Chapter 2
GUS
This hangover wasn’t my worst by a long shot. I still felt crappy, though, and my mouth was dry as dust. I hobbled to the kitchen and sent up a prayer to the fridge gods that there’d be something on the shelves.
The gods answered with a gallon of pulp-free orange juice and a single slice of cheddar cheese.
Meh, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I glugged half the carton, swiped my hand across my mouth, and was about to polish off the rest when I sensed someone behind me.
Rafe, my cute, but very grumpy roommate. The dude was about as friendly as a porcupine who’d lost a fight with a cactus. Seriously.
“Want some?” I held out the container, positive I could win him over with a friendly smile.
Wrong.
“No, I don’t want to share germs with you, but thank you for asking,” he replied, a thunderous expression on his pinched face. “What I would appreciate is for you to replace my orange juice and maybe add a sticker to remind yourself not to touch it next time.”
“Oh, shit. This is yours?”
“It was,” he corrected.
“I’m sorry, man. I’ll make it up to you. Let me buy you breakfast.”
“No, thanks. I have class.”
Now, that could have been taken one of two ways: A, I have class and would never drink out of a carton in my boxer briefs and a holey T-shirt while smelling like the south end of a northbound mule. Or B, I have a Biology lecture to attend.
Yeah, I was getting A vibes, too.
Rafe spun on his heels, marched out of the room, and stomped up the stairs. And unless I was way off the mark, he’d closed his bedroom door with more force than usual. Yep…he was pissed.
Again.
I hoped it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I’d caught a hint of true animosity in his glare this time. The sort of steely-eyed venom I associated with opponents doing battle on the ice in the middle of a heated game. Not my fucking roommate.
Shit.
Did Rafe hate me?
My best friends, Ty and Brady, thought so. In fact, they even seemed amused that I hadn’t caught on sooner.
Brady shook his head. “Rafe isn’t going to join your fan club any time soon, man.”
“Just hope he doesn’t murder you in your sleep,” Ty piped in. “What did you do now?”
I stretched my arms above my head, sinking into Ty and Brady’s marshmallowy sofa as I yawned. “I accidentally drank his orange juice…again.”
“Buy more.”
“Yeah, yeah. I will.”
I abruptly changed the subject to the cinnamon rolls Brady’s mom had sent and put in my two cents about Ty dealing with his own drama. The guy was head over heels for Walker, the redheaded influencer he’d been passing off as “just a friend.” Everyone knew Ty was bi, so who the fuck cared?
People made things way harder than they had to be, if you asked me.
I zoned out, fighting nausea and a blazing headache. I had to eat something real and ideally, find a quiet, dark room to hibernate for a few hours.
I stood and slipped my sunglasses on. “I gotta run. Tell your mom her cinnamon roll game is top notch.”
“Where you going?” Brady asked.
“To the fucking store to buy some fucking orange juice.”
“Good idea.”
“Hmph.”
I grumbled to myself all the way to Bear Market, still stewing over Rafe.
I didn’t get it. I wasn’t used to being hated outside of a rink.
I was a friendly guy. I had buddies in every class, fist-bumped custodians, gave signed jerseys to my professors’ kids, remembered to ask about the waitress at Bear Depot’s niece’s dental surgery, and had checked in on Vincento Senior when he’d been down and out with a cold last month. I liked people, and they liked me.
I figured it was a good policy to be nice in general. Everyone was going through their own personal bullshit, so why pile on with bad mojo?
My philosophy was simple: happy = good. Spread positivity and love, and save the animosity and angst for the ice. Easy enough.
Except it didn’t work with Rafe.
I liked him well enough. Under his ever-present “just sucked a lemon” mug, I detected a sweet person who was driven and…okay, that was all I had.
I didn’t know much about my roommate. Rafe was a figure skater and a biology major.
He didn’t party much, and he was possibly allergic to beer ’cause he wrinkled his nose whenever I brought a case home.
