29. Brodie
“Dude, do you have a second?”
I turn my head to see Sully skulking nearby, towel wrapped around his waist and one slung around his shoulders.
We”d just finished a grueling workout on the ice, and now? Now we’re unwinding in the locker room. I take my time undressing, removing all my pads and gear and sweat soaked clothes, jonesing to take a hot shower and climb into one of the facility’s soaking tubs.
I can almost taste it.
I almost manage to escape but am too slow. Sully stops in front of me.
“Nice footwork,” he compliments me, towel around his narrow hips hanging on for dear life.
“Thanks,” I grunt, grabbing a towel of my own. Or three for good measure, almost able to stand—if it weren’t for my roommate propping his leg up on the bench I’m currently sitting on, his cock and balls on full display.
“Dude.” I shield my eyes, feigning horror. “Put the mouse back in the house.”
Jesus.
”So.” He pauses dramatically. “You and, uh, Lizzy seem to be getting pretty cozy lately,” he remarks casually, gripping the towel slung over his shoulder with both hands as he leans closer to me on the bench so he doesn’t have to speak in a louder tone.
I feel a flicker of unease stir in the pit of my stomach at the mention of Lizzy”s name.
Is he still interested in her?
Is that what he’s about to tell me?
Don’t be stupid. If he wanted to make another play for her, he would have made it impossible for you to hang out with her.
Stop jumping to conclusions.
”Yeah, we”ve been hanging out a lot,” I reply as nonchalantly as I can muster, trying to keep my tone casual despite the butterflies fluttering in my chest. ”She”s cool.”
Cool?
She’d kill me if she heard me calling her “cool” in that tone of voice.
Sully raises an eyebrow. ”Cool, huh?” he echoes.
“Yeah. Cool.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes at myself, inwardly cringing.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this…” Sully’s oblivious to my discomfort having his junk so close to my fucking face.
He simply does not give a shit.
“Yet here you are about to tell me.”
I rise, busying myself with gathering up my things so the laundry staff can wash my practice jersey and undergarments, then neatly hang my pads in my cubby.
”You know, she seems to think there might be something more between you two.” He clicks his tongue.
“How do you know what she thinks?”
Somehow I’m able to school my tone so my voice doesn’t betray me, but the weight of his words settles heavily in the pit of my stomach.
“She texted me.”
Texted him?
“About what?”
Sully shrugs, studying his nails. “For advice.”
“Advice about what?”
“You, idiot.” He puffs out a frustrated breath. “Try to follow along, jeez.”
I’m trying as best I can but the part of my brain that has romantic feelings for her and the other part of my brain that is perpetually annoyed with my roommates are clashing, creating a brain freeze.
“So is there?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“Because she texted me for advice. And I like her—not in a sexual way,” he hastens to add. “I think we’re friends, as fucked up as that is.”
Yeah, it’s fucked up. The idea of Sully being anyone’s friend that has a pair of tits—whom he isn’t fucking—blows my goddamn mind.
“You’re only friends because she friend zoned you.”
“Those are facts.” He laughs. “But what about the two of you?”
The two of us? It’s not my fault that Lizzy thinks there might be something more between us—is it? We’re having a nice time. Not a fun time, a nice time, and I prefer not to have the added pressure of putting a label on it or fast-tracking something we’ve only just begun.
What has it been, a week?
And she’s reaching out to my roommate to find out where my head is at?
Red flag.
Is it a red flag or are you going to try to use this as a reason to break things off so you don’t have to tell her the real reason you’re avoiding real intimacy?
”I don”t know, man,” I admit, running a hand through my perspiration-drenched hair as I try to gather my thoughts. ”I like Lizzy, I really do. But I”m not sure if I”m ready for anything serious right now.”
The words settle like a rock in my stomach.
Sully nods in understanding, expression sympathetic, mouth turning down at the corner.
”I get that,” he says softly, his tone surprisingly gentle. ”But you should know that Lizzy”s not the type to play games. If she”s opening up to you like this, it means she”s serious about wanting to see where things could go.”
“Opening up to me? We played a few games while we were camping out in her bedroom. I don’t think that counts. We were both half naked.”
