Chapter 28
WEST
“I can’t believe I’ve become someone who watches not only hockey games on the regular, but house hockey games,” Damon says, propping his feet up on my coffee table. “And not just for the warm-ups.”
“Look at you, being a joiner and getting in the school spirit.” I knock his arm with mine.
“Let’s not get too crazy,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve spent almost four years doing the bare minimum and making sure everyone knows how little I give a shit about anything here. I’d like to keep my streak going until graduation, thank you very much.”
“Fine, but I’m getting you a house jersey as a graduation gift so you can remember the few months of school spirit and house pride you managed to muster.”
He shoots me a cheeky grin. “More like the few months of enjoying the eye candy you introduced me to. Speaking of eye candy,” he says, not being subtle at all. “What deal did you and your masked man make for tonight?”
My neck heats, but I just toss him a grin. “Not sure, but I’ll find out if he gets another hat trick.”
“Hasn’t he scored at least two goals in every game this season?” he asks.
“Yup.”
“So this whole hat trick thing isn’t some crazy achievement and is just a way for you guys to get your freak on?”
“Pretty much.”
“Your sex games are weird.”
“Says the guy who likes when his boyfriend chases him around campus and fucks him in the woods.” I shoot him a flat look.
“You really want to have a kink-off when I’m watching your boyfriend play hockey and knowing he’s going to be sneaking into your room after I leave and doing ungodly things to you while wearing a mask?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say quickly. “We’re just hooking up.”
“Right,” he says dryly. “Just hooking up.”
“That’s all it is,” I insist as the hockey stream countdown finally ends, and the feed switches to players doing their warm-ups.
“Mmmhmm,” he hums, his eyes on the screen. “Because bringing food to the class you have with your hookup to make sure they’re eating is a totally normal thing.”
“We were working on a project together,” I remind him. “He was making sure I wasn’t dead weight.”
“But your project was over weeks ago,” he points out.
“He’s Italian.” I shrug. “He told me that feeding people is what his family does. Besides, he has other reasons for making sure I have energy,” I quip, hoping that will make Damon drop this ridiculousness.
“You’re exclusive,” he says, obviously not dropping it.
“You can be exclusive and still be casual.”
He laughs. “No you can’t. Being exclusive is the opposite of casual.”
“Not when it’s for safety reasons,” I point out. “This way we don’t have to worry about protection.”
“You literally told me he said he doesn’t share when he told you he wanted you to be exclusive.”
“He’s an only child,” I say, like that explains everything.
“And the sleepovers?”
“Convenience,” I say dismissively. “Especially when he comes over after his games. It’s really late by the time we’re done.”
“Uh huh.” He tilts his head to get a better angle of the players doing their hip openers. “And the whole role-play mask thing?”
“What about it?” I shoot him a quick look. “Are we doing a kink-off, because I’m pretty sure you’re still way kinkier than me.”
“Probably.” He tosses me a grin. “But no kink-off. I’m just saying that as someone who does that kind of intense role-play with someone, you can’t do that without trust. Even if you know it’s him under the mask, and you know how and when he’s going to sneak into your room, you still need to trust him to submit to him. ”
“You’re not wrong,” I admit. “But we’re friends. I trust him as Anthony, so I trust him as Mr. X.”
“How long has this been going on?” he asks. The camera pauses on Anthony and the twins while they stretch and chat and look way too damn hot for their own good.
“The Mr. X thing?”
“We really need to come up with a new name for his alter ego because all I see when you call him that is a cartoon Anthony in leather pants and a mask with a giant X on his chest standing in a superhero pose.”
I snicker at the visual. “I mean, I’d watch six seasons and a movie of whatever he’s in.”
“Same,” Damon agrees with a chuckle. “And I mean this with all the respect in the world, but Jesus Christ, Anthony’s hips should come with a warning label.” He tilts his head to the side and leans closer. “Bravo to you, because damn.”
“Do I need to tell Xave you’re drooling over my situationship?”
“Ah, I see he’s graduated from fuck buddy to situationship.” He smirks.
“You made some good points,” I admit. “We’re friends, but this thing has a timeline, so I’d say that qualifies as a situationship.”
“What about when he dragged you into that empty classroom before your presentation?” he asks, his eyes fixed on Anthony and the twins as the camera zooms in on them and gives us an even better view of their stretches.
“What about it?”
“That doesn’t seem like something a situationship would do.”