Oh, yeah…and his bestie was super hot. Seemed like enough info to build a bridge, but somehow this food shit was killing any goodwill between us.
The crazy thing was that I didn’t technically need a roommate.
I just didn’t like being alone. I had a dorm room to myself my sophomore year and it was so boring and…
lonely. I didn’t always love my own company.
I preferred being with teammates, but this year, the only guys who’d been available couldn’t legally buy their own beer. No thanks.
On paper, Rafe had been a decent fit. We had ice in common and that should have been enough. I was beginning to think I’d made a bad call, and I was five months too late to fix it.
All right. Pity party over. Time to fix this.
“Yo, Langley!”
“Hey, Gus.”
I waved and fist-bumped a few acquaintances outside of Bear Market, grabbed a cart, and headed for the refrigerated section.
I loaded up with a couple of jugs of OJ, two gallons of milk, three cartons of eggs, and two packages of bacon.
Make that four. I loved bacon. Yogurt was okay, too.
Rafe liked the blueberry stuff—or was it plain?
Or did he like yogurt at all? Fuck if I knew.
I tossed a few into the cart and studied the cheese selection. I needed more cheddar for tuna melts. The thick slices worked best with—
“Excuse me. Mind if I squeeze in there?”
“Oh. Sorry about that.” I pushed my cart forward and gave a friendly nod, which quickly turned into a double take.
The lanky brunet sidled so close, I could smell his woodsy aftershave and even a hint of peppermint on his breath.
He wasn’t quite as tall as my six three, but he carried himself like a dancer with a straight spine and squared shoulders.
Even in a plain navy track suit, he had the kind of innate presence that deserved a second glance. And that was before he met my gaze.
Whoa. The guy was hot.
Geek hot, if you know what I mean. His wavy brown hair was streaked with golden strands and was long enough to curl at his nape. His blue eyes were big and—fuck, I was staring.
Disclaimer: I was bi. My best friends knew, and most of my family did too. Actually, these days, I was pretty sure everyone knew.
I’d gone out of my way to keep my sexuality on the DL my first couple of years at Smithton, thinking it might hurt my chances of going pro. That ship had sailed a long time ago.
Nonetheless, it had been a while since I’d looked twice at a guy in the middle of the day while mostly sober.
The hottie noticed my lingering once-over. He lifted a package of sliced cheddar and flashed a shy smile. “Like minds.”
“Yeah, I love tuna melts, and they’re always better with thick cheddar. I’m Gus, by the way,” I said, tilting my chin in greeting. I debated offering my hand, but that seemed like overkill in a grocery store.
“I know who you are.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “I think the whole campus knows you. I’m Eli. Nice to meet you.”
“You too. So…what are you making with your cheddar cheese?”
“An omelet.”
I crossed my arms, cocking my head slightly. “What else is in that omelet? Ham, onion, chives, bacon? Oh, gotta have bacon. Don’t tell me you’re leaving out the bacon.”
Eli snickered. “Afraid so. My season just ended, but I’m still in training mode and bacon doesn’t make the cut.”
“That’s a damn shame,” I lamented. “What’s your sport?”
“Figure skating.”
I raised my brows. “No shit. My roommate is a figure skater. You must know him. Rafe Johnson.”
“Johannsen?”
I snapped my fingers. “That’s it.”
“Yes, I know Rafe.” The unabashed once-over was confusing.
I couldn’t tell if Eli was sizing me up and judging me based on a negative review from my roommate, or if he was interested and wondered if it was awkward that we had Rafe in common.
Buzz buzz.
I rescued my cell from my pocket and automatically glanced at the caller ID.
Mom. I let it go to voice mail, thinking I’d call her when I got home.
I wasn’t ready to sever the connection with this sexy guy, and I certainly wasn’t going to waste my flirting window by bringing up my crabby roommate again.
“Let’s go back to that omelet. Are you telling me it’s a cheese-only thing?”
Eli blushed. The softest shade of pink ghosted his high cheekbones. Did I mention he was pretty?
