Chapter 16
Mo checked his phone one last time before closing the shop, but neither Mads nor Jorts had texted anything new since that afternoon’s Message delivered, followed by the emoji giving a salute.
Not that Mo expected him to suddenly switch allegiance and start feeding Mo insider information, but a hint might be nice.
No dice, though, so he double-checked the equipment was all switched off, flicked the sign to Closed, and grabbed his keys.
Access to his apartment was via an external staircase, which would suck when the Phoenix sun started baking the parking lot, but Mo knew Gerry wasn’t charging him the going rate for rent, and Mo wasn’t in a position to be picky.
He might have to start paying more attention, though, because the second the door locked, a voice behind him said, “Hey,” and he jumped three feet and dropped his keys.
“Jesus Christ.” He gave himself a second to make sure he wasn’t dying of a heart attack before he picked up his keys and turned around.
Adam stood in the parking lot, leaning awkwardly against the car Mo helped him pick out, somehow managing to look incredibly edible and extremely awkward.
He’d tried to tuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans, but he had so much junk in his trunk they didn’t really fit, so his shoulders ended up around his ears.
Mo’s heart tried to have another episode. He licked his lips. “Hey. Uh, hi.” He really wanted to say, Thanks for coming, but oh my God, you couldn’t have texted first? but he didn’t want to throw away his second chance right out of the gate.
“Hi,” Adam replied. “Uh, sorry for just—dropping in. I didn’t think that through.”
“Maybe not.”
“Can I give you a ride home?”
Mo’s heart pounded. “Not unless your new car goes up stairs.”
Adam frowned, and Mo motioned for him to follow around the side of the building up to the second floor and his new digs.
As Adam stepped inside, Mo couldn’t help but notice how much the kitchen/living room looked like neither.
He didn’t have a table or chairs, and all the crap he hadn’t yet found a home for littered the counters.
At the other end of the open space, the “living room” had a couch, but only because Gerry had shifted his old one here when he upgraded.
Otherwise the room was less comfort, and more piles of boxes, bags, and shop tools light enough to carry up the stairs.
His largest tools were still in Oleander and Rose’s garage.
Adam hadn’t grown up in a mansion—he wouldn’t judge, Mo told himself. He mostly believed it.
He fought the urge to wipe his palms on his greasy coveralls. “You want something to drink?”
“You said you wanted to talk.” Adam crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and tried to put his hands back in his pockets. “So talk.”
“Right.” Okay, so, getting right to it. Adam’s body language suggested he was nervous too.
Mo took a deep breath. At least he couldn’t make anything worse.
“I didn’t know. About the sale, I mean.” So smooth.
Jesus. He ran a hand through his hair. “I had no idea what my parents were up to or why they wanted us to keep quiet about our breakup. I don’t know anything about their business.
Ever since I refused to take a job there after graduation, I’ve been cut out.
I never lied to you while we were together. ”
“Okay.” Adam nodded, and his shoulders lowered a few inches so they were no longer around his ears. “That’s, uh, that’s good.”
Not good enough, maybe. Mo forced himself to blurt out the rest of it. “I’m sorry my parents are assholes who made you think I was using you for shady business deals.” No, that wasn’t right. He took another breath. “No, I’m sorry I made you think that. I should have been more honest with you.”
Adam rubbed his jaw. The hint of a flush had crept into his cheeks. “I might have overreacted. Turns out emotional dysregulation is a concussion symptom.”
Mo strangled a laugh. “No shit?” He didn’t want to mock, but he’d witnessed that mess firsthand.
Nodding, Adam scuffed a shoe across Mo’s ugly carpet. He seemed to be staring at the wall to Mo’s left. “I also might have been waiting to be hurt.”
His breath caught as hope twisted in his stomach. “Oh?”
“Ever since Christmas, I’ve been… expecting more heartbreak.” Adam still wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Wait—“More?”
“I realized I wanted it to be real—wanted us to be real.” He finally looked Mo in the face, and Mo could clearly read the pain in his eyes. “And then you said we should break up before I could say anything.”
Oh fuck. A sharp, self-deprecating laugh escaped Mo’s mouth before he could stop it.
More hurt flashed across Adam’s face, and his guard went back up even as Mo stammered to explain.
“Shit, sorry, that—I was laughing at me.” He took a step forward.
He wanted to reach for Adam’s hands but didn’t know if Adam would accept his touch—or what he’d do if Adam pulled away.
