Chapter Three

 

 

ETHAN WAS feeling good, a little drunk and a lot cheerful, his arm around some girl named Sarah or Susan or Suzette? Something with an S, anyway. And she was cute and soft and had thick, blonde hair that smelled like cotton or springtime or whatever the hell girls smelled like.

That was the one thing he missed about living with girls. They sure smelled better than a locker room full of sweaty hockey players.

It was a warm night, the ocean a dark blur, and the bonfire totally unnecessary but awesome—like Ethan was in a teen movie and soon everyone would jump up and start a choreographed dance routine. Except he hoped not, because hockey was hard enough. He was not coordinated enough for dancing. Unless it was a drunk Irish jig.

“So you’re from New York?” Suz-an-ette-arah asked, smiling up at him. She was hot. And she was pressed up against his side, her hand resting lightly on his thigh, giving him all kinds of “you could get laid if you don’t end up being a weirdo” signals.

“Yeah,” Ethan answered, watching as Ryan put Zoe on his back, piggyback-style, and went racing off toward the water with her screaming her head off and laughing.

Being in love must be nice. Ethan wondered why the fuck he’d thought that at all.

“I’ve never been there. I’m from Tampa.”

Ethan grinned down at her and pulled her closer. “I’ve been there once. The airport. Hung out on a bench.”

“That’s where Kennedy hangs out a lot,” Ethan’s teammate, Zachary Lawrence, quipped.

“I already made that joke, Lawry. But thanks,” Ethan said. He turned his attention back to Suz-arah, who told him she was a major in computer-software engineering at the University of North Florida.

Ethan’s eyes widened. “Holy fuck. Really? Smart and hot? If you want to dumb down your standards for me, I’m so okay with you doing that.” He knew exactly what she wanted, which was a few hours of fun and nothing more. Which was fine with him. It’d been a while, and he was getting a little tired of his left hand.

“I have a car,” she said when he was trying to work out the details of how to take her somewhere and fuck her like they both wanted. “If you have a place with a bed, we’re good.”

“Yeah. Of course. I’m not that bad of a hockey player.” Ethan followed her to her car, wondering if it was all right if he brought her home and what her name actually was. He didn’t know how to ask that without ruining the evening.

Her car was a cherry-red, brand-new Mustang convertible. “I won it on a game show,” she told him and then sighed. “Yes. Really. Also, no. I’m not lying. I really am a software-engineer student, and I went with a friend to California, and we were on The Price is Right. I won the car on the dice game, but I lost the part where you spin the giant wheel. I got beaten by a guy who was a flight attendant from New Orleans. He lost the Showcase Showdown because he thought an RV cost more than four years of college.”

Ethan stared at her. “You’re either making this up or you have a really weird life.”

“No. That’s really the only thing that’s happened to me that was super interesting. Trust me, the software thing sounds cool, but you’d be really bored if I started explaining it. Where are we going? The car doesn’t drive itself. Yet,” she added with an evil, mad-scientist sort of laugh. It was charming. She was charming, and Ethan didn’t feel right about sleeping with her unless he admitted he didn’t have a clue what her name was.

“Hey, so, I really want to do this, but I have to admit that I don’t remember your name,” Ethan said. He also wanted to come clean about that when they weren’t too far away from the party for him to find another ride home.

“Oh. That’s fine. I don’t remember yours either.” She winked at him, and Ethan burst out laughing.

“Fair enough,” he said, settling back. “Fair enough.”

The apartment was dark and quiet when they got there, and Ethan realized he’d never asked if it was okay if he brought a girl home. But hey. He paid rent. Right? Or theoretically he would whenever Riley got around to telling him what it was.

They went to his bedroom, and she made a note about how nice the apartment was and how obviously he must not be on the bench that much if he could afford it. “My roommate’s the goalie. He’s awesome too. I came home today, and he was stretched out on the floor, in like, the splits.” Ethan spread his arms out wide. “A-fucking-mazing.”

“Hot.” She moved closer, teasingly stroking a hand down his chest. “I know nothing about hockey. And my name’s Sierra.”

Wow. He’d been wrong about that one. “I’m Ethan. I know nothing about computer software, but I’m pretty good with Price is Right games.”

“Holy shit. I thought you said your name was Steven.” She put her arms around his neck. “Kidding. I actually had no idea what it was, just that you were cute. Okay, New York hockey player, I’ve got a test to study for tomorrow. Give me something nice to think about while I’m in the library.”

