Chapter 14 #2
They sat in silence for a while. It was perfect weather for sitting outside with a dog. Maybe Adam should get a dog.
No, he shouldn’t do that. Who would take care of it while he was away?
A boyfriend, a traitorous part of his mind whispered. Would Mo want a dog? More importantly, would Mo want to be his boyfriend?
Jorts’s phone chirped. Then chirped again. Then it played a whole symphony of birdsong. He grunted and pulled it from his pants pocket. Adam had left his inside; he couldn’t look at it anyway.
“What the—”
His tone made Adam sit up straight. “What is it?”
Jorts scowled at his phone, frantically scrolled, then typed.
“Jorts.” God, was it his kids? Maddison? Or was it the team? Adam wished he had his phone handy if only so he’d know if his was blowing up too.
“Holy fucking shit, they did.”
“Jorts!” Adam’s skin felt too tight. He might puke.
He was still swiping at his phone screen, clearly trying to get more answers. “They sold us—Fuck, the Du Ponts, they sold the team.”
“What?” Adam croaked.
“Next year, the Canyons are moving to Seattle.”
Adam went cold. “No.”
There would’ve been rumors. Right? That kind of move needed buy-in from the NHL. You couldn’t just pick a team up and move it wholesale. They had to study the new market, estimate its viability, its ability to support an NHL franchise—
Except the coffee mogul Troy Bernardo in Seattle had already filed the paperwork to start an expansion franchise.
The research had been underway for years.
Adam had been reading updates about it the whole season.
Last he’d read, the wannabe owners had purchased land and filed a permit to build an arena.
Just last week, actually.
Even though the NHL hadn’t approved their application for an expansion team yet.
“Some kind of behind-the-scenes deal,” Jorts said, as though from very far away.
“I don’t know, it sounds shady as fuck, but I’m just reading between the lines…
Oh my God, why does this article mention your super-fake relationship?
‘Early in the season, problems plagued the Canyons’—you have a verbal disagreement with your teammate in a bar one time and everything gets blown out of proportion, I swear—‘and taking a chance on that team might have been a gamble. But since then, the Phoenix-based team’—I hate when they do that, Jesus Christ—‘has had nothing but glowing press. With a solid record and the feel-good story of the romance between Captain Adam Murphy and boyfriend Moritz Du Pont’… ”
No.
Mo couldn’t have done that to him on purpose just for good press. He hated his parents. Having met them, Adam didn’t doubt his sincerity there. He wanted nothing more than to wait out his payday so he could fuck off out of their lives forever.
Then Adam remembered the text.
Hey, can we hold off on public announcements? Parents asking me to keep it on the dl.
“I’m gonna throw up.”
Jorts looked up, alarmed. His phone clattered to the patio. “Whoa, hey—”
He caught up to Adam in the powder room. Fortunately, he’d managed to keep from heaving, but his body had broken out in a hot-cold sweat. His head swam.
He splashed cold water on his hands and face, his wrists, and the back of his neck. The light-headedness subsided some.
“Tell me what’s going on, bud.”
Adam felt too miserable to protest. Leaning heavily on the counter, he kept his face pointed down. He didn’t want to meet his own expression in the mirror. “He asked me not to make it public. The breakup. Said his parents didn’t want the bad press.”
A beat.
“Do you think he knew they were selling?”
Adam closed his eyes. “What else am I supposed to think?”
Jorts said, “So are we keying his car or do you want us to set it on fire?”
Adam laughed mirthlessly, then regretted it when a stab of pain went through his head. “Fuck. Jesus.” He stood up straight, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So much for the ‘friends, maybe not just friends’ theory. He was just playing the doting boyfriend to get in good with Mommy and Daddy.”
“Adam…”
He couldn’t take the pity. Not about this. He’d made his own dumb decisions for his own dumb reasons and they’d bitten him in his own dumb ass. He’d deal with that by himself, like an adult. His concussion symptoms were practically gone.
“I need you to leave, please.” The words came out steady, but Adam’s hands were shaking. He clenched them harder on the counter.
“Adam—”
God damn it. “I’m going to fucking cry if you’re here.
” His voice cracked. Jorts had always been his safe person, a guy he could display a full range of emotion to.
Normally, he appreciated that deep friendship.
“And if I cry, I’m going to get a migraine and throw up again. You gotta go, man, please.”
