4. Carter
Chapter Four
CARTER
He knew that I knew.
My ears had been ringing all day after his naughty little Grindr alert.
That rolling little sound of a new message was all too familiar to my ears.
Hearing it from the locker room as I left Nate behind felt like getting slammed with a fire extinguisher in the back of my head.
I had nearly lost my step and fallen down face-first when Nate’s message arrived.
By the time I had climbed upstairs to where the cardio equipment was lined up for use, my phone had been in my hand, and the nearest profile in my normally desired age range was an empty one with just enough info to guarantee that my suspicion was correct.
Nate Partridge was on Grindr.
And he had blocked me an hour ago.
Maybe he deleted his account, I thought fleetingly but decided it was probably the former. Not that I would have hit him up on a hookup site. Screw that. I hated the culture on the app, but having it in a new city was as good a way to dip my toe in as any.
For the better part of the day, the idea that Nate was hooking up with random men off an app was too big and thorny to fit inside my head. Not to mention the blazing jealousy that threatened to turn me into a pile of ash.
Nate Partridge, the world’s sexiest man in 2021, as well as three more times in the past, was gay. And he was sleeping around with guys in our area. And none of those guys was me.
I kicked the comforter off my body and punched the pillow to adjust it under my head. Anger boiled in me before I could let some cold reason calm me down.
Luckily, Ron was downstairs with a few of the other guys, and I could throw my tantrum in peace.
If I somehow turned off the rage at the obvious injustice of him not even bothering to check me out when I was all but naked two feet in front of him — and don’t get me started on the way he ran away when I asked him to feel my pecs!
It wasn’t even a sexual proposition — I could see how it all made sense.
The most desirable bachelor who had never been in a relationship media reported on turning out to be secretly gay was no big reveal.
Sure, he’d had dates for big events, but he’d rarely been seen with the same woman more than once or twice.
For a short time, reports swirled around that he was a playboy, but Nate stopped taking girls to heavily publicized events.
Especially after he had once been spotted with his former sister-in-law and nephew.
Stories of a secret relationship with his brother’s ex hit the headlines, and Nate went out of his way to squash that gossip.
So, no, it was not shocking to learn that Nate was on a different team. The shock was that I hadn’t even suspected it.
My entire life, Nate Partridge was the image of perfect masculinity, and growing up in my dad’s house meant that perfect masculinity couldn’t possibly be gay.
I wanted to growl simply by thinking of that. Not that he was a bigot, but Dad drew a line between “men” and “gay men” in ways that harmed everyone involved.
Even when my crush on Nate threatened to rip a hole in my chest, it didn’t cross my mind that such a man could be gay. Dad’s thoughts were running way too deep. The prejudice was instilled in me, even when I tried to do everything to shake it off. Even when it was the prejudice against my own self.
I sat up and shoved the pillow against the headboard of my bed, pulled my knees up, folded my arms around them, and nestled my head in them. A shudder passed through me as I squeezed my eyes shut so hard that they caused a minor headache.
Too many emotions swirled through me. Contempt for my dad, an ever-present feeling, was emphasized tonight.
His way of thinking had never failed to mess with me, but tonight, I felt it harder than most times.
The revelation that Nate Partridge was gay triggered this stupid glimmer of hope somewhere deep in me.
As if Nate being gay directly resulted in him wanting a scrawny, clumsy kid like me.
I knew for a fact that nothing about me sparked any interest in him.
Mostly, though, it was jealousy. I hated being that guy, but I had very vivid ideas of some ripped and shredded men lining up in front of Nate’s apartment, and I wanted to scratch their eyes out.
He wasn’t dating anyone secretly if he was on Grindr. That much I was sure of. And it couldn’t be some long-standing arrangement, either. Nate hadn’t lived here until a month ago. He was cruising the app. He was looking at the kinds of guys that were nearby.
Hookups, then. That was what he was out for. And that was where my anger focused. None of the men off the goddamn app deserved him. None of them knew him. None of them had had the years of crushing on him to guide their hands.
Annoyed out of my mind, I dragged myself out of my bed, put on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and headed downstairs to the basement.