Ethan drew her closer and kicked out to close his door. “My pleasure.”

She was fun and seemed to enjoy herself. In fact she did so pretty easily, which made him feel like a rock star. He could do a lot more with his mouth than just run it on the ice, and she was definitely into that. So was he. Ethan loved the feel of her long legs draped over his shoulders as she arched against his mouth, and the soft, little breathy sounds she made as he got her off.

She pushed him down on his back, and Ethan put one arm behind his head, gently tangling his free hand in her hair while she took him in her mouth. She was really good, and he wanted to fuck her, so he had to think about something to keep from coming. For some reason he thought about Riley.

He wondered if Riley was awake, or if he could hear them. Or if Riley had a girl in his room too. That stretching thing probably got him laid all the time.

It made Ethan think about Riley earlier, on the floor. And walking in and seeing a girl beneath him. Fuck. That’d be hot. It didn’t even occur to him that it was a weird thought to have while a girl was sucking him off. It did occur to him that he needed to stop thinking it if he wanted to get on with things, though.

Sierra liked it on all fours, from behind. That got him going, because he loved that and sometimes girls weren’t into it. She looked at him over her shoulder, her pretty blonde hair damp and all wild around her face, and said, “I like it because it seems dirtier this way.”

Ethan’s laugh caught on a groan, and he took the hint and fucked her hard like she wanted. They were making a lot of noise, and the headboard was banging into the wall, but he couldn’t worry about that. He’d apologize the next day if Riley was pissed.

“That was great,” she told him later as she sat up and looked for her clothes.

“Hell yeah it was,” he agreed, lying on his back. “Want to stay? I can do it again. I’ve got a lot of energy.” He winked at her.

She looked like she was going to say no. Then she shrugged. “Why not? I didn’t think you’d be that good. No offense.”

“Are there a lot of girls like you in your software-engineering program?” Ethan asked, drawing her down on top of him to kiss her. “If so, can I come visit? I’ll pretend to be your cousin.”

“There’s not a lot of girls in my program at all,” she said, kissing him back. “You’re nice. I expected guys at a party full of professional athletes to be cocky and full of themselves.”

“I wasn’t? Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

Sierra giggled. “I have this rule where I hook up for fun and never get numbers. I won’t break it for you, but I thought about it longer than I usually do.”

“I’m flattered,” Ethan murmured, hand at the back of her neck, holding her close while he kissed her.

She stayed until about six in the morning. Ethan had practice later, which meant he was fucked in more ways than one. It was hard to care about that after the night he’d just had, though. She got dressed, and he pulled on some jeans and followed her into the living room.

Riley was in the kitchen, dressed like he was going running and drinking one of those coconut things he liked so much.

“Oh, hey,” he said, as if there was nothing odd about Ethan walking shirtless out of his bedroom at dawn, following a tousled blonde girl with her shirt on backward. “Going running before practice.” He held his hand out to Sierra. “I’m Riley.”

“The stretchy goalie,” Sierra said, nodding as she shook his hand. “I’m Sierra. I’m a friend of Evan’s.”

“Ethan,” Ethan corrected her, leaning against the kitchen wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “Sierra makes computer games and wins cars on game shows.”

“I am actually designing an open-source encryption algorithm, and it was only the one car. But hi.” She peered around him. “Is that coconut water?”

“Yeah. You want one?” Riley handed her a small green box. “I buy them at Costco. Ethan thinks they’re gross.”

“I’ve gotten used to them.” Either this was really weird, or Ethan needed to sleep. Maybe both. He held his hand up. “Coconut me, bro. I gotta grab a nap.” Riley tossed him a box, and Ethan caught it deftly. “Want me to walk you out, Sierra?”

“I think I know how to find my car. Thanks.” She leaned in and kissed him, surprisingly sweetly. “That was fun. Don’t try and find me or anything. Okay? Not my style.”

“Sure.” Ethan saluted. “It was definitely fun, and no worries. But I do have a much better opinion of Tampa.”

She laughed and then waved at Riley. “Good luck with your whole hockey thing. Thanks for the coconut water.”

Riley waved back, and they watched her walk out and close the door behind her. Ethan could see the sky outside their bay window starting to turn pink. “Fuck, man. I am so screwed.”

“Wasn’t that the point?” Riley gave him a sly grin. “Also I know. You’re loud.”

Ethan was horrified to feel himself blush. “It wasn’t me. It was that bed. Maybe you better call the apartment office and tell them to do a better job screwing in that headboard.”