Sully’s eyes go wide when I say the word naked.
“Are we done? I’d like to go soak in the hot tub.” My shoulders are killing me.
His face is impassive. “Yep. We’re good.”
I feel like a jackass.
He’s looking at me like I’m a jackass, so I guess that makes us even.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I grind out, unable to look him in the eye. This is new for me, being the bad guy.
I’m the good guy.
I’M ALWAYS THE FUCKING GOOD GUY.
“How am I looking at you?” Sully removes his leg from the bench and reties the towel around his waist.
“Like—like I’m being a dick.”
“I never said you were being a dick. I haven’t said anything.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He laughs. “This is new for you, isn’t?”
My idiot roommate trails me as I walk to the area in the locker room where they have the hot tubs and cold plunge pools.
“Is what new for me?”
“Having feelings about a girl and not knowing how to deal with it.” I can hear his bare feet on the tile. “The mighty Brodie, having to fend off a woman who’s more interested in him than he’s interested in her.”
I whip around. “I’m not fending her off.” The fucking audacity of this fucking guy. “How about you keep your opinions to yourself.”
“How about you have a talk with her about how you feel so she doesn’t keep spinning her wheels.”
Spinning her wheels? “How is she spinning her wheels?”
He shrugs, leaning against the silver handrail that leads down into the hot tub. “She said you fooled around.” He holds his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m sure she felt it was pertinent information.”
“So what if we’re fooling around?”
“’Cause, bro—she wants to make sure that’s not all it’s ever going to be.” He cocks his head, moving out of my way when I slowly step down into the hot tub. “Have you never heard the phrase ‘catching feels’? Total chick thing. She doesn’t want to catch feelings or whatever. Then you have real problems.”
I grunt, cringing at the heat. “You’re the only real problem.”
Sully steps to the edge of the tub.
“Don’t you fucking dare come in here,” I tell him.
I need to think.
I sink into steaming hot water, letting every muscle and all of my senses embrace the heat. It immediately soothes, seeping into my tired, exhausted muscles.
I let out a long-drawn-out sigh.
Tip my head back against the headrest and close my eyes.
The locker room is quiet now. The only sound the gentle hum of the motor water and the occasional splash of water from the jets.
But…
…despite the tranquil surroundings, my mind is anything but at ease. My roommate’s words echo in my head, his sage advice stirring a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that I can’t seem to shake regardless of the fact that I’m trying to relax and clear my head.
Lizzy.
The mere mention of her name sends a jolt of misery coursing through my veins, igniting a rush of emotions within me that I can’t ignore.
Guilt.
Longing.
Loyalty.
When Sully taunted me by suggesting I had to fend her off—as if she were a stage-five clinger—the rage I suddenly felt. The urge to leap to her defense.
That fucker said it on purpose to get a rise out of me, and it worked.
I”d known from the moment I met Lizzy that there was a spark between us, an undeniable something that crackled and fizzed with every conversation, every shared laugh, every stolen glance she threw my direction.
All new to me.
I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing, and it seems that everyone knows it.
This is why I shouldn’t be hanging out with her. I’m fucking it all up, and now she wants to know why we’re only fooling around, and I don’t have a good answer for her.
And despite the pull I feel toward her, I”d been hesitant to act on it, unsure of whether I was ready to take that leap of faith.
See? This is why I should have stayed on my own fucking porch.
And let her paint her room herself.
And not taken her for ice cream.
Or kissed her under that streetlight.
How the hell do you go back from that once the launch sequence has been activated?
“Fuck.”
I raise my head, wiping the drops of water from my brow.
Glance around the room and only see a few stranglers, the trainer in the training room working the muscles of one of my teammates—and lock eyes with Sully, who’s sitting across the way, on the seat opposite, watching me.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
“Dude. Piss off.”
He laughs. “No bueno, you can’t escape me.”
“Why are you such a goddamn pain in my ass?”
“Um. If I was a quitter, we wouldn’t be the top team in our division, would we, you motherfucker?”
No, we wouldn’t and how dare he bring up statistics.
“You’re welcome,” he adds, a shit-eating grin on his face.
