Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DONOVAN
The morning after the concert, I step off the ice with a smile on my face that feels far more real than any smile I’ve had since I moved here.
My head is still buzzing a bit with the echo of guitars and drums, and I’m in serious need of a nap after my late night out, but I wouldn’t really trade this feeling for anything else right now.
No, that’s a lie.
There are two things I’d trade this feeling for, if I’m being honest. Number one?
The Stanley Cup. I wish I were more complex sometimes, but I’m really a basic hockey player at my core, and hoisting the Cup has always been one of the biggest goals in my life.
Thing number two I’d trade this feeling for?
Shiloh. Just Shiloh. He’s the reason for the feeling, but I’d trade the feeling away if it meant he were actually here.
I tried to convince him to spend the night at my place after we left the Dome, but he had an early morning class he couldn’t risk missing.
If ever there comes a time that I end up with both Shiloh and the Stanley Cup in the same moment, I’ll probably explode into chunks of happiness.
Or maybe something less gross. Chunks probably isn’t the right word here, but I’m at a loss for another one.
I’m on such a high that the workout in the gym after the on-ice practice part of the morning flies by and before I know it, I’m in front of my locker stall slipping out of my towel and into a pair of fleece-lined sweatpants printed with tiny golden snakes.
Technically they’re pajama pants I bought myself at the team store, but I’ve been wearing them out in the winter chill because they’re the warmest pants I own.
I should get Shiloh a pair.
He’ll love them, I’m sure. Plus, if I get him a pair for himself, the chance that these ones won’t go suspiciously missing from my bedroom increases.
I smile to myself as I finish getting dressed, the locker room buzzing around me as my teammates start trickling in from their time in the gym.
“Woah,” Tucker comments, eyeing my legs. “Those are sick, dude. I didn’t know we had Snakes pants.”
“They’re pajamas,” I offer, gesturing at the snakes on my legs. “Folded up on the rack in the back corner by the pennants, if you want a pair.”
“Hell yes, I do.” He raises a fist and I give his knuckles a bump with my own before he grins and wanders off toward the Bluetooth speaker.
He sidles up to it slowly, eyes darting around the room at the rest of our team, who don’t appear to be watching him carefully enough to stop what’s about to happen.
A collective groan echoes through the room as Tucker grabs his phone from the open shelf of his locker stall and quickly connects to the Bluetooth before anyone else can.
Country music blares through the air, and as a few of my teammates start to sing along with whatever song this is, I take that as my cue to get the hell outta here for the day.
Stepping out into the hallway, I leave the loud twangy guitar and the singing behind me, closing the locker room door tightly and muffling the noise.
“Not as good as Dragonfly, huh?” a voice comments, and I startle a bit. Kyle Penton laughs softly as I connect eyes with him. “Sorry, Donny. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I eye him carefully, unsure why he’s down here.
Though the locker room’s off limits to media, aside from select player availability right after a game, sometimes reporters will pop down and wait outside the locker room after a practice if they have a question, but he never does.
Shit, he rarely shows up for practices to begin with, preferring to rub elbows with players inside the locker room after games.
“Looking for someone?” I ask, offering a smile I hope looks friendly enough. The last thing I want is for his bloated ego to take a swipe at me in the press.
“You, actually,” he comments, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.
He steps over to me and I clear my throat, preparing to answer whatever question he has as best as I can, but he doesn’t turn the microphone my way to catch my answer.
Instead, he taps at the screen, then turns his cold blue eyes to mine. “You enjoy the show last night?”
A small thread of caution ripples through me. “Yes.”
“Backstage, even,” he continues, staring into my eyes hard like he’s trying to catch me out on something.
Like who I was with.
Like who I danced with and who I kissed.
“Jude’s an old friend,” I offer, flat and simple, hoping he keeps it at that.
“Ah, yes. The great Oakley Keddimore’s step-brother is in the band.
Your best friend, Oakley,” he adds, like I don’t already know this information.