“I think you did that just fine,” Riley told him and laughed. If he was mad, he didn’t look it at all.

For some reason Ethan was still compelled to say he was sorry. “I didn’t ask you first. If it was okay I had someone stay over.” Ethan cleared his throat and tossed his empty coconut water box at Riley. “I just didn’t want to abuse your hospitality. That’s all.”

Riley shrugged it off and threw both empty boxes into the trash. “You live here too, you know. She seemed nice. Kind of feisty. That your type?” Riley smiled at him, and it was sharp in a way that made Ethan wonder if Riley was mad after all.

“Not really. I mean. I don’t have a type. She was easy—ah. Not like—I mean, she was fun and no strings and…. Go running. Aren’t you going running?” Ethan bumped him with his shoulder. Riley was a nice guy, super easygoing and calm, but there was something about him that made Ethan wonder how much of that was a mask. There was a weird tension in his shoulders and a strange light in his dark eyes.

He didn’t look mad. Not really. Just tense and focused, like he did on the ice.

“Take a nap,” Riley told him. “Practice isn’t until two.”

“You won’t let me oversleep. Right? I gotta show up today. As in bring my A game.” Ethan winced. “Or maybe my B-minus game. That’ll do. I can get that back with a nap, can’t I?”

“Ethan. Go.” Riley pointed in the general direction of his bedroom. “Of course I won’t let you oversleep.”

Ethan just nodded. He tried to find his usual grin and failed. He was tired. That was all. He turned and headed toward his bedroom. And then, before he could stop himself, he turned and asked, “You sure it’s okay?”

Riley met his cool stare without blinking. “Yeah, Ethan. I’m sure.”

Ethan nodded, went to his bedroom, fell on the bed, and closed his eyes. He could hear sounds from the kitchen. Riley was making himself breakfast, since he actually knew how to cook. There was something weirdly comforting about knowing he could sleep and not worry about being late to practice. He wasn’t used to anyone taking care of him.

 

 

LUCKILY FOR Ethan his cheerful attitude and his willingness to put in some extra work on his skating kept him on the Sea Storm’s roster.

To keep in shape, Ethan tried running with Riley. Which meant getting up way too early, whining about it, and borrowing a pair of Riley’s running shoes—because it was too hard to run in Doc Martens—and then nearly killing himself to keep up with his roommate’s easy, comfortable pace along the beach.

The part where Ethan smoked a cigarette immediately before and after their run was probably detrimental to his progress. But hey. It was a start.

Ethan also signed up for some outreach stuff, which seemed to surprise the coach, because Ethan went in to ask about it without anyone telling him to.

“You like kids or old people?” asked Coach Spencer, known as Spence to the team, in his sharp, barking voice. He had a boxer named Slapshot, and that thing about people looking like their pets was totally true.

“Umm,” Ethan answered and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“Not in a pervert way, you idiot,” Spence growled without rancor. “For that outreach shit.”

“Kids mostly? But I mean, you know, just tell me if there’s something you want someone to go to, and I will.”

“You on probation or something?” Spence asked, eyes narrowed at Ethan. “You look like a hooligan, but I don’t remember hearing you’d been arrested.”

He should probably let his hair grow back. People kept saying that. “No, Coach. I just like it. I did that stuff in Vegas a lot, so I wanted to volunteer.”

“Good way to get in with the fans,” Coach Spence said, so Ethan gave up trying to explain. It didn’t matter why Coach thought he was doing it. He just wanted the opportunity.

Ethan got some of the guys together, and they took some teddy bears to a children’s hospital with Zoe Mays, the team’s photographer and marketing coordinator—and part-time bartender at Cruisers, because no one in the ECHL was well paid—along with the team’s mascot, Stormy. Stormy was a shark, and after that terrible Syfy movie came out, everyone started calling him Sharknado.

He also signed up to volunteer at camp for local kids who were interested in playing hockey. Zoe explained that the program was funded by the Sea Storm Foundation, in an attempt to get more locals interested in the sport. Ethan told her he’d do whatever he could to help out and promised to rope Riley into doing so too.

“Sloany’ll be there too. Right?” Ethan said, nudging her. “Captain’s duty and all that.”

Since their last captain was traded over the summer, Ryan had been elected to take his place—despite the joke that the position was cursed and whoever held it would be traded before the next season.

