4. Hux
four
Hux
Late April
M y teammates surrounded me, but not one of them spoke. To me at least. There were plenty of muted conversations and even more gazes being averted when I met their stares.
It was tense with a capital T.
Normally we joked around and shot the shit together. The team was tight. I was closest with the starting lineup, especially my line mates Gauthier and Hewitt. Our D-men, Minns, Mironov and Rune, were as thick as thieves too. The team was always the loudest group in the room, and we were always laughing.
Except today.
I’d caused the clusterfuck of all clusterfucks to land on our doorstep yesterday. I hadn’t meant to get caught—that’s why I’d parked in the alleyway. That’s why I’d snuck out without turning on the lights. It was also why I’d jumped the fence rather than opening the creaky gate.
But apparently it wasn’t enough.
I’d been photographed leaving Minns’s house late at night. The paps had jumped to the conclusion that I was sleeping with Minns’s wife.
The tight knit group our team had been only days earlier had been shattered.
It hadn’t helped that a car had arrived, pulling straight into their garage, just as I was leaving. It looked shady as fuck, but it was purely bad luck. If I’d known Kamirah was arriving home, I would have stayed.
The paps assumed it was Minns coming home.
The truth was way more salacious than they’d guessed. The three of us were together. We’d been dating for over a year—if you could call me making clandestine visits to their house in the dark of night dating.
I’d been with Minns that night while Kam was attending a meeting at one of the charities she was involved with. It had run late, and I’d been exhausted. I’d still needed to do laundry and pack, too, so I’d left.
The Seals had already put out a press release basically denying everything that went down. But people were drawing their own conclusions about the images. I’d been caught red-handed, and the timing of Minns’s Mercedes pulling into the garage was too convenient.
So naturally, everyone had assumed I was banging his wife.
They weren’t wrong.
But it wasn’t cheating.
Thank fuck Minns’s secret was still under wraps. I’d headed back into the closet for college and the NHL. A handful of people knew my orientation, and I wouldn’t deny it if asked directly. I was ready to come out, but the fallout worried me. I didn’t want the focus to change. I was fucking good at hockey. I didn’t want to become the bisexual player, or the gay player in denial—biphobia was real, and it sucked—who’d played well. I just wanted to be Alec Huxley, number 10 starting winger for the Seals.
Minns was the opposite. He was determined to stay in the closet. I understood the decision. He had his reasons, and he was happily married to a woman. It was easier for him to pass as straight because people saw what they wanted. He knew that I’d never out him and that he had my full support. If he ever wanted to come out, I’d be right there with him.
I liked Chris and Kam. They were good people. They did charity work with vets and spearheaded a program retraining rescue dogs as therapy dogs for those with PTSD.
Before all this broke, I could see myself being with them long-term. I’d thought about getting a place next door to theirs. I could see us building a gate between the houses and having our locks keyed the same, or even buying a duplex together where we could knock out the dividing wall and make it into one home for all of us.
It wasn’t happening now.
Hell, nothing was happening except glares and tense whispers.
The worst part of the whole thing was that they didn’t stand up for me. They didn’t deny the claims. They didn’t explain anything. They just let TMZ draw their own conclusions, making me out as the bad guy. They’d tossed me aside like last week’s trash.
I’d been spectacularly dumped.
It hurt.
My life had turned to hell in a handbasket in a matter of hours.
My agent had spent most of the day screaming at me. Keeley, the Seals’ PR person, had nearly throttled me. Steam was literally coming out of her ears when she laid down her non- negotiable list. I was to keep my head down and my eyes on the puck at all times. If I stepped out of line, she would nail my ass to the boards and use my body for target practice. She ordered me to stay the fuck off social media and lock myself indoors until I was required to report to the rink. Then, and only then, could I appear in public, and I was not to say a word to anyone or give anyone any photo ops if I valued my balls being attached to my body. Apparently, thinking with my dick got me into this clusterfuck, and I was not to make Keeley regret the team taking me on this trip. The scoreboard—even for a series of demonstration games—trumped bad behaviour when we had a few people on IR.
Minns and Kam wanted to keep our relationship quiet. Now, the team’s trust in me was shattered.
