2. Mason #2
All I’d done since hearing him say his truth was fret and get angry, and even avoided social gatherings where I’d have to talk to him, and what was that about?
The one time I’d actually plucked up the courage to start a conversation about him coming out, my brother had ambled over and gave me a noogie before pushing me in the pool.
Things had become awkward, and there was also the way that Xander was avoiding me right back.
The last thing he would want is me down by the glass doing our thing when he didn’t even want to look at me when he was in the house, let alone talk to me.
What’s the worst that can happen if I do go down there?
That was easy. Xander Holden, the man who held my heart in his hands, could skate rapidly in the opposite direction, and I’d be left staring at his very fine hockey butt.
“You need to talk to him.” She leaned in as she gave me her latest piece of wisdom and kept her voice low.
We didn’t know the people sitting closest to us, but the arena was still filling so the seats around us were mostly empty.
We just had to be careful because with some of the shit I’d read in forums revolving around Xander coming out, I didn’t want to add myself as a problem to the anti-gay sentiment swelling from some parts of the media and the crowd.
We’d made it to the finals by the skin of our teeth, with a rag-tag group of exhausted and injured men, and no one really expects us to beat a hot LA team.
“No I don’t.”
“Well, you need to before the big vay-cay,” she air quoted the last part in an effort to highlight the one flaw in my plan to avoid Xander.
Eli had corralled me into helping him organize a surprise birthday party for Xander’s thirtieth, which was coming up soon.
I’d found the hotel, scouted for things to do, tried everything to make it special for the three of us, and had a long list of excuses ready for me to get out of doing things with them.
I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
I was in love with him when I thought he was straight and unattainable. Now he was bi and single, and my lizard brain just wanted him under me, in me, over me, then next to me for the rest of my life.
I have it so bad.
“You have to tell him before you go, at least. I mean, you can’t get to the island and then hide in your room the entire freaking time and ignore him just in case he notices how you feel.”
Becca was right. Birthdays were momentous, and this was a big one. I hadn’t seen Xander hook up with a guy yet, so I had a chance. Right?
I’d considered talking to Eli, and even though Eli was an asshole at times, he would do anything for me. I was his priority, and if he found out I’d approached Xander about how I felt, he would feel betrayed, weirded out, but I know he would eventually forgive me for breaking the unspoken rule.
He would never forgive Xander. Not after everything that happened at the same party where the popcorn incident had taken place.
I turned eighteen, got into a fight with Becca, and had to fend off an unwanted and physical advance from a hockey player that left me shaken.
I’d persuaded Eli it was nothing, but how Eli hadn’t killed the guy I don’t know.
I wouldn’t forget Aarni Lankinen in a hurry, and worse, neither would Eli.
Super protective big brother turned into his own branch of the boyfriend police.
And if he knew I’d fallen for Xander to the point where my heart wasn’t my own, what would he do?
Xander played hockey, but he was a good guy.
Xander was a defenseman who was like a brick wall, had more than one fight, hip-checked like a beast, and protected his team with his body, but he was a good guy.
It was too late to talk anymore, the team was coming out for warm-ups, and Becca gripped my arm. “Please, Mase?”
I rolled my eyes just to let her know this was against my better judgment and then jumped the four steps to glass level and bypassed some of the fans there with posters asking for pucks from various players.
Mostly from the new kid, Austin Rowe, who was a pretty blond guy with a boyfriend, and also a hell of a player.
I reached my spot just as the black and gold spilled onto the ice, and as soon as they saw I was there, Eli and Xander headed my way.
There was this complicated fist bump thing the three of us did, the same as I’d done with them when I was six, and the routine of it ended with them high fiving each other, leaning in and doing that chainsaw quote thing they did.
When Eli skated off to shoot a few pucks, Xander stayed right at the glass and tilted his head in question as if he was examining me.
Unbidden I pressed my hand flat to the plexiglass, and he nodded.
God knows what any of that meant, but the butterflies in my stomach were flapping and smashing into each other, and I turned away from the ice and headed back to Becca on wobbly legs.
I semi-collapsed into my seat, sliding down until I could hide my face in my hands.
What had I just done, putting my hand on the glass like that?
As if Xander and I had a connection that actually meant something past being family friends.
“Mason! Becca!”
We both turned to face the woman who called our names, and a smile replaced the angst. The Blakes were here.
Mom, momma, and toddler twins, one of the first surrogacy cases that I’d been handed to work through myself with Becca on the team.
The first, but not the last, same-sex case we’d been handed.
The downfall of working for the conservative and uber traditional Franklin Agency was that the words same and sex used together were abhorrent to the owners.
What the agency did love though was that these new clients brought with them a whole new income stream that couldn’t be ignored.
The hypocrisy was barefaced, and obvious to our clients, and was why Becca and I were branching out with our own agency.
We wanted a place dedicated to all kinds of cases, not just same-sex parents, but single parents, and in fact, anything else that didn’t fit into the remit of the Franklin Agency and their strict and stuffy rules.
The Blake twins looked so cute in tiny Rebels jerseys, and the moms showed us a homemade sign proclaiming this was the twins’ first game. I’d make sure to get them a couple of pucks, and after I waved at the kids, I sent a quick text to Eli that I knew he would pick up after the game.
“Did you write your resignation letter?” I blurted because I sure as hell needed to change the conversation away from hockey, and Xander, and being hopelessly in love with the unattainable.
“Yep. You?”
“It’s done.”
She reached out and took my hand, squeezing it in reassurance. We were both turning in our notices at the end of next month, and that was big. Huge.
That was what I needed to focus on. Not the game, not the upcoming vacation which was going to be frustratingly awkward. And certainly not Xander.