“Yup. Also marketing coordinator’s boyfriend’s duty,” Zoe agreed. “And oh, that reminds me. There are some shirts and jerseys of yours in the pro shop. If you could autograph some for promotional events, that’d be swell.”

“Sure.” Ethan grinned. “Do I get a discount if I want some?”

“Yup. But we’ll give you some to take to the camp. Also if you want to send a few to your family, let me know, and I’ll throw a few extra in there for you.”

“Thanks, Zoe,” Ethan said sincerely. “That’d be great.”

“No problem. I really appreciate you helping out with the volunteer stuff. I tried to get Lane to do it, and he was kind of… well, Lane.” She laughed. “But you’re great at it, and the camp thing is important to me.”

“Me too. Hockey made sure these are tattoos from my sister and not prison,” he joked, but it was the truth. “I had this history teacher who told me if I didn’t find something to do with all my energy and being angry, I’d join the army and end up court-martialed for punching someone for using a racial slur.” Ethan smiled at the memory. “He took me to his rec league, and I had no idea what I was doing. But I loved it. I probably don’t skate that much better than I did then. So hopefully you got someone else to teach the fundamentals.”

“I think you’ll be great,” Zoe said. “And that’s a great story. Mind if I put it in the promotional materials?”

“Maybe not the part about me being court-martialed,” he said, and she laughed.

The Sea Storm started their season with a win, followed by a loss that weekend, and Ethan got in a fight in both games. According to hockeyfights.com, Ethan won both of those fights handily. Someone in the comments called him a badass, and another one called him a goon. Awesome.

Things were going pretty great, as far as Ethan was concerned. He loved the weather, he had friends and a roommate, and he was playing hockey. He missed his sisters, but they kept in touch. He was saving up—which somehow was going better than usual, though he didn’t know why—so they could come visit. He had no complaints and he was excited about helping out with the hockey camp.

And then shit got weird.

It all started when Ethan’s sister Britt texted him that she’d e-mailed a picture of her, Kelsey, and their mom in the brand-new Sea Storm jerseys Ethan sent them. Britt said they all approved of the teal color, even if the water-tornado logo made them all giggle. It made Ethan giggle too. It was just so angry.

Ethan’s computer was a centuries-old Dell laptop that sometimes turned on and sometimes didn’t, depending on the moon or the weather or the time of day. When he went to check his e-mail for the picture his sister sent, his laptop turned on, but the screen remained obstinately dark.

“Hey, Riles, can I check my e-mail on your laptop?” Ethan asked his roommate, who was making dinner. Maybe that was why he was saving up so much money. Riley made them dinner most nights, which meant Ethan didn’t have to spend on pizza and McDonalds. “Mine’s dying.”

“Sure,” Riley said, flipping a piece of chicken in the pan.

Ethan went into Riley’s room, which was a lot neater than his, and sat at the desk in front of Riley’s MacBook. He navigated to Gmail, signed in, and laughed at the picture of his sisters and his mom all standing wearing his jersey with that ridiculous logo, arms around each other, holding up three fingers.

They did that, instead of the usual number-one gesture, because three was Ethan’s number. And it was his number because, every time he went on the ice, all he could think about was the three people who meant the most to him in the world.

Ethan sent back an e-mail and then went to find the site he used to upload pictures and have actual copies of them printed and mailed to his address. He had a photograph of all three of them in his Blackjacks jersey, and he wanted to put the photos side by side.

Caught up in a brief bout of homesickness, he went to the bookmarks link out of habit. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t his computer, and that’s why he couldn’t find the website. Then he saw “porn I like,” which made him grin evilly.

What better way to deal with unwanted homesickness, than by being a jackass and embarrassing his roommate?

He opened the folder and glanced at some of Riley’s favorites. He thought about e-mailing himself the link to the video of the cute girls in roller skates. And then his curiosity got the better of him when he noticed the subfolder called “Bad game.” He thought maybe it was hot, girl-on-girl porn involving chicks in hockey gear fighting and then making out.

Ethan realized after a couple of seconds that he was being a jerk and looking at stuff that was private, but he was captivated by what he was seeing. Because the most recently added videos didn’t have any girls in them at all. Just guys.

Guys who had tattoos and shaved heads actually. Guys who looked a lot like him.

He signed out of his account, stared out of Riley’s window for a minute composing himself, and went back to the kitchen.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Riley said from the kitchen. “Rangers play tonight, if you want to watch.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Ethan stammered, unsure what he was feeling. He didn’t have a problem with Riley being into guys. And in fact he lost his temper plenty of times at people who did have a problem with that kind of thing. But was Riley into him? And if he was and Ethan felt weird about it, did that make him a hypocrite?