Our friendship was one of the stories that came out of our draft year, cameras capturing the moments we celebrated each other when our names were called.
“Yep. Do you have a question, Penton, or can I go? I have things I gotta do.”
“Like… see him?” Kyle asks, turning his phone around so I can see the screen.
Alarm rattles inside my head as I’m faced with an image of Shiloh, his arms wrapped around his midsection as he stares out at the stage beyond where we were set up for the show.
I’m standing behind him, but the shadows are covering my face, and though I can make out my height, I can’t make out my features.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do, Donny.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” I shrug, trying to play it cool even though my heart is hammering in my chest.
“Well, you might want to tell him that, because from where I was standing it looked like a hell of a lot more than friendship,” he comments, as he flicks his thumb on the screen revealing another picture that exposes a little bit more of my face.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking your face is hidden and that it’s you behind him can’t be proven.
That’s what you’re thinking, right?” He gives me no time to respond before flicking to the next image he took.
“Unfortunately, Dragonfly’s pyrotechnics caught you out, I’m afraid. ”
A pit opens in my stomach as he scrolls through the images on his phone, each one depicting Shiloh and me at the concert last night, illuminated by bursts of color and light echoing from the stage beyond where we stood.
There’s one of us holding hands. One of me behind him, my hands wrapped around his midsection.
One of me pressing a kiss to the top of his head, and one of Shiloh tilting his head up to capture my lips with his own.
Fuck.
Me.
Sideways.
How could I have been so careless?
“What the fuck?” I whisper, as Kyle closes the gallery and grins at me.
“He’s handsome,” Kyle comments. “Not who I pictured you fucking, but each to their own I suppose. He’s a bit edgy for my taste.”
“What do you want, Penton?” I ask, glancing between his face and the phone he clutches in his hand.
I wish I could grab it and smash it on the floor, but that wouldn’t do anything except call attention I don’t need my way.
Plus, he’s probably got them backed up on the cloud or some shit at this point. He’s a snake, but a clever one.
“Get Oakley to call me,” he says, like it’s a simple thing. “That’s all I want. A conversation with your best friend.”
“Oakley?”
“Did I stutter? Yes. Oakley.”
Confusion ripples through me as I stare into Kyle’s blue eyes. “Why don’t you just contact his agent or the team PR department if you want an interview?”
He lets loose a small laugh, shaking his head. “He’s declined to meet with me. You get him to agree and I won’t release these images.”
“That seems extreme,” I comment, trying to stay calm even though I’m screaming inside.
“I’m willing to be extreme if it means I get what I want,” he offers, with a smile I’m tempted to reach out and smack off his face.
“I’ll even be generous and give you two weeks to have him contact me.
I know schedules can be busy, but make no mistake, if I don’t hear from Oakley Keddimore within the next two weeks, these pictures will be published online for everyone to see. ”
“Fine.”
“You’ll lose everything, Donovan.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know, you fucking coward,” I snap back as I turn on my heel and head away, leaving Kyle behind. He has the audacity to laugh as I hustle toward the arena doors, the sound echoing off the concrete and churning my stomach.
I make a beeline for my Jeep, opening the doors and throwing myself up onto the seat as fast as I can.
I don’t take time to think or breathe or process everything Kyle just said, because my brain is screaming at me to call Oakley, and I know that until I speak with him it’s not going to shut up.
Everything feels gray and sour, my earlier happiness turning to dust as I fire up the Jeep’s engine and connect my phone via Bluetooth.
I jab my thumb at the screen, smacking Oakley’s number the minute the connection is made.
“What did you do?” I ask, as Oakley picks up the call.
“What are you talking about?”
“Why did I just have Kyle fucking Penton corner me outside the locker room, babbling some shit about you?”
Oakley sighs audibly at the other end of the call. “Kyle was a mistake who clearly does not understand an NDA.”
“Oakley, what the fuck? You fucked the reporter?”