“And tomato with a sprinkle of goat cheese.”
“Now that sounds tasty.”
“It is,” he assured me. “Simple and easy and—do you have to get that?”
Buzz buzz
If my mom was doing the double-call thing, she had something to say and Constance Langley was nothing if not relentless. “Yeah. I…should. Hey, it was nice to meet you.”
“You too. Good-bye, Gus.” Eli ducked his chin and pushed his cart in the opposite direction.
I watched him longingly, admiring his pert ass and broad shoulders…just as my cell went off in my hand like a grenade.
“Geez, Ma. What’s up?”
“That’s no way to greet your mother, Augustus, darlin’,” she replied, her tone dripping with slow Southern charm.
Mom was a Charleston transplant who’d married my hockey-playing dad fresh out of college, and they’d settled in Indiana.
Both of my parents were outgoing, congenial people, but my mom could be a little ferocious.
A “Bless your heart” with a sweet-as-pie smile from Mom was the equivalent of a death warrant. And most folks never saw it coming.
“Hello, Mother. What can I do for you this fine morning?”
“It’s afternoon,” she corrected. “And you can tell me why you still haven’t forwarded your résumé to me. I want to help you, and I can’t do that if I don’t have the information required.”
“Mom, I don’t need help getting a job. I’ll do it myself.”
“Will you? Or will you succumb to the unfortunate habit of living off your inheritance? I know you’ve withdrawn money from the account your grandfather set up.”
“For tuition,” I snapped, manhandling the cart to the cereal aisle. “That’s what the money is for.”
“True, but you could have had a law degree by now. Derek Collinsworth is hiring, darlin’. He’s a dear friend of the family, and you really can’t go wrong. You could intern for his firm this summer in Charleston and…”
Oh, my fucking God.
I picked a box of Wheaties off the shelf and read the ingredients in my head to drown out my mom’s harping.
It was the same ol’ theme. You should have done this, you could have been that.
According to my mom, I was so far behind the curve, I was in danger of becoming a big fat nothing.
Those weren’t her exact words, but the gist was…
Get your shit together and be a fucking lawyer already.
Except I didn’t want to be a lawyer. And I didn’t aspire to manage hedge funds or go to med school like my brothers, either.
My mother didn’t know I’d technically graduated and was working toward a master’s degree in English.
No one knew, and I had my reasons for that.
Mom would hate it. In fact, she’d lose her mind and ask what I was going to do with a useless degree.
Maybe teach? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t ready to go to war over it yet.
That day would come, but it wasn’t today…in the middle of the cereal aisle with a cart full of shit I was buying for my roommate, who probably thought I was as big of a loser as my mom did.
Fuck my life.
I could literally feel my nerves fraying at the seams as I read the nutritional information on the side of the box. Calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins.
I wished I were high, numb, floating in a subspace where the weight of expectation and disappointment didn’t feel quite so heavy.
After a few minutes of placating uh-huhs and yes, ma’ams, I redirected the conversation to a hugely exaggerated retelling of my goal against Granville two nights ago.
In actuality, I’d scored three minutes into the first period in a game that we’d ended up winning five to one and not at the last possible moment of a nail-biter that had rivaled a few Stanley Cup classics. But my version was funnier.
My mom was a sucker for a good story, and she’d always said I was good at spinnin’ a yarn and tellin’ tall tales, so she no doubt knew half the shit coming out of my mouth was nonsense.
But she’d made her point, gotten in her digs, and was happy to play along, allowing me to reset the balance between us.
It was exhausting and not gonna lie, a little soul-crushing.
Note to self: Do not take calls from Mom at Bear Market ever fucking again. Especially while talking to a hot guy.
Second note: Apply the Gus rule ASAP—an effective coping mechanism to be adhered to whenever life felt bleak and oppressive.
I typed the text without thinking twice and blasted it to my teammates.
Party at my place tonight. Tell everyone.