“He wanted to calm me down so I didn’t fuck up our presentation.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But situationships are usually a mutual thing. He didn’t want you to reciprocate, even though you had enough time and you wanted to.” He tosses me a look.
I chew on my lip. He’s tearing apart all of my counterpoints, and I don’t like where my thoughts are straying to.
The only reason this thing with Anthony has worked this long and I haven’t fucked everything up by catching feelings is that I’ve carefully ignored those feelings and pretended they don’t exist.
Any sign that shows this might be more than just sex for him will just get my hopes up, and I don’t want to lose him as a friend when this ends because I was dumb enough to catch feelings for him.
“How long has it been going on?” he asks when the camera finally pans away from Ant and the twins. “You and him,” he clarifies.
I pause and think back. “Almost six weeks.”
“And you’ve seen each other almost every night since it started,” he points out.
“Even on game nights and after he has house stuff to deal with. And you don’t just fuck around, you hang out for hours after the sexy times are over, and you told me he shows you his edits when he doesn’t even show his friends, who are actually in the edits, before he posts them. ”
“Holy shit.”
He gives me a sympathetic look and lets me process everything he just dumped on me.
“Everything you said makes it sound like we’re boyfriends,” I say slowly. “But we’re not. That’s not what this is.”
“Are you sure?” he asks as the game finally starts, but neither of us is paying attention to the screen anymore. “Because it sounds like you guys are dating, you’re just on the DL.”
“What if you’re wrong and this is just his version of casual?
” I counter. “You don’t know him like I do.
He’s different from most people. And not in that ‘I’m not like other dudes’ way, but like he thinks about things differently.
He doesn’t see the world the same way we do, so it makes sense he’d do a casual hookup differently because he never does this sort of thing. ”
“Oh, honey.” Damon gives me a pitying look. “Say that last part back to yourself and really listen to your own words.”
“What part?” I ask, genuinely confused.
“The part where you said he doesn’t date or hook up with people, but he’s been doing both with you for the last six weeks.”
I shake my head. “No more talking about this. If you keep saying all this stuff, I’m going to start believing you and think maybe there’s a chance that this means something to him and he might love me like I love him, but I can’t—Oh my god.
” I freeze as my brain sort of glitches out for a few seconds. “I love him,” I repeat dumbly.
Damon bursts out laughing.
“Fucker.” I lightly slap his thigh. “You give me an existential crisis and then laugh when it bitch-slaps me in the face?”
“I’m sorry,” he wheezes. “But it’s about damn time.”
“Huh? What does that mean?” I ask, still wrapping my head around the fact that I’m head over heels in love with Anthony, and have been for longer than I’ll ever admit to anyone, including myself.
“It means it’s nice to see you’ve finally figured it out.” He pats my thigh in a way that feels very condescending. “You’re my best friend, and I love you, but it’s obvious that you’re in love with him, and I’ve been waiting for you to realize it.”
“Well, I definitely realize it now.” I slump in my seat and fix my eyes on the screen.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“No.” I laugh nervously. “I just admitted out loud that I’m in love with the guy I’ve been hooking up with, and you have me convinced we’re actually dating, so now I’m going to have that hanging over my head until I either say something completely unhinged and out of pocket and risk losing everything, or I tell him how I feel and risk losing everything. ”
“Do you really think he’d stop being your friend if he doesn’t feel the same way you do?”
“I have no idea, and I really don’t want to find out.”
“So what are you going to do?” he asks.
“No clue. Probably try to shove all these feelings back into their little box and go back to ignoring them.”
“And if you can’t do that?”
“Then I’ll figure out another way to pretend they don’t exist.”
“Do you think that will work?” he asks knowingly.
“No, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Damon turns his attention back to the game, and I try to keep my attention on the screen and not on the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions rolling around inside me.
I watch the twins and Anthony fly down the ice as they pass the puck between them, literally skating circles around their competition as they do.
Connor passes it to Hazen, who passes it to Ant. He does an insane spin around one of the Kings who’s trying to get the puck from him, then flips the puck over to Connor.
Connor takes off toward the goal and winds up for what looks like a slapshot, but at the last second, he tips the puck to Anthony, who catches it on the blade of his stick, then flips it onto the ice in front of him and shoots it right over the goalie’s shoulder.
The red light on the goal lights up as the siren goes off, and instead of doing his usual victory lap, Anthony looks right at the camera and gives it a smirky smile that’s full of heat and promise and just for me.
Fuck. I’m totally in love with him—and completely screwed.