53. Chapter 53
Chapter fifty-three
A blanket of silence covers the room. So many things unsaid.
I love you. That’s been said. A lot.
Denver. I have to go back to Denver. I want to go back to Denver. That is my home. Rowan is there now. My team is there. They are my family and I love them. But these two men. I love them too. We all have the means to jet set around, living in the same city is not essential. But not living in the same city is also not ideal.
Rowan suggested we need some time on my turf.
I can’t do what I did last season, bouncing between cities during the season. It took a mental and physical toll on me I’m not willing to repeat.
And Nandy. His family is in Chicago. His life is here. Fynn…the club. They can’t leave Chicago. I would never ask them to.
What do we do? Summers here, All-Star breaks…is that enough. Enough to sustain what is already the challenge created by the number three. Try it out for a season in Denver and then reassess?
It isn’t enough. I know deep down it isn’t enough for me. I may have been anti-relationship, anti-marriage, anti-everything until Nandy. Until Fynn. I want to wake up in their arms every morning. I want to go to sleep sated with our legs tangled in such a knot it can never be undone. Is that selfish of me? Will they resent me if I ask them to make Denver home base instead of Chicago.
“I don’t have an answer,” Nandy says.
I raise my eyebrows. Did I say any of that out loud.
“Those questions in your head. Those hard, hard questions swirling around in your head…I don’t have an answer.”
“Apparently neither do I.”
“Really?” Fynn says. “It’s simple.”
Nandy and I both gawk at him.
“If you don’t have an answer then you aren’t asking the right question.”
I blink. Fynn looks between the two of us. “Ask the question you really want to ask. The one that scares you the most.”
I swallow and take a deep breath. Why does this scare me? Is it the no or the yes that scares me the most?
“I can’t….I don’t know how to make this work. I don’t want to leave Denver. I can’t leave Denver. And Chicago….well, that’s home for both of you…so, it’s not really fair of me.”
“What isn’t fair,” Fynn pushes.
I exhale again.
“How do I get you two to come to Denver?”
“Just ask.” Fynn says. “Just ask us to come.”
Fynn makes it seem so simple. Nandy’s expression tells me otherwise. Fynn makes everything simple, clear. The whole world is simple and clear when I look at him. When I look into those green eyes of his. When he touches me. When those lips are wrapped around my cock. When those lips are pressed against mine. Those soft puffy pillows of his, swollen from one of his mind-blowing blow jobs or minutes, hours of just kissing, fuck, kissing him is…it’s what I’ve come to live for.
“It isn’t that simple,” my eyes are on Nandy now. He’s the director. And we like it that way. “Is it?”
“Make it that simple,” Fynn says sharply drawing my eyes back to him. He let me remove his makeup last night and I love it. I love his smooth creamy skin and warm green eyes. His dark lashes are so thick and long even without extensions or mascara. His focus is still laser-locked on me. He isn’t wavering. But he has put the ball in my court, and he will not make a move until I do.
“What about the club, your parents…” I flounder.
“Ask the damn question,” he snaps “Or is it that you are afraid we might actually say yes.”
I quirk my lips a bit and Fynn laughs. “Ah…”
“Wait, not like you think. I don’t want there to be resentment later…”
“I’ve never lived anywhere else, since my parents plucked me out of the Dominican Republic.” Nandy says. My heart sinks. I know. He is so close to his family. “Maybe it’s time I see another city from a place other than a stage.”
I gawk at him. What is he saying?
“How long do hockey careers last?” Fynn asks.
I furrow my brow. “Depends,”
“Okay, but not like 20 more years, right?”
“Probably not.”
“So, we go to Colorado for the rest of your career and then reassess.”
The rest of my career. Holy fuck, he is ready to go all in, isn’t he? “Reassess what the location or the relationship?”
Fynn laughs at the anxiety in my voice. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want temporary. I don’t want you to treat this like some sort of trial…or experiment.” Ironic that I am the one saying that. It gets a tiny grin from Nandy. Otherwise, he is standing, still and quiet. Expressionless. I can’t read a damn thing going on behind that gorgeous face. He is letting Fynn take the lead here, why?
“Then what do you want?” Fynn presses, but his tone has softened.
“Everything.”
I rake my hands through my hair and stare at these two stunningly beautiful men who turned my world upside down in all the best ways and now have me standing before them asking what I want.
“I want absolutely fucking everything,” I say.
“I want you wearing my jersey at games.
“I want to wake up tangled with both of you every morning.
“I want to fall asleep on sheets wet from our come, with each of us too spent to get up and change them.
“I want to walk into a closet filled with my plain dark suits sandwiched between your brightly colored shiny ones and all of your leather and silky blouses and know that, well, that’s us…that we shouldn’t fit, we shouldn’t hang so comfortably together, but…
“I want it all…
“I want you both to move to Denver for me, for us….please.”
Fynn and I both turn to Nandy. His answer the determiner…shit…if he says no…are we done before we even really started? Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Why is he so stoic.
Why can’t I read his expressions. He has been leaning against the back of couch listening to my speech. Listening to Fynn and I banter about, Fynn making me lay it all out on the table. Well, I did. I tossed it all out there onto the damn floor where Nandy can walk all over it if he so chooses.
Please choose….us.
He told me once, there is no us. He said it in anger, fear…it was months ago, but it suddenly feels like decades. But also again in that weird quirk of time, like yesterday. I can hear those words so clearly. So, so fucking clearly. They still hurt. Still cut me to core. And despite his assurances, I’m afraid there was, is, truth to them.
My brain is trying to rally another speech. The one that will make him say yes…the one that will keep us all together. The one where I backtrack on everything I just said I want and make it temporary if they want. But before I can do that Nandy moves.
He uncrosses those long legs, shoves himself away from the back of the couch and steps forward. That steely expression remains unchanged. Has he been taking lessons from Brady?
I’m frozen, barely breathing, my heart races, my hands are shaking.
Nandy’s hands are soft and warm against my neck and he cradles my face in his palms. He plants the softest kiss against my lips and his eyes twinkle.
“Okay.”