I close my eyes, shutting him out again. Let myself drift back to the memories of Lizzy—the late-night conversations we had that night she crashed at our place, playing Strip Connect Four with her and quitting before we were both completely naked, falling asleep to the sound of the squirrel in her wall.
Her laugh.
Her pretty smile.
Her great tits and ass.
Ugh!
Shoot me now.
“You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?” Sully’s voice drifts to my side of the hot tub, interrupting my thoughts.
“Shut up.” Pause. “Stop talking.”
He chuckles.
His laughter echoes in the tiled chamber that is the cavernous space of the locker room, my stolen moments to be alone with my thoughts derailed.
But I settle in to having Sully here.
He’s ready to jump on a conversation when I open my eyes.
A smile crosses my mouth at the idea of him mother-henning me. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m grateful for the annoying shithead.
A true friend.
My body relaxes.
Shoulders slump.
Is this me letting my guard down?
Is this the walls I”d built beginning to crumble? Doubtful; but maybe whatever this feeling is inside my gut is all this uncertainty being replaced by vulnerability.
That cannot be good.
I’m too big and strong to be vulnerable.
Too hairy.
Too tall.
Ha ha.
Lizzy had a way of seeing straight through me, peeling back the layers of my carefully constructed facade to reveal the raw, unfiltered truth beneath. Translation: at some point, I might be able to tell her what’s eating away at me, this little secret I have that I haven’t told a single soul.
God, no.
Why the hell would I tell her I’m a virgin? Do I look like a freaking idiot?
On the other hand, for the first time in a long time, I find myself wanting to tell someone. Dumb, hey? Like what would I even say to her? Being a virgin is one of my greatest insecurities—having someone leave me because of it is a fear I cannot damper. But if you don’t get it, you don’t get it, and I have no idea what she’d say or how she’d react so you know what?
I’m not saying a word.
Water laps gently against my skin, the jets beating into my aching back; it aches less and less the longer I sit here.
I crack an eye open.
Sully has his eyes closed and head back, too, done lecturing and hovering or whatever it is he’s doing. Matchmaking? Him of all people…
The smile touches my lips again, and I sink lower, submerged up to my mouth, and I blow bubbles. Rise again so I’m in a sitting position on the bench and let my body relax, relishing these next moments of peace.
Steam rises around me, creating the perfect?—
“Ahhh,” my roommate sighs. “Nothing like soaking in some warm water after a tough practice.”
That’s true, but it would be nice if I were soaking by myself so I could gather my own thoughts instead of listening to his.
“You’re really chatty today. Normally, you don’t give a shit about what anyone else has going on.” It’s true. He rarely gets involved and rarely shares his opinion, and suddenly he’s Dr. Phil, trying to psychoanalyze me and give me relationship advice. It’s so unlike him. “Everything alright?”
Sully splashes his fingers through the water. “Yeah, I guess. Just been thinking about how being an athlete affects relationships.”
“How do you mean?”
He leans his head back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Well, you know how demanding our schedules can be. It”s tough to find the time and energy to invest in a relationship when you”re constantly training and traveling. Maybe that’s what my issue has always been.”
His issue? I thought his issue was that he liked banging different types of women and didn’t want to be tied down. Still, I can’t argue with his logic that being an athlete doesn’t make things easy.
“It”s definitely a challenge. But I suppose it”s all about finding someone who understands and supports you.” At least, that’s what my mom has always told me, hoping that I would start dating and assuming the reason I wasn’t was sports.
“Easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like hockey gets in the way of forming meaningful connections with people.”
I raise my head, looking at him.
Sometimes it feels like hockey gets in the way of forming meaningful connections with people…
Dude. Who is this guy? “Who are you, and what have you done to my roommate Sully, the guy who sleeps around and leaves a trail of tears in his wake.”
He chuckles. “I do not leave a trail of tears in my wake, and I do not sleep around.” His hands skims the water line. “Case in point, I took Lizzy out on an actual date and didn’t make any moves on her.”
Yeah. Because she set off a flare indicating she wasn’t at all interested, giant red flags waving every which way.