Down there, our goalie, Sawyer, who lived off campus, was telling Ron how he and his physics tutor had coached one another in their respective areas of expertise — Sawyer’s was the art of picking people up — and how they had gotten together a few years ago.
Caden was listening to Jordan Mitchell and Asher Sullivan as they told their story in a heated hurry to finish one another’s sentences.
Phoenix played one of the arcade games on the vintage machine in the corner, and Beckett sat on the edge of the soccer table nobody ever used.
Entering, I made the sign of the cross at the finger-painted nude portrait of a guy who used to live in this house, whose back and ass were vividly depicted against a green-and-orange background of a scenic sunset on some grassy hill.
I didn’t know what I was doing, except that all the guys made the same gesture to the painting whenever they entered the basement.
“Hey, stranger,” Beckett said over his shoulder when I walked in. “Coming out of your den and joining the civilized world, huh?”
I nodded once. The minifridge had cans of cold beer, and I picked one for myself and one for Beckett when he asked for it. Joining him at the soccer table, I handed him the can and opened mine.
“Ron was just saying how college is different from what he’d expected,” Beckett said. Like most of the guys down here, he was a senior. Unlike any of them, he was related to a hockey legend, just like me. “How are you finding it?” he asked.
“Erm…good,” I said tightly. If only your uncle would notice me when I stood nearly naked in front of him, then everything would be pretty damn neat. “I dunno. It’s different from school, that’s for sure.”
Beckett was silent for a little while, then leaned in and bumped into my shoulder with his. “It helps to have a famous dad, am I right?” I snorted, thinking he was joking until his brow wrinkled a little. “Nobody’s giving you shit about that, right?”
“No,” I said right away. “It’s not that.”
“Good,” he said. “Some of the guys used to think I was here because Nate’s my uncle. I wouldn’t want to see that happen to anyone else.”
The story had it that the division in the team drove Beckett and Caden to cooperate, leading them to cooperate a little more than anyone had expected. They were now a power couple that held the team together.
“Do you ever feel…?” I stopped myself, my question dangling unfinished in the air.
Beckett tilted his head curiously, and I closed my eyes for a few moments.
Inhaling a deep breath of air, I went ahead and asked it.
“Do you feel any pressure because your uncle is so famous?” When he was quiet for a time, I elaborated.
“It’s like there’s no winning. If I’m not as good as Dana Prince, everyone will say I’m just riding on my father’s fame.
If I’m better, I guess it’ll just create resentment.
And who are we kidding? I’m not gonna be better than my dad. Doesn’t that worry you?”
Beckett bit his lip playfully. “Well, fuck. It didn’t worry me until now.”
“Sorry,” I sighed.
The captain threw his arm over my shoulders and laughed out loud.
“I’m messing with you, Prince. But to answer your question: no, it doesn’t bother me at all.
It used to, but then I decided I couldn’t let that stop me.
There are hundreds of famous players I’ll never be able to beat.
Thousands. So why does it matter if one of them is my uncle? The best I can do is to do my best.”
I snorted so loudly that even he chuckled.
“I think I’ll print that on a T-shirt,” Beckett mused. “Anyway, my point is that you’re not your father, and no one expects you to be. Measuring yourself against him will only make you miserable.”
“That’s fucking encouraging,” I joked.
Beckett gave a deep shrug, pulling his arm away from my shoulders. “It’s the best I’ve got.”
“Thanks,” I said. I meant it. It helped in a way, although I couldn’t exactly come out and tell him that hockey had never been the thing I wanted to do with my life.
Not when I played on his goddamn team. And definitely not when his uncle, the coach, was my biggest crush in the galaxy and possibly beyond.
For Nate, I’d stick around on the off chance that I would run into him in the locker room again. I’d stick around as if I had a choice.
It occurred to me the day after the next that I was doing this wrong.
I went to the gym in my usual hour, but Nate was nowhere to be seen.
I imagined he had moved his slow to an even earlier hour so we wouldn’t run into each other in the locker room now that we both knew his secret.
Yet I struggled to understand why he would.
It wasn’t like I’d said or done something to make things weird.