I never lied to him. I told him very clearly that I don’t have a lot to give. We could have sex, but nothing more.
But then I broke my own rules, didn’t I? The sleepovers. The kissing. Dropping by when he’s sick to make sure he’ll be okay.
And he is okay. That’s what matters. He’s upright. Lucid. Breathing. Fever’s down.
Everything is fine, right? Except I don’t feel fine.
But… What was I supposed to say? Like, seriously, when he told me he loved me last night. In the dark, with sweat on his neck and pain in his voice and my name in his mouth like it meant something?
He was a mess, I remind myself. Sick and emotional and not thinking clearly. It was just fever talk. He even said so.
We can go back to the way things were, he’d said. But I know that’s a lie, and I like him too much to keep things where they need to be. I’m still me—still in debt, still unavailable most days and nights. Still treading water while he slices through his season like a champion.
It’s wrong of me to maintain this on-off, will-I-or-won’t-I cycle again. It’s hurting us both. I’ll do the standup thing and let him go. Like a good guy.
Because I am a good guy.
Mostly.
I try to be, anyway.
Fuck.
I spend the next few days drowning myself in my work. I update every single spreadsheet. I go over the bar’s first-quarter financial results. I make the payment on my new truck.
The loss of Beck in my life aches, and I glance at the lock screen of my phone a thousand times to see if he’s texted me. But of course he hasn’t.
When his team goes on another road trip, Beck is healthy enough to start one of the games. The Ice Cats win, of course. They’re going to make a deep bid in the Calder Cup this year. I can just tell