“I told myself I didn’t want to hurt your family, that they shouldn’t get attached to me when our relationship wasn’t real.
But really, it’s my own heart I was afraid of breaking.
Your family’s acceptance and all the happy, fun holiday stuff…
I wanted it so bad, it hurt. But that would’ve been okay if I didn’t already have feelings for you. And knowing it was fake…”
“Yeah.” Adam’s shoulders dropped and a small smile hovered around the edges of his mouth. “It’s why I wanted to ask you to date me for real.”
“Yes, please,” Mo’s mouth said before his brain could catch up. “I mean—if it’s still—I’m so stupid because it wasn’t until I panicked about you getting injured that I finally admitted it to myself.”
“Admitted what?” Adam stepped closer, so Mo matched him with another step.
“That I like you. I want to date you for real and maybe, if I’m lucky, get to go back to New Brunswick someday.”
“I think that’s pretty likely. Mum and Dad will riot if I don’t. Not to mention what Chuckie will say.” They were reaching out for each other now, entwining their limbs.
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to disappoint my favorite members of the Murphy clan—”
Adam kissed him.
For the first time in weeks, Mo settled.
Yes, his life was still in chaos, his tiny apartment was a mess, his boyfriend was moving to Seattle, and Mo had only been working his first-ever job for less than a fortnight, but those were details.
He’d figure it all out, and Adam would be with him while he did.
“So,” Mo said some minutes later, arms twined around Adam’s neck. “Wanna go on a not-fake date with me and get some dinner?”
“Can’t think of anything I want more.”
The memory of Adam’s grin was going to keep Mo warm the rest of the night.
He stepped back, tangled their fingers together, and tugged Adam to his feet. “I just need to shower and change and then we can go. You’re driving. Your ride is nicer than mine.”
“Since when?”
“Since last week. I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.”
Adam lifted Mo’s—still pretty dirty—hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I’ll hold you to that promise.”
“Good. Now let’s get moving. I’m hungry.”
Two months after Adam and Mo’s first official real date, the Canyons’ last Stanley Cup dreams died on home ice, a brutal game-seven loss in the Conference Final. Adam held his head up high, knowing Mo was in the stands, ready to catch him.
That night, he curled around Mo and buried his face in his neck, and they both pretended Adam’s face wasn’t wet.
But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He had responsibilities as team captain. And for once, the end of the season didn’t feel like pushing Pause on life. He had teammates to bolster and preparations to make.
And also, a boyfriend who took the opportunity of Adam hosting a team barbecue to reveal his alter-ego as the terrifying and awe-inspiring love child of Ru Paul and Martha Stewart.
Adam normally woke early and got a workout in while Mo slumbered on. But the morning of the Canyons’ farewell party, Mo threw open the curtains at an hour he normally would’ve called ungodly and chirped, “Up and at ’em, sunshine, we’ve got stuff to do!”
Mo put his socialite-hostess training to work transforming Adam’s house and yard for the final team barbecue. Well, as the Arizona Canyons. Adam knew how to host a barbecue in New Brunswick weather; he could figure out Seattle.
When the cleaning and decorating and food and drink prep—Adam had cut so much citrus, his skin had chapped, and Mo ordered him out of the kitchen to wash and bathe in moisturizer—had finished, Adam had hoped for a half an hour just to spend with Mo.
But he’d only gotten as far as stealing a lemon-scented kiss when the doorbell rang and Mo kicked him out to the backyard to supervise.
Because his mother hadn’t raised a fool, Adam stayed in the backyard, where he kept an eye on the pool, the drinks, and the grill. With Jorts acting as the team’s grill master and Beauchamp, a son of New Orleans, as his deputy, Adam didn’t have to worry about that, at least.
“Hallsy! Remove your hands from those tongs and no one gets hurt!” Jorts held him at tong-point, clearly ready to defend the meat with his life.
Shaking his head, Adam stepped away. He wasn’t foolish enough to get between Jorts and his postseason grill therapy.
He found Picks near the drinks cooler, staring morosely into a beer.
This was the part about being captain Adam had worried might not suit him. Time for the ultimate test.
Adam grabbed his own drink, claimed the deck chair next to Picks, and nudged their knees together. “Hey, kid.”
Picks jumped. “Oh, hi. Sorry.”
“For?”
“Uh, not seeing you?”
“Meh. I’m easy to miss, being so small and waifish.”
