3. Easton
Chapter Three
EASTON
I never should have opened that goddamn door.
My shit was packed for training, and my day had sucked. Why the hell did I think opening my front door to an unannounced visitor was a good idea? It never was, but today was probably the worst it could have been.
The door swung, and the blood froze in my veins.
His eyes were dark and sharp. He flashed me a grin that sent chills down my spine. He was here after all, and he had found me. I could have sworn I could smell smoke still on him. The heat of one of the last memories of us in the same place made my cheeks flush.
“What am I doing here?” He cocked a side of his lips. “Glad I asked.”
“No.” I pushed the door closed.
A booted foot slipped between the door and the frame, lodging itself and giving me a headache.
“Hold on, Easton,” Jace said, his voice not so cracklingly entertained anymore.
One glimpse of him had been more than enough to leave me restless last night.
Something about him had a way of making me hot and uncomfortable.
He was a merciless soul who could find your weakness in a single sniff. He was a hound.
I relaxed the hold on the knob and pulled the door open just enough to see him but not enough to let him in. “You can’t have it.”
“What?”
“Whatever you want,” I said.
“Oof,” he said as if stung. “You wound me, brother.”
“Don’t…call me that,” I said, my heart hammering in my chest like a terrified rabbit that skittered across the field from a wolf.
Jace even resembled a wolf. He was lean, made of angles and sharp lines and a deadly swagger. His pants hung low on his hips, and his hoodie was oversized. A little backpack hanging from one shoulder scared me more than the fact I was facing someone who had been exiled from my life seven years ago.
I had been fourteen and well aware of my sexuality. But so was the wolf. A year older, he had smelled it on me.
I scoffed. “What do you want, Jace?” I couldn’t believe I spoke his name after so long.
“A favor,” he said.
He was worn. His dark brown hair was a mess of curls on top with a short undercut.
There were dark circles around his eyes.
Under the corners of each eye was a small tattoo.
There was a little red heart with a crack through the middle penciled under one eye and a single number under the other—seven.
On the side of his face, running along the very edge from the top of his ear to the corner of his jaw, there was a tattooed blade.
He wore a thin mustache that framed his upper lip and emphasized his Cupid’s bow.
Pretty. He had always been pretty in that terrible, unbearable way.
More tattoos adorned the visible parts of his body.
The middle of his neck was covered by a black-inked heart caught in thorns and with a dagger sticking out of it.
On one side was a hound-like monster, and on the other was a woman’s profile; both were done in American traditional style, sans color.
Jace looked around my apartment as much as the gap allowed. “Ma and Pop treat you well?”
I clenched my teeth. He had called them by their names for almost as long as I could remember. Something about me being brought into the family had prompted Jace to switch away from calling them Mom and Dad. It had been the first of rifts that were now impossible to count.
“That’s a nice place you’ve got,” he said.
“It’s not mine,” I said. “My roommate’s out.”
He smiled. “Liar.”
My ears were probably red by now. The heat of embarrassment was impossible. “I don’t have all day.”
“And I don’t have a place to stay,” he said. “So I figured you’d let me crash for a few nights. Eh?”
“You know that that’s never gonna happen,” I said. Why ask?
Jace rolled his shoulders, his eyes still searching my apartment before meeting my gaze.
He scanned my face and body with intensity.
I felt like he peeled off layers of my clothes and my soul at the same time.
He had always had the power to unsettle me with little more than a look.
“I figured you could let a former family member sleep on your couch a few nights.”
“If you got yourself homeless again, that shouldn’t be my concern,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Jace conceded. “I thought seeing me might entice you.”
My heart climbed into my throat. He had always had a way of suggesting things that were far more true than I wanted to admit.
A lifetime ago, Jace had been my awakening.
Daring, relentless, and a terrible influence, he had been the first boy I’d seen in a far less innocent light than all the people I had seen before.
He had been the spark that lit the flames of confusion, suffering, and heartbreak in me.
“You don’t look too good,” Jace said.