I grunt in response, not wanting to bring Lizzy’s name into this again, worried it’ll launch another interrogation about my feelings.
“Does this mean you want to like, date the same person, and, gee, I don’t know—settle down?”
He seems to shudder in his seat. “God, no. I didn’t say anything about that. The point I’m trying to make is that the whole hockey thing is a blessing and a curse.”
“Eh.” I suppose. Maybe. “The right person will come along who appreciates the sacrifice.”
“Maybe.” He pauses. “Have you ever had your heart broken?”
“No.”
I don’t even have to hesitate to answer.
He nods. “I have.”
This is news to me. “When?”
“Would I sound like an idiot if I said high school?”
“No.”
“It was high school, and I thought I was in love, you know? It was one of those relationships where we didn’t use names. We said babe and baby and sweetie, and I was such a fucking idiot.”
“Why were you an idiot?”
“’Cause. The whole time, I thought things were great. As long as I was cool and popular and the hottest motherfucker on the ice, she wouldn’t go behind my back and talk to other guys. I thought I was exempt from all that. Nothing could touch me.”
Sully spreads his arms out, resting them on the back of the hot tub.
“What a naive fucker I was.” He shrugs, bubbles up to his collarbone. “My shit didn’t stink. My girlfriend wouldn’t cheat. I had the world by the ass and wasn’t paying attention to a single thing that was going on unless it was on the ice.”
Invincible.
I know the feeling; the ice will do that to you.
“So what happened?” This is the most he and I have ever talked, and my brain is reeling from the information dump he’s throwing my way.
Freaking reeling.
“Her name was Nora, and I guess every time she would wait for me outside the locker room, she would talk to the water boy—some underclassman not a single person noticed. Nice dude, obviously.”
“Apparently, he was really nice.”
Sully silences my stupid quip with a narrowed gaze. “Ha ha.”
“Sorry. You were saying?”
“They would talk, and she loved his jokes, and he was smart and good at math. Carter is his name. So he started tutoring her one or two nights a week and blah blah they started sneaking around. He was fucking terrified I’d find out—obviously.”
Obviously.
“Smaller dude. Dorky. Thought I would kick his ass when I found out.”
We’re used to fighting. It’s no wonder the kid would think Sully would want to fight him.
“Did you?”
He shakes his head. “No dude, what the hell do you think I am? He was skinny—real nerdy—one punch and he would have been flat on his sorry ass.”
Lord help me, I’m hanging on Sully’s every word. Who knew he was such a great goddamn storyteller?
Not me.
“I need more details.”
I can hear his sigh from here. “Basically, Nora had told one of her friends about ‘catching feelings’ for Carter.”
“She told one of her best friends, who started seeing one of the guys on the hockey team. Not a good friend of mine but loyal, you know? He found out and felt like he had to say something because the whole thing was making me look like an idiot.”
“I don’t see how you’re the idiot when she was the one cheating.” I feel like I’m making a valid statement at the same time as pep talking him? Weird, I know.
“If you know, you know. So unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to explain.”
“I guess…”
“So Boz tells me he heard Nora was spending a lot of time with Carter, and I blew it off at first because—it was Carter. Right, like picture it—he was one hundred ten pounds maybe, soaking wet. And he was our water boy—basically the team manager in charge of making sure our laundry got clean.” He sniffs indignantly.
“Physical attraction isn’t always based on the physical—haven’t you ever seen Love is Blind?”
He gapes at me. “Of course I’ve seen Love is Blind. I didn’t know you watched it too?”
I snort. “Obviously.”
“Is that what you’re doing in your bedroom? Watching reality dating TV shows?”
“Duh.”
“You little rat.”
“Keep telling me about Nora and Carter…” I want to hear the juicy details, suddenly thirsty for tea. I never have any drama of my own—until lately, it seems—so hearing someone else’s relationship horror story somehow makes me feel better.
Is that wrong?
“So Boz tells me, and I start actually paying attention. Not to her of course, but to the two of them. How close they’d stand, all the chatting they would do. Like why was the fucking towel guy outside the locker room after our games when he should have been working? I was finally paying attention, and suddenly it hit me, and I felt…”
Sully waves a hand around the air. “I felt stupid. And I can’t remember if I was pissed? I just know I was embarrassed—so what does that say about me? I was more embarrassed and cared more what people thought than upset that the girl I was dating was emotionally cheating on me.”