Hell, I was lucky my face hadn’t been shattered alongside it. Mironov had blocked my path onto the bus, ready to throw down right there in the parking lot. But with one steely-eyed look, Keeley had ended the altercation and had me following her in like a fucking puppy while Mironov had yelled curses at me the whole way down the aisle of the bus.
Keeley hadn’t minced her words in her speech. “If any of you fuckers give me any, and I mean any , extra work while we’re on this trip, I will personally nominate you for every shitty PR job that I need bodies for. You will not get a single day or night off all fucking year.” It was a threat that had every one of us sitting still and shutting up. Keeley was usually pretty laid back, but she was whip-smart and even more cutthroat. She’d met every one of our gazes and started listing off the don’ts on her fingers. “No brawling. No dirty looks. No snarky comments. No acknowledgement whatsoever that there is any kind of rift in the team. Got it?” She didn’t need to say my name. Everyone knew she was referring to me when she told my teammates to play nice.
So far, they were just plain ignoring me. I could live with that, but it was going to be a long-ass two weeks.
If they didn’t trade me before we even landed back on home soil.
My stats were one thing, but it was quite another to royally fuck up and expect no consequences.
It was easier to stay invisible, but I wouldn’t be able to pull it off forever. I looked around, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. The team weren’t saying much of anything to anyone. Minns was sitting next to Mironov, their heads together as they watched something on Mironov’s phone. Everyone else was either playing with their phones or talking quietly, their gazes ping-ponging between me and Minns.
The bar was so fucking tempting. At least if I was wasted, I wouldn’t give a fuck. But Keeley’s laser-like glare would be zeroed in on me from the moment I ordered the first shot until we got into the privacy of our hotel on the other side of the world. At the moment she was largely ignoring me like everyone else.
I looked away and inadvertently met Gauthier’s stare. He gave me a small chin lift, barely an acknowledgement. His lips pressed together in the smallest of pitying smiles. My anger ratcheted up, and I ground my teeth. He pitied me? Fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.
This was all bullshit. I was the scapegoat. I was the fall guy, the one taking all the hits. Yeah, I was fucking them, but it wasn’t like either of them were objecting. Minns had pursued me. I’d thought fucking my teammate was a stupid idea. I’d thought a rookie doing it was even dumber. He’d never misled me, but I’d thought we could make it work. I believed that because we’d been together for so long, I was special. I thought that Minns and Kam wanted me for more than just a fuck. I was naive and stupid.
I’d heard what I’d wanted and ignored the rest. I was alone in the world. Gran had just died, and my parents had disowned me years earlier. I was angry and alone, my achievements tasting bittersweet. Chris and Kam had given me crumbs, and I’d mistaken it for the full buffet. I’d fallen hard and fast.
Great judge of character I was.
I jammed my earbuds in and cranked up the volume on my phone. Tuning out everyone was a better idea than unleashing.
Today’s playlist was Australian nineties grunge bands. The darkness of the angst-filled lyrics were pretty apt considering the betrayal, isolation and self-doubt Minns and Kam had thrust on me with their silence.
The riff of electric guitars filled my ears, and an angry voice sang about waking up to the manipulation we’d been sold. Fuck me. These boys were spot-on.
The song switched over, and a group began harmonizing, a voiceover talking about a guy, a football team, and a real estate agent. Whatever. It was blunt in a dark kind of way, and even though I had no idea what in the hell they were talking about, I kind of liked it. The warning Greg got about the stop sign would be stuck in my head for hours.
So would the line about the comet wiping out humanity, hopefully sometime before his end-of-year exams. Timing was slightly off. It should have obliterated me about twenty-four hours ago.
With TMZ breaking the story, I was viral on every fucking social media platform. Hashtags of my name and “cheater” were trending, and the photo montage showing my escape was on constant rotation everywhere.
A growl sounded from Minns’s direction, and I looked up. He was scowling at the television, my face clearly identifiable as I jumped the fence. I groaned, and he snapped his attention to me. The glare he rounded on me was so filled with hatred that it stole my breath. His dark eyes were hard like flint, and his lips were turned up in a sneer. His jaw ticked, and he clutched his phone so hard, his fingers turned white.
I held his stare, daring him to utter a single word to me.
But he was a fucking coward. There’d been nothing but silence from him and Kam since the news broke. I’d tried calling and messaging, but nothing. I bet that the bastard had blocked me.