“Thanks. Fuck you, too.” I leaned against the wall, my body aching for an hour of sleep before the drills. I wasn’t getting it, but that didn’t stop me from wishing. “Why are you even here?”
“I told you,” Jace said, encouraged by my question. I shouldn’t have asked.
“In the city, I mean,” I explained. “I thought…”
He snorted. “You thought I’d gone down the foster care drain, eh?”
I swallowed. The last I had seen of him, the government people had picked him up, and my life finally became bearable.
“It’s a sewer, brother,” Jace said, making me wince. I detested the word. “If I’d let it take me, I’d have gone all the way to the Pacific. Me, rats, and all of the shit in the Midwest.”
“The sewers here don’t go to the Pacific,” I mumbled.
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Easton,” he said. “I see you’re on your way out. I won’t keep you.”
Jace took a step back, but I was unable to move.
I stood in the doorway, watching a ghost I’d thought I was well rid of.
He stared at me, his dark brown eyes burning like hellfire.
He turned away, his gaze remaining on me a second longer until he spun his head around and faced the hallway back to the outside world.
So long as he wasn’t here, I was fine. I would be okay.
And yet, I remained in the doorway until his footsteps completely faded away, his casual whistling only an ominous memory. The main door banged, sending echoes through the building, and I jerked back, shutting my own door.
Damn you, I thought. My heart hurried even now, rising back from the pit of my stomach where the sight of Jace had sent it.
As I circled the living room in pointless pacing, I tightened my fists to stop my fingers from trembling.
He still taunted me like when we were teens.
I had been a stupid boy, too honest and too easily read.
My feelings for Jace had never been easy to hide, not when he could take one hard look at me and read my thoughts like words on a page.
Being the wolf that he was, he must have realized that taunting me in that particular way would hurt the most—he never stopped.
I checked the time and got ready for drills.
August was a tough month. Twenty-six players practiced this year, six of them newcomers, their attitudes a spectrum from fascination and a zest for the fun a freshman year promised to the casual dismissal of any and all authority now that they were done with high school teachers.
The remaining twenty knew that the summer break was over.
If you wanted to follow this path, you had to make sacrifices.
No more driving to summer cabins for parties and sex; no more all-night benders.
We were here to practice and win, even if my leadership and our lineup of coaches failed to deliver the trophies last season.
Some minor wins had given us hope, but we hadn’t stood a chance beyond the state competitions.
The team from Detroit had blazed to victory and left us in a cloud of ice particles, their skates scattered in our faces.
I met up with Elio and Patrick for a shot of espresso before the game in a student cafe on campus.
“You’re in a mood,” Elio pointed out as I dropped my duffel by the table and set my cup down.
He ran his fingers through his thick, rich curls and shot me a smile that shone like a ray of sunshine—you know the one; you’re trying to sleep for five minutes longer, but you didn’t draw the blinds all the way, and all the hopes of snoozing are shattered because the ray of sunshine burns right into your eyes.
“I’ve been in this mood for a week,” I said. “Best ignore it.”
Patrick’s eyes were narrow when he looked at me. He was a man of few words. He pursed his lips lightly in an offer of sympathy and drained the small cup.
These were my guys. Elio and I had met on the first day at Westmont even before we realized we were on the same team.
We’d ended up in the same corner at a frat party that had gone out of control, and by that time, people were only interested in occupying the bedrooms and bathrooms and all other surfaces suitable for a quick fuck.
“Not me,” Elio had said, lifting the can to his lips and taking the barest lick of the beer, wincing.
His bottom lip was freshly cut. When he told me it was from playing hockey, an easy friendship began.
“Got a girlfriend?” I’d asked.
“Nah,” he’d said. “I’m just not into this rotation they seem to have. Everyone’s slept with everyone two times already.”
“And the wheel of fortune keeps spinning.”
“I don’t think I want any of the prizes,” Elio had said, mock cringing.
Patrick joined us a year later. His quiet determination to be the best of us was enough to make me like him instantly. His successes on the ice were enough to justify the extremes of his dedication. Beyond simply liking him, I respected him.
“What’s eating you?” Elio asked anyway.