3. Stud-drunk
Chapter Three
Stud-drunk
DYLAN
“Chris, I think I found my fated mate.”
Chris nearly spit out the Gatorade he’d been chugging.
“Sorry, I should have probably waited to tell you that.”
“Bro, seriously?”
“Serious as a dead doornail or whatever the saying is.”
“I don’t think that’s a saying…”
“Serious as a dead hangnail?”
“That’s even worse,” Chris said. He capped the Gatorade and put it down next to the leg press machine. I got up and swapped places with him. “Can you add another plate?”
I grabbed a forty-five-pound plate and slid it next to the five other weights that were already on the bar. “And I think he’s our new trainer,” I nonchalantly added as I was grabbing another forty-five for the other side. Chris looked up at me with his jaw dropped.
“All right, hold up.” He grabbed the handles on the machine and lifted himself up back onto his feet. “I’m going to need the full rundown, and not while I’m about to leg press four hundred and fifty pounds.”
“You sure? You can finish your set and then I’ll blab about my messy love life and—”
“I’m sure. I’m hungry anyway, let’s go grab something to eat across the street.”
My heart started to beat a little faster, and not because I was still coming down from my leg workout.
Why was I suddenly so nervous to talk about this?
Chris was my best friend, and I talked to him about everything, but this felt so much weightier than random hookups or dumb TV shows I’d recently become obsessed with.
And there was the whole issue about Miles not mentioning anything about my scent which was…
weird. If he was my fated mate then he would have felt that ground-shaking pull I felt the second I got within five feet of him.
But he didn’t say anything. In fact, it was the opposite, he seemed to be laser-focused on getting the hell away from me.
Not what I expected my fated mate to do.
I grabbed my light blue towel from my waistband and wiped sweat off my forehead. We had come to a gym closer to my house today. It was usually way busier than our gym at the Bobcats Arena but I didn’t mind. I liked the buzz of working out around a big group of people.
There was also the benefit of not accidentally bumping into Miles here. I was going to have to get used to seeing a lot of him from here on out, so best not have two awkward encounters back-to-back.
Chris and I made a quick stop in the bathroom to wash our hands and splash some water on our faces before leaving.
I followed him out. Sweat soaked through his white tank top, same as mine.
We had a great workout—leg day was one of my favorite days.
Helped me loosen up and work on making my thighs as tree-trunk sized as possible.
It was also one of the more important muscle groups for playing hockey.
I liked knowing I could propel myself across the ice and barrel into an opponent without toppling over.
I also liked the soreness that followed. It would be a perfect excuse to drop into Miles’ office for an afternoon of stretching and flexing and fu—
“All right, so what happened?” Chris asked, pulling me out of my daydream.
I gave him the full rundown, keeping the parts about shifting and wolves quiet while we waited in line to order our sandwiches. He kept his expression pretty neutral even though I could tell he wanted to shake me by the shoulders and double-check that I wasn’t playing a prank on him.
“And you’re sure about this?” Chris said. We walked out to a quiet corner of the courtyard that looked out over a peaceful garden. I stared down a large bumblebee that seemed to be seconds away from flying over and attacking me. “Focus, Dyl, that bee isn’t going to bug you.”
“I see what you did there.”
“Huh? Oh,” Chris said with a laugh. “You’re something else.”
“I’m a love-struck cub is what I am, Chris. And it seems like I’m going to keep being one for the foreseeable future.”
“Maybe he was shy? Maybe that’s why he wanted to bolt?”
I cocked my head and slanted my lips. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s how the whole fated mates thing works.”
“To be fair, you didn’t know much about any of it until Gabe and Eli found each other. And even then, it’s still kind of a mystery to all of us.”
“It’s not a mystery to me, not anymore. The feeling is indescribable, Chris.
Seeing him, smelling him, touching him… It was like figuring out how to bottle joy and ecstasy and passion all together and taking a double shot of it.
Not even poppers feel like that. Fuck. I felt drunk.
I still feel drunk. I would have pushed him down to the ground and had my way with him right there in the rain—and you know me, I like being in a comfortable environment for extracurricular activities.
Preferably with good air conditioning and maybe a Tempur-Pedic mattress, but I’ll take a couch if I need to. Or a kitchen floor. Whatever.”
Chris laughed again. He took a bite of his brisket sandwich, wiping his lips with a napkin.
He’d just gotten a buzz cut, which was a new style for him.
It looked good even though it made us seem more like siblings than usual.
“You are pretty picky about your setting. But also, with him being our trainer, doesn’t that make things more complicated? ”
“Maybe, but if fate says it’s meant to be then who am I to argue?”
“True.” Chris leaned back in his chair, looking at me in the way only a best friend does when they’re trying to see through the smile.
Chris was one of the first people I met when I was traded to the Bobcats.