That pissed him off. What about all those times he got mad at people for being homophobic dickheads? Which happened more than he liked, because people ran their mouths off thoughtlessly in locker rooms all the time. But seriously if people thought there weren’t gay guys playing hockey, they were idiots. There had to be. If you were into dudes, living with them and being around them all the time would be an attractive career choice. Ethan never wanted anyone to feel like they couldn’t talk about a boyfriend in the locker room.

But if Riley was into him, Ethan Kennedy, and not some theoretical guy? Was that okay? It had to be. Ethan refused to even consider the idea that it wasn’t. How could he stand up for people if he was a liar and a hypocrite?

Ethan went outside to smoke, because the nicotine helped him think. So what if Riley thought he was hot? What if Ethan was living with someone who wanted him to do those things on the video? Have Ethan on his knees, sucking his cock.

Ethan didn’t have a problem with blow jobs, obviously, but he’d never given a thought to giving one—or even getting one—from a guy before. Maybe he was missing something.

It was flattering to think Riley thought that way about him. Or it would be, if Ethan knew for sure Riley did think that way about him. Maybe he was feeling weird because he really didn’t know for sure. That’s why he shouldn’t go snooping around other people’s laptops and bookmark folders.

“Hey, man. Game’s starting. And eat some dinner. You can’t live off of cigarettes. I know you keep trying.”

Ethan put his cigarette in the empty coffee can on his balcony, wandered back inside, fixed himself a plate of chicken and vegetables, and went to find his roommate. Riley was on the sofa watching the game, his plate balanced on his knees. There were two beers on the low table in front of the couch. “I got you one,” Riley said, nodding toward the beer. His eyes were on the game.

Ethan sat next to him and started eating, aware of Riley in a way he hadn’t been before. The game was Rangers versus the Flyers, broadcast on the MSG network. Ethan’s brows knit in confusion, briefly distracting him. “How come we can see this? Didn’t think they had this channel down here.”

“Oh, it’s… our satellite came with Center Ice,” Riley said, avoiding his gaze. “Always trying to sell the game to the southern US. You know how it goes.”

Something about that didn’t ring true, but Ethan went back to worrying about the possibility that he was a hypocrite and let it go. Then the game came on, and he alternated between being worried, being angry at the Flyers, being angry at Riley for cheering for the Flyers because he was a goddamn Devils fan, and being angry at the Rangers for not scoring more goals.

He also had two more helpings of chicken and vegetables, then did the dishes during the first intermission and brought them both a few more beers.

Ethan studied Riley when the game went to commercials, trying to work out what he was feeling. Riley was cute, wasn’t he? He was a good-looking guy. Yeah. That’s how Ethan would say it. Good-looking and good at hockey. Very stretchy. Quiet and a good roommate. Made them dinner. Had totally signed up for Center Ice and was lying about it so Ethan didn’t feel obligated to pay for half of it.

After the fucking Rangers lost to the goddamn asshole Flyers, they watched a Kings versus Coyotes game. And when they ran out of beer, Ethan was no closer to figuring the whole thing out than he was when he sat down for dinner.

So he got out the whiskey, which was what any good Irish-American boy raised in New York would do when confronted by a problem. Never mind that very often whiskey was the thing that created the problem in the first place. No. This was an emergency. A Jameson emergency.

Or, because Ethan was a poor, broke hockey player in the south, it was a bottom-shelf emergency. Ethan had found a cheap Irish whiskey in the liquor department of Publix, the local grocery store. He put some in his Pepsi, and that would have to do.

Whiskey made some people mad, some people happy, and some people cry. It made some people sick, made others feel like they were flying, and some feel like they were invincible. Regardless of how it manifested, what it really did was make people dramatic.

And Ethan was already dramatic without the whiskey. He should have known better, especially when he decided to just drink it without any Pepsi—which was what he did after Riley went to bed and Ethan was still as confused as he had been, only drunk on top of it. Great.

Finally he had one glass too many, tipped over the point of “thinking too much about things,” right over to “I should just be brave and confront my fears.” Which meant he went barreling into Riley’s room at one thirty in the morning, full of liquid courage and whiskey-fueled determination to end his mental torment.

His mental torment, which had lasted for all of four hours. It was unthinkable, and something had to be done.