That makes sense. “You were young.”
“Not that much younger than I am now. So I don’t know, maybe that’s what fucked me up?”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. “I know it”s hard to see right now, but it”s not a reflection on you. Some people just aren”t capable of being faithful.”
I shrug my shoulders, sitting up straighter to cool my body off, the water so warm I feel like it’s beginning to cook me from the inside out.
“It”s scary opening yourself up to someone after getting hurt.”
Not me being sensitive…surely not.
“Yeah, exactly. But maybe it”s time to take a chance again? Who knows.” He sits up straighter, too. Swipes a hand across his forehead, moving his wet bangs out of his eyes.
“The right person might be just around the corner.”
“Or on the porch next door.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t make me want to fucking vomit.”
“Just be glad some gorgeous chick is into you, man, and stop fighting it.”
Here he goes again…
And all this is easy for him to say. He’s not the one with a secret virginity problem he’s terrified to get rid of.
“So what are you going to do?” he asks.
“No idea.”
“Well. What do you want to do—I guess that’s the better question. Cut her loose now before she gets too wrapped up in it, or see where it goes?”
I…
Don’t know.
“Honestly. She shows up on the porch and…” That was it. “How do I know she’s hanging around for me—I could have been any one of you on the porch. It was stupid luck that I happened to be outside.”
He stares at me. “Are you being serious right now? I went out with her, and she wasn’t interested, and she probably thinks Charlie is a dick ’cause of the thing with her roommate.”
“What thing with her roommate? Did something else happen besides them sleeping together?”
He nods, wiping his brow again. “From what I hear, she was over a few times—they were having a blast. But then, on her birthday weekend, she invited him out, and he said he didn’t want to be seen with her at a bar—he didn’t want any other chicks to think he was in a relationship.”
My mouth drops open. “How did I not know this?”
“Don’t know, dude. You couldn’t hear the screaming when she chewed his ass out and called him the biggest fucking douchebag she’d ever met?”
Shit.
“It sounds horrible.”
“It was. He was acting like such a tool even I wanted to slap him.”
“She slapped him?” My eyes bug out.
“No. But I would have supported an open-palm bitch slap.” Sully laughs.
We waffle a few more minutes, conversation coming to a halt as both of us ponder whatever was in our brains.
I lift my hands and stare at the hundreds of wrinkles marring my skin.
”Well, as much as I hate to say it, I think it”s time to call it a night,” I announce as I begin to rise, hands pushing me upward so I can stand.
My roommate nods in agreement with a hint of reluctance in his expression. ”Yeah, you”re probably right. We”ve been sitting here long enough.”
With a collective effort, we heave ourselves up from the bubbling water, the heat of the hot tub clinging to our skin as we make our way to the edge. I reach for the towel I’d draped over the nearby railing, wrapping it around my waist to ward off the chill.
The cooler air of the locker room immediately chills my skin, sending goose bumps forming.
I step into my shower shoes so I don’t slip and fall ass backward and crack my skull open, god forbid my worst nightmare.
Actually, I have a lot of worst nightmares, but that’s just one of them.
”I could literally sit in there forever,” Sully remarks, a wistful smile playing on his lips. “We should get a hot tub at the house. We can put it in the yard, between Lizzy’s house and ours.”
I laugh softly, running a hand through my damp hair. ”I think we’d get in a shit ton of trouble if we did that. Plus, who’s paying for this hot tub?”
Sully rolls his eyes. “Okay, Grandpa, way to kill the daydream.”
With one last glance back at the now-empty hot tub, Sully turns to me. ”Same time next week?”
“No fucking way.”
“What?!” He laughs. “I thought we were bonding!”
“One night of bonding was plenty, thanks.”
“Oh, come on.” He follows me to the lockers, taking his towel off. Twists it. Then snaps it toward my ass.
“Knock it off,” I grumble.
“Hot tub party.”
“No.”
But I laugh just the same.