Picks didn’t smile. Damn. Would Adam have to work on perfecting a kidding tone? He’d always enjoyed making people wonder, but if it got in the way of good captaining…
“Okay, what’s with the frown? This is a party.”
“A party because we lost,” Picks pointed out.
Okay, yes, Adam felt that, but: “No, a party because we’re a team and we had a great season and now it’s over.”
“Because we lost.”
Adam shrugged, hearing the echo of his younger, less well-rounded self in the words. “Sure. But someone had to. Only one team can go out on a win.”
“Aren’t you, like, sad?”
Was he? Well… yes. But not in the same way he’d have felt last year.
Even Adam from October wouldn’t have handled it this well.
“Of course. But sulking into my beer won’t change anything.
Look, I’m not saying you can’t be sad—be sad, mope if you need to.
Eat a tub of ice cream and cry about how the NHL broke your heart.
Whatever you need. But being sad at a party with your team is just going to make you feel worse. Trust me, I know.”
“I just—” Picks pulled a face. “I was so sure we had it, you know?”
Adam did know. They’d been up 3–2 in the series before dropping two straight.
“If I hadn’t—”
“Nope,” Adam cut in gently. “No blaming yourself for a team loss.”
Picks pouted.
Adam felt old. “Most people your age aren’t even out of university.
Stop hiding in the corner like your career is over.
Have fun. There’s more to life than winning hockey games.
” He hauled Picks out of his seat and spun him toward Hallsy, who’d brought his siblings.
Adam didn’t know what Picks was into, but he figured most kids his age would be happy to meet one of the equally pretty fraternal Halls twins.
“Go say hi. Maybe help Hallsy find the beer.” He thought about that sentence, then amended, “Or the pool. Or snacks.”
“Fine, fine. Captain’s orders, I get it.” He mock-saluted and scurried out of reach.
“Kids these days,” Adam muttered.
“Okay, Grandpa.”
Adam turned, already grinning, to find Mo watching him from his spot against the house. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to hear you give Picks a pretty good pep talk, and to text Jorts about the body-snatcher invasion. ‘More to life than winning hockey’? Who are you?”
Laughing, Adam stepped over the drinks cooler to get into Mo’s space. “Hey, if you have problems with my more stable, well-adjusted headspace, take it up with yourself. You made me this way.”
“Oh yeah?” Mo looked up coyly from under his lashes.
Adam looped his fingers in Mo’s belt loops and reeled him in. “Turns out it’s a lot easier to care about things that aren’t hockey when I have things that aren’t hockey to care about.”
Mo snorted. “Smooth.”
“I try.”
Mo twined his arms around Adam’s neck. “You’re lucky you have more going for you than your terrible lines.”
There were fifty people in Adam’s yard, but none of them were paying any attention. And they could always avert their eyes. Adam was allowed to flirt. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Hmm. Well…” His hands slid from Adam’s neck until he was cupping his ass. “You have a good butt.”
Brat. Adam flexed his glutes and lifted his eyebrows for Mo to continue.
Mo cackled and moved his hands to the small of Adam’s back. “Show-off. Oh, your backhand, that’s nice. Your family’s pretty cool. Good stable job. Strong head on your shoulders most of the time, and the rest of the time, you’ve got strong thighs around your head—”
Adam couldn’t decide whether to laugh or groan. As a result, he was pretty sure he was just making a stupid besotted face.
Mo caught it, and his expression lost the smirk and softened to something more sincere, but no less happy. “Boyfriend who loves you.”
Euphoria bubbled through Adam, and he swayed on his feet. He couldn’t have stopped grinning if he’d tried. “Yeah?”
“What can I say? Apparently dorky hockey boys with bad pickup lines, color-coded calendars, and cribbage fetishes do it for me.”
“Guess I am pretty lucky.” No wonder he hadn’t been able to wallow in his postseason sadness. Mo made it impossible. “So was it the luck or the ass that did it for you?”
Mo squawked. “Excuse you, I don’t think that’s your line—”
Adam stopped him with his mouth. Mo’s protest dissolved on his tongue as Adam kissed him, pouring all his emotion into it. Mo made a quiet noise of surprise and melted into him.
Until someone whistled and Hallsy yelled, “Get a room!” and someone else shouted, “It’s their whole house, dumbass!”
Adam broke away with a huffed laugh. He’d forgotten about their audience. “I love you too, you menace.”
And then—well. One more kiss wasn’t anything the team hadn’t seen before.