“He’s cute, and in my defense I didn’t know he was a reporter when I picked him up. He found me on Grindr and came over last time I was in town.”
“He’s a leech,” I protest. “Everyone in this city knows it. He’s a self-serving asshole who writes garbage analysis and has trash opinions. All he wants is a ticket up to cover the Boston Copperheads, and apparently he thinks that ticket is attached to your dick.”
“Fuck,” Oakley says. He’s silent for a moment, then sighs again. “I should have known he’d be a problem when he tried to get at me through the PR team after we fucked. I’ll handle it.”
“You better. If he leaks the pictures he took, I’m fucked.”
“Wait. What?”
“I went to Jude’s concert last night with Shiloh and he was there. He snapped a few pics of us cuddled up together, and he’s threatening to take them public if he doesn’t get what he wants.”
“And he wants…”
“You, you fucking bonehead. He wants you, and as much as I don’t want to play into his shit, I don’t want to be outed like this. If I come out, it’ll be because I damn well want to and not because you fucked someone you shouldn’t have.”
“Fuck, Donovan,” Oakley breathes, his voice barely a whisper now. “I’ll handle it. I’m so sorry.”
“You better be.”
“I’ll have my agent reach out and remind him of the terms of the NDA he signed. She’ll throw some threats of legal action his way and he’ll leave you alone.”
“I hope so,” I sigh, tapping my fingers against the steering wheel nervously. “You gotta make better decisions with your dick, dude.”
Oakley snorts a laugh. “Dick-cisions.”
I can’t help but laugh a little bit, tension seeping out of me the tiniest bit. “Make better dick-cisions, then.”
“I will,” he promises. “I swear I didn’t know he’d get all wild. He seemed sweet. Cute. Harmless.”
“Reporters are never harmless. You’re lucky he didn’t snap a pic of your dick and share it online or something.”
“NDA. No phones or devices allowed in the room.”
“Smart,” I comment. “If only the concert had been the same way.”
“How’s Jude?” Oakley asks, his voice quieter now.
“Good. He’s not living in some garage working at a fast food place, dude. They’re touring with Niven right now as their opening act, but they’re really good.”
“Oh.”
A thousand questions flood my mind as silence enters the conversation, but I push them all away and ask the one that burns the brightest. “What happened between you guys?”
“We don’t see eye to eye on things,” Oakley comments, sounding a million miles away. “We never have. You know that.”
“Yeah,” I concede, even though that feels like it barely scrapes the surface of whatever caused this massive rift between them.
They used to at least be able to pretend to tolerate each other’s existence, but now?
I wouldn’t put them in a room together and trust that both of them would end up alive and whole. “Shit seemed easier back then, huh?”
“Yeah,” Oakley says, with a slight laugh. “I guess so. I should get going, though. Gonna call my agent then hit the gym.”
We exchange goodbyes and end the call, leaving me sitting in my Jeep in the silence with my head too full of worries and thoughts that have no place to go.
I know Oakley will handle the Kyle situation, but at the same time it eats at me that I can’t just be with my boyfriend out in public without the anxiety over being caught seeping in.
I know Shiloh has said he doesn’t care, but a piece of me wonders if he secretly does. Or if he eventually will.
Fuck.
I hate hockey sometimes. Not the sport itself, but the culture around it.
Sometimes I think it would have been easier if I’d walked away back when I was a kid and invested my time in something else.
Building model trains or collecting Pokemon cards or some shit.
I could have been a really great nerd instead of this hockey jock I turned into.
At least then I’d be able to walk out of the closet and say who I really am instead of hiding it behind a perfectly painted mask and a set of pads.
At least then nobody would be able to snap a picture of me holding hands with the man I’m dating and use it as blackmail to get what he wants.
I sigh as I put the Jeep into drive and make my way to the mouth of the parking lot to sign autographs for fans who might not actually want my signature if they knew who I really was.