I can’t lie to my sister. Athena is too astute for ‘No one’ to fly with her. “No one you need to know about. For the moment.” I keep my voice as level as I can, despite the excitement fluttering in my bloodstream.
When was the last time someone sent me something?
I didn’t answer his text, and yet… he’s still pursuing me. Usually pursuit is exhausting, irritating, and makes my stomach curdle. But I suppose people who generally pursue me are much more overt and in my face. They fawn over me and thrust themselves in my space.
In a weird way, this is pursuit from a distance. I suppose it helps that he lives in Wisconsin, but I’m clearly living rent free in his brain enough to send me… something.
Athena pauses, holding the box in my direction, but her knuckles are white; she’s not giving it up that easily. “Yes.” She tips her head to the side. “But he could be?”
I’ve never really come out to my siblings. I’m not sure I ever had to. Sexuality and gender are fluid concepts in a family who mostly believes love is love, and I can fuck whoever I want as long as they don’t hurt me. Or the family.
After Claudia, however, my one-night stands, my dalliances, were all men. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was as though I’d tried dating a woman, and my soul decided it wasn’t for me.
Of course, my sister was the one to notice. She never came straight out and asked if I was gay, but she stopped trying to set me up with women, and never asks about women in my life, always men.
Her face softens at whatever she sees on my face. “Doesanyone else know?” She means Scott, but asks in broad strokes.
I ponder her question for a beat instead of shaking my head right away. “I think Ares is meddling, hence the package.”
She smirks. “That tracks.”
“But it’s not enough of a thing to bring to anyone else.”
A sadness pools in her eyes as she gives me the box. “It’s enough, becauseyou’reenough, Arte.” She leaves me with those words thickening the air in the room. She means it. And for a second, I hate how much I want to believe her.
Instead of kicking everyone out and tearing it open, I sit it out of sight and go back to my siblings and chosen family. The box hums in the corner like it’s alive. I can feel it watching me while I pour drinks, my fingers itching to tear it open.
I tuck it in my bedroom, the temptation to lock the door behind me and rip it open making my skin itch. But I want to take my time with it, and if I’m honest, I know Xavier has received a ‘package delivered,’ notification. It’s probably driving him insane that I haven’t acknowledged it yet. I think I enjoy that thought a little too much as well.
I’m quieter than usual for the rest of the evening, distracted by the tug of the cardboard box radiating like a beacon in my closet. Athena’s last to leave, because of course she is, and when she pulls me into a hug, she squeezes tightly. “I’m ready to listen, when you’re ready to talk.”
After her attack last year, part of me worried that all the best bits of her would be gone forever. That those assholes stripped pieces of her away from us. She’s more guarded, even more cautious about who she lets into her circle, but her soft bits are still soft, her heart is still pure, and her sense of humor is still razor-sharp.
By contrast, I think the rest of us, Scott, Ares, Apollo andmyself, grew an extra inch of iron around our hearts and got a few degrees colder as a result of what she went through.
Only when the door’s locked behind her after, the trash is picked up, my living room resembles ‘normal,’ and the sole sound in my dimly lit bedroom is the sawing of my breaths through the tension do I let myself even look at the box.
I tell myself I’ll open it later, tomorrow even. But I last seven minutes. The box wins.
I tear it open with the painfully slow precision I’m known for on the ice. The gift note says, “Heard kale doesn’t ship well, so I sent you something that’s actually edible. Every time you bite into this, remember: I thought about feeding it to you.”
My dick stirs, and my blood heats. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about feeding Xavier apple pie last weekend after the game. It was deep, delicious, and unexpected. Which seems to be the case with Xavier, too.
My phone vibrates from the bedside table where it’s charging.
Hen: Opened it yet?
A second text comes through.
Hen: What’s in it? I’m dying over here.
I can’t fight the smirk pulling at my lips. Curiosity might kill me sooner than the frustration making my dick press against the seam of my sweats at the memory of Xavier’s perfect mouth as he spoke to his brother in the restaurant.
When a third message pings through, I almost give in and write her back, except the message isn’t from her.
Goal Daddy: Get anything interesting in the mail today?
Let’s find out.