He could glare at me all he liked. I wouldn’t back down on this.
Mironov looked my way, too, and his face darkened in anger, the already angular lines of his face sharpening as his glare turned lethal. The man was twice my size and even more ornery than Minns.
“Can we get this trash turned off?” Hewitt cut in, speaking in a no-nonsense tone. He may have framed his request as a question, but it was an order. Gauthier’s agreement was swift.
The television clicked off.
It was the only movement in the room.
Tense eyes watched us. I leaned back in the armchair and crossed my ankle over my knee. I stared at them until the song ended. But fuck that. I had better shit to do than stare at those fuckers.
I pulled one of my earbuds out and stood up. I needed the john, and there was no way I was walking into a room with only one entrance and exit without every one of my senses being on high alert.
As I neared the automatic doors at the exit, the noise outside made me pause. What the hell was going on out there? The team’s jet was the only one on the tarmac outside the charter lounge, but there were spotlights and a hell of a lot of people talking over one another directly outside the doors.
“It’s a media circus out there,” Gauthier explained as he stepped up next to me. Hewitt was with him.
“It can’t be easy,” Hewitt commiserated.
I appreciated the olive branch they were extending, but I did not want to talk about what went down, and I especially didn’t want their sympathy.
“Brought it on myself, didn’t I?” I snapped and strode to the men’s room without waiting for their reply.
“Did you?” Gauthier asked, following me in.
I caught his reflection in the mirror as I took a piss.
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“You aren’t like that, Hux,” Hewitt added confidently.
I stayed silent, refusing to answer. When I’d finished, I zipped up my suit pants and washed my hands before facing them head-on. “I appreciate you talking to the team pariah, but I’m not giving up any of the juicy gossip.”
“Do you really think we’re here for that, Hux?” Gauthier huffed and leaned against the privacy partition, crossing his arms and ankles like he was modelling the latest suit rather than standing in a bathroom, albeit an opulent one. “I’m worried about my teammate and friend. You’ve had everyone screaming at you for a full twenty-four hours, and in two seasons, I’ve never once heard you mention your family or other friends—”
“And?” I arched my brow this time, daring him to ask about them. My family, or the lack thereof, would never be open for discussion. Especially not now.
“And I wanted to let you know that I’m here for you. We’re here for you”—he gestured between himself and Hewitt—"if you ever needed to vent, or fuck, if you want to beat the shit out of something, we’re here for you for that too. We’ll hold the bag.”
I sighed. They really weren’t giving up. “Why?”
Hewitt squeezed my shoulder. “Because our guess is that the only people who’ve asked for your side of the story have wanted a scoop, and that’s not right.”
I swallowed hard. He was dead-on, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. “Thanks. But no thanks.”
Gauthier waited until I had my hand on the door, ready to push it open before he added, “And no one would dream of fucking with you when we were standing in the men’s room right next to you.”
I met their gazes, and I saw the truth of their concern in their eyes. A sliver of fear passed through me, but I shoved it down. Fuck that—I wasn’t going to cower to anyone.
Not even my teammates, my brothers.
They thought I’d betrayed one of my own. Not just anyone either. He’d been my roomie during our away games for two fucking seasons. Minns made out like he’d taken me under his wing, like I was his little brother.
But brothers didn’t fuck like we had.
“We all have singles on this trip, but I’ve asked Keeley to put you in a room next to mine. I won’t have them starting any shit,” Gauthier said.
I was sure he meant to reassure me, but all it did was serve to infuriate me instead. Jesus Christ, was everyone here to babysit me? I didn’t want any of them looking over my shoulder.
“Ah, so that’s your motivation for following me in here. Stay in line, Hux, so that you aren’t a lightning rod for more bad publicity, ” I spat.
“You know that’s trash,” Gauthier retorted, his voice short and sharp.
What the hell did he have to be pissed about? I was the one who was at the receiving end of this clusterfuck.
I pushed open the door just as Hewitt grasped my arm. There was no way I was sticking around. I shook him off and stomped over to my seat, ignoring the team and their judgmental stares. I wanted nothing more than for this fucking trip to be over and done with. Fuck. My. Life.
Where was that fucking comet?