Chapter 8 #2
The heat finally filters through the vents in the Jeep, and though I don’t want to stop touching him, I do.
Shiloh stares at me for a moment before turning away to press his hands against the vents again, the rest of him shivering in the passenger seat.
I’m struck with the strange notion that I want to scoop him onto my lap and hold him close, soothe away the cold with the warmth of my body.
I get the feeling that would be too much, though, going by the way he barely let me warm his hands.
“You should have gloves,” I comment instead, sitting back in my own seat. “And a toque.”
“What the hell is a toque?”
I roll my eyes. “Knit cap for winter time. A knitted beanie. Whatever you call it here. It’s a fucking toque. You should get one.” He nods but doesn’t offer any words, so I just keep talking. “What are you still doing here? The game ended hours ago. How long have you been outside?”
“A while,” he says. “I wanted to wait for you inside, but security kicked me out and I didn’t have your ID to prove I know you this time.”
Note to self: get Shiloh a pass from security for the next game. If he wants to come to another game, that is.
“What took you so long, anyway? I thought you’d be out a lot sooner,” he grumbles, like I was the one who decided he would stay and wait for me.
“Snack and hydration, mandatory after-game workout, stretching with the athletics team, showering, changing,” I list. “And sometimes I have media. Not tonight, though.”
“No interviews for your adoring fans?”
“Not after a loss.” Some goalies are open to media availability after any game regardless of whether the team wins or loses.
I’m not one of them, and I’m infinitely lucky that Coach firmly believes goalies doing media after a loss is demoralizing.
Thank fuck for that, because I saw Kyle Penton, the beat reporter for the Boston Daily, scurrying around the basement of the arena like the rat he is.
All he ever wants to talk about is my friendship with Oakley anyway, and I don’t have the patience for his bullshit tonight.
Not when I have other, far more important people to focus on.
“And then you go home?”
“Sometimes. Mostly not. I tend to wander after a loss. Walk around and clear my head a bit. I usually find a place I can see the stars.” I pause for a moment, looking out the windshield of the Jeep at the streetlights that swallow the sky, gobbling up any starlight that would usually shine down.
“Things feel a lot less shitty when I’m beneath the open sky. Reminds me of back home, I guess.”
“Odd.”
“Goalie,” I reply with a small laugh.
“So you’re gonna go stand out in the cold for some stars?” he asks, sounding very unimpressed at the thought.
“Not tonight,” I say. “We leave early tomorrow morning for a game in Springfield. Back-to-back home and away games.” I hate the idea of rolling into Springfield fresh off the loss tonight, but I know I won’t be playing tomorrow. Gilly will definitely get the nod over me.
“You’re leaving?”
“Just for the day, really. We’ll get back early Sunday morning. Like two a.m.”
Shiloh is silent, looking out of the windshield as I stare at the profile of his face in the streetlights streaming down from overhead.
It catches on the curve of his nose, the dip of his lips, and the smooth skin of his cheekbones.
He’s beautiful here in this moment, though I don’t say it out loud.
I learned early on to keep thoughts like that hidden.
Being anything other than straight doesn’t exactly go with a pro-hockey career, and no amount of rainbow stick tape can break down those walls.
At least not yet, anyway. Queer professional hockey players exist, Oakley and I are here after all, but we know better than to try and exist out loud in this league.
Not yet, anyway, which makes thoughts like how attractive Shiloh is here in the dim streetlight dangerous.
“Can I give you a ride home?” I ask, needing to break this silence somehow before I do something scary like tell him how pretty he is.
“I can walk.”
“It’s cold out. Let me drive you.” I put the Jeep into gear but keep my foot on the brake. If he really wants to walk, I’m not going to force him to accept a ride from me, but he doesn’t reach for the door. Eventually he nods once.
“To the edge of campus,” he concedes.
“Boston Art and Design?” I guess, knowing that he studies art. Or at least he said he did at one point. I think.
He shakes his head, though. “Mass U.”
Interesting. Not what I expected, but then again nothing about Shiloh is to be expected. “Mass U campus it is.”
He nods again, leaning back in his seat and doing up his seatbelt as I take my foot off the brake and head out of the parking lot.
