, ever—in what appears to be an airport.”
Dabbs cursed under his breath, a mess of knots forming a ball in his stomach. “I left him at the airport ten minutes ago. How can there possibly be something online already?”
And who had snapped a photo of them? Christ, it could’ve been another traveler, a security guard, an airport employee, a flight attend, or . . .
Fuck. It could’ve been any number of people.
But did the who really matter?
“Two to three thousand passengers go through Burlington airport per day,” Lynne said, not unkindly. “If you were trying to keep your relationship a secret, you picked a shitty place to lay one on him.”
“I wasn’t . . . ” Gritting his teeth, Dabbs powered through a yellow light. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, but I also wasn’t trying to out us. Honestly, we haven’t even discussed going public.”
Lynne’s sigh was audible. “I wish you’d have told me about your relationship, Kyle. We could’ve controlled the narrative better if we’d had pre-approved statements prepared.”
“Our relationship is two days old.”
“Fine, you get a pass.”
“Generous.”
“Hey,” Lynne snapped. “Don’t get snippy with me. I’m trying to protect you—and Ryland Zervudachi.”
“I know.” Dabbs gripped the steering wheel hard. “Sorry.”
Pulling into his driveway, Dabbs parked and rested his head back against the headrest.
He had mixed feelings about everyone knowing about them. On the one hand, it wasn’t anyone’s business. On the other, he got to proclaim to the world that this amazing man was with him.
Just, he would’ve liked to decide when and how he proclaimed that. Being outed by a stranger to be gossiped about by more strangers reminded him too much about Dimitri telling all the kids in their class that his dad was scary.
Why couldn’t people mind their own business?
“You couldn’t have started dating a florist or something?” Lynne muttered. “It had to be a player from another team?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Lynne snorted a laugh at that. “People online are wondering if he’s with you to steal team secrets.”
Indignation flared on Ryland’s behalf, red-hot and knife-sharp, but Lynne didn’t let him comment before she continued. “And other people are speculating about the ethics of two players from opposing teams dating, but it’s not like there’s a rule against it.”
“Ryland hasn’t—and would never—ask for team secrets,” Dabbs blurted. “And I haven’t given him any.”
“Of course you haven’t.”
The easy dismissal of that problem eased one of the knots in Dabbs’ stomach.
“What kind of statement do you want to make?”
Andddd the knot was back. “Do I have to make any statement?”
“No,” Lynne conceded as Dabbs’ phone rang with an incoming call. Ryland. Hell, he’d probably seen the photo too. Dabbs declined the call and sent him a quick text.
Dabbs:
Call you back in 5.
“But Ryland went live from Burlington a couple of times while he was staying with you—including once with your dogs—when he should’ve been recuperating from his injury at home in Columbus,” Lynne said.
“People are going to put two and two together whether you make a statement or not. You don’t have to put out a statement right this second, but in the next few hours would be ideal.
You’ll be able to get in front of the worst of the gossip that way. ”
A text from Bellamy landed in his notifications, and he clicked the message to open it. Bellamy had included a screenshot of Dabbs and Ryland kissing at the airport—no doubt the same photo that had Lynne all in a tizzy—along with a series of eggplant emojis.
A surprised laugh burst out of him.
The photo was . . . quietly sexy. The photographer, whoever they were, had captured them mid-kiss, one of Dabbs’ hands on the curve of Ryland’s ass, the other buried in Ryland’s hair.
Ryland stood on his toes, one hand gripping Dabbs close, fingers white-knuckled.
Their eyes were closed and their lips clung, and what went through Dabbs’ mind was Goddamn, we look good together.
With that thought in mind, he told Lynne he’d get back to her about the statement and called Ryland.