It was four years ago, during a time in my life where I felt like I’d been drifting and purposeless, lashing out and bitter about the cards life had dealt me by burning bridges and setting fire to my past. I broke up with a steady girlfriend, I gave up on the hopes of ever reuniting with my cousin—who’d been my best friend since we were kids and had been the one to introduce me to hockey in the first place—and I moved to Burlington with the mindset of “fuck everything and everyone.”
It wasn’t a healthy mindset to have. Thankfully my vice had been no-strings-attached sex and not something like hard drugs or bottles of alcohol.
It allowed me to still be functional, albeit horny as fuck, but kept the self-destructive behavior to a minimum.
At least in terms of my body—the jury was still out about my emotions.
I was still a beast on the ice and, although I certainly wasn’t the smartest, I balanced that out with a heart of gold.
Chris seemed to have picked up on that from the day we met. After our first practice, he invited me over to his place for a chill evening of video games and pizza.
The rest was bro-bestie history.
“You’re, like, glowing,” Chris observed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you talk about someone like this. That’s how I know you’re not fucking with me.”
“I’m not, I’m really not. I don’t even know this man but it still feels like I can talk about him for hours. How crazy is that?”
“It’s crazy, but in a good way.”
I sighed and tensed as the bumblebee swooped in my direction before veering back toward a cluster of vibrant red roses.
As scary as that damn buzzing bee the size of my fist was, I had a thought that was even more frightening.
“Now I guess the real question is what if fate messed this up? What if this is somehow one-sided?”
Chris mulled over that for a moment, taking another bite of his sandwich, a sip of his water. I distracted myself from the anxiety by bouncing my leg under the table and gulping down some of my lemonade.
“Maybe we should have a chat with Gabe and Eli? See exactly how they felt when they first met. That could help.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that. I asked Yuni if she had some time to chat, too. She always knows how to fix things.”
“Good idea.” Chris leaned forward on the small wooden table. “Whatever the case, I don’t think fate can mess up. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. Period.”
“I hope so.”
Understatement of the damn century. All I’d been wanting in my life was someone special to share it with.
But seeing the absolute shitstorm my mom suffered being with my heartless father made me wary of even looking for that kind of connection.
Seeing how open they were about their love for each other had imprinted on me from an early age that it was something special.
They were the type of parents who weren’t shy about holding hands or giving kisses to each other, even though I’d roll my eyes or shout “gross” from the back of the car.
I had never meant it, of course. It made my heart full to see how much they loved each other.
Especially around the time when it seemed like all my friends’ parents were dealing with divorces or drama at home.
Not me, though. It all felt perfect. Valentine’s Day meant the house was full of flowers, birthdays meant special vacations to beautiful spots that were as picturesque as the smile on my mom’s face when she’d look at my dad.
I’d grown up thinking love was something unbeatable.
A treasure that never tarnished, especially if it was anchored with a family that felt unbreakable from the start.
It was me, my mom, and my dad against the world.
Except it wasn’t. It was me and my mom, while my dad drifted off and formed an entirely new family in secret.
The discovery was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off inside the home of my nuclear family.
It all happened when I was seventeen. Ten years ago now, and I was still dealing with the fallout.
Maybe fate had made a mistake with them and now history was simply repeating itself?
“What’s he look like?” Chris asked. “Is he your type?”
“Chris, man, you know I don’t have a type.”
He scoffed at that. “True, but also everyone has a type. I’ve seen the girls and guys you talk to.”
This was true. Chris had been privy to a lot of my conquests, which I had mostly kept under wraps from everyone else on the team.
I wasn’t even entirely sure a lot of my teammates knew I was bi.
Coming out was something that had made me nervous, but ever since Gabe ripped that Band-Aid off and came out as gay, I started to let go of that fear.
It wasn’t that I thought I’d be ostracized from the team, but I feared the attention.
Especially considering that I was already hiding the fact I was a shifter.
But Gabe being a trailblazer took a lot of the pressure off of me.
“Well? Who do I have to keep an eye on for you? What’s he look like?”
I chuckled at that and gazed off into the distance, picturing the handsome man standing in the rain.
“He’s a little taller than me. Dark hair, wavy I think, but it was wet from the rain.
He has greenish-hazel eyes that literally fucking stole my breath away.
He’s not super muscular, which I like. He also has great style—wears a gold bracelet and two necklaces that look like they’re worth more than my car.
He also has a slutty little gold earring on his right ear that I wanted to lick. ”
Chris’ eyes were wide. He was shaking his head and subtly drawing a line across his neck. I scrunched my face, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. “What? Do you not think any of that is insanely hot? Because I know I sure do.”
His eyes slowly drifted upward. My confusion only intensified. Shit. Was it the bumblebee? Had it landed on my head and I was so stud-drunk that I didn’t realize it?
I quickly swatted at the empty air above my head before turning around in my chair.
That’s when I nearly toppled out of it from sheer surprise and pure embarrassment.
“You think my earring is really that slutty?” Miles asked me with a half-cocked grin as sunlight washed over his tanned skin.