“All right,” Jorts said finally. “I’m calling to check on you later. You better answer.”
“Ugh,” Adam said.
He stayed where he was until he heard the front door close and Jorts’s car start in the driveway. Then he slid down to the bathroom floor and pressed his head against the cool enamel of the tub. Breathe in. Hold for four. Breathe out. Repeat. Just focus on the breathing.
Eventually, the burn behind his eyes dissipated and he got off the floor.
He should drink some Gatorade. He’d been out in the heat too long. He couldn’t afford to get dehydrated—not if he wanted to return to skating in time for the playoffs. So he’d get some fluids, then take a nap.
Tomorrow, he had a doctor’s appointment. If the evaluation went well, Adam could get cleared for light workouts.
That was something he could control. He needed to focus on that.
Mo burned rubber all the way to Adam’s.
He was twenty-four; outside of overseas check-ins with Sage, he’d never voluntarily made a voice call in his life. But he made CarPlay dial Adam’s number over and over, until on the third try it didn’t ring at all, just sent him straight to voicemail.
Fuck his parents. Jesus Christ. Had they really just used Mo’s love life to make money? And how had they managed to squeak that deal past the NHL’s ethics committee? Bribery?
Fuck.
Finally, he pulled up outside Adam’s house. Somehow, Jorts’s car wasn’t in the driveway. Mo left the keys in the engine and jogged up the front steps.
“Adam!” He pounded his open palm against the door.
Oh fuck. Was he making a scene? It was the middle of the day. Belatedly, he looked over both shoulders. One of Adam’s neighbors a few doors down was pruning a potted cactus or something.
Fuck it. He knocked again. “Adam! Open the door, come on!”
He had to be home, right? Mo didn’t remember him mentioning any upcoming appointments.
He could be sleeping. But that wouldn’t explain why he’d sent Mo’s call straight to voicemail.
It fucking figured. Mo finally found the stones to own up to what he wanted and his parents went and shat all over it. They couldn’t have planned it better if they’d known about the fake thing the whole time.
Finally, the doorbell speaker cracked to life. “Fuck off, Mo.”
“Can we talk? Please?” Mo peered at the doorbell’s camera, hoping the fish-eye lens didn’t distort his sincere expression into something else.
“I only talk with friends.”
“We are—”
“Was ‘fuck off’ not clear?”
“Adam, please.” Mo wasn’t above begging.
“No means no.”
It sounded final. It sounded miserable. But it was a statement Mo couldn’t argue against, especially when the light went off and the speaker cut out.
Adam wasn’t listening anymore.
With slumped shoulders and stinging eyes, Mo returned to his car.
The trip home passed in a haze.
He was sitting in his driveway, engine off, staring at the house his parents owned and made him live in, wondering what the hell he was going to do next, when his phone lit up with a text.
Heart hammering, he scrambled for his phone.
Orson Du Pont.
Remember to consult Audrey about your breakup strategy.
Suddenly, Mo knew just where to go. What he wanted to do.
Mo hadn’t navigated to the Du Pont Property and Holdings headquarters many times in his life, but after years of avoiding the place, he could have driven the route in his sleep.
He parked out front like an asshole and took the elevator straight up to the top floor.
Miss Daisy was in her usual spot guarding Orson’s door. “Mo—”
“Is he in?” Mo didn’t break stride. He slapped both palms on the door and shoved. It was an entrance worthy of a fantasy epic.
Orson and Claire sat with a pair of suits at the intimidating corporate table on the lefthand side of the office.
“Moritz!” Claire yelped.
“Now is not the time,” Orson scolded. “We’re busy.”
A harsh, bitter laugh barked out of Mo. “You’re always busy. You’ve been busy my entire life.”
“I have no idea—”
“No, of course you don’t! Because you never see me or look my way—unless, of course, you need me to look pretty for the camera or boost your credibility with liberals.”
“Moritz, you will stop this juvenile—”
“Juvenile? You think this is me acting like a kid? No, this is me finally growing up and being an adult. I’ve spent my whole life afraid of you, too scared of your disapproval to step out of line.
But I played the good son, and you still fucked me over.
” They tried to speak again, but Mo kept going, on a roll now.
“Because you don’t care about me, you just care about money.
It’s all you’ve ever cared about, and the rest of us are just pawns for you to get it. ”