Massachusetts University is a fair distance from the arena, and as we drive through the night, I count the blocks he would have had to walk to get home.
It’s too many, that’s for sure. He’d have frozen by the time he got there.
“Your hat is ugly,” he blurts out, as I turn off the main road and head down a side street that leads to the campus residences.
“My hat?”
“The thing you wear on the ice. Your helmet? I don’t know, but it’s fucking hideous.”
I snort a surprised laugh. “My mask.”
“Whatever you want to call it. That ugly green snake that looks like it was painted by a toddler.”
“Hey,” I say, with another laugh. “It’s not that bad.”
“It is. It’s really that bad.”
I have no choice but to nod. It’s not the prettiest thing, that’s for sure.
It was supposed to look intimidating, like my face was sitting in the mouth of a vicious snake, but I didn’t have the money needed to hire the guy Gilly uses, so I settled for someone else.
What I got for the small amount of money I paid was a friendly looking snake face with what’s almost a smile curling around the cage that protects my cheeks and eyes from the pucks.
I pull over to the side of the road in front of the nearest campus residence hall. Mass U has a bunch of them tucked around the campus, but this is the closest one to the road we’re on. “Here okay?”
Shiloh nods then undoes his seat belt, but he makes no move to get out of the vehicle. We sit in silence for a few moments until the look of disgust he had on his face after the game floats into my mind. “I’m sorry we lost. That’s a shitty first game to have to sit through.”
“What?”
“After the game you looked like… I don’t know… like you were pissed off or something. I’m sorry we lost, that’s all. I can’t do much when everything falls apart in front of me, but I could have tried harder.”
“I don’t give a shit about hockey,” he says, staring at me with an incredulous look on his face. “Your hat-mask-thing is horrible. You need to burn it. Immediately.”
I let loose a surprised laugh. “You were staring at my mask.”
“It’s so bad it was distracting me from watching you. That’s impressively bad, Donovan.”
“I have a blank helmet in my closet. I just haven’t found time to connect with a guy who knows what he’s doing with a goalie mask.”
“You should have Godzilla on it.” He pauses. “What’s with that, anyway? I saw the posters when I wasn’t breaking into your apartment.”
I snort a laugh, shaking my head as he smirks. I am a bit startled at how clearly I’m seen by him, though. “My mom. She loved those cheesy old monster movies so much, and I grew up watching them with her. Godzilla, mostly. Mothra is… was her favorite, though. Beautiful wings, y’know?”
Shiloh hums under his breath thoughtfully, then reaches into the pocket of the hoodie, pulling out a cell phone. He grabs mine from the center console and holds it up with the screen facing me. “Unlock.”
I huff a small laugh, then press my finger against the sensor, watching as the phone unlocks to reveal a picture of Oakley and me on draft day, our brand new jerseys hanging off our bodies and smiles as wide as the moon on our faces. Shiloh turns the phone around and frowns at the image.
“That’s Oakley,” I offer. “My best friend.”
Shiloh says nothing, instead clicking around on the phone and pulling up my contact list. A few more moments go by as he taps away on the screen, then he hands the phone back to me.
I grin as I see the name he’s saved his number under. “California.”
“Send me a text,” he demands, holding up his own phone. I search through emojis until I find the perfect one, sending him a single palm tree. His phone pings and I swear his lips curl into a small smile for a split second before he shoves his phone in his pocket and reaches for the door handle.
“Thanks for the ride,” he says as he opens the door, letting the cold air trickle in. He’s about to slide off the seat when I take a chance and reach out, placing my hand on his arm. He startles at the contact, but recovers quickly, meeting my eyes in question.
“You don’t care about hockey?” I clarify.
“Not in the slightest.”
“Why did you come to the game, then?”
Shiloh looks at me like I’ve grown two heads.
He pulls his arm away from my touch and slides off the seat, turning away from the Jeep.
For a split second, I don’t think I’m going to get an answer, but just before he closes the door behind him, he turns back, leans into the Jeep, and connects his beautiful gray eyes to mine.
“I didn’t come for the hockey game. I came for you, Donovan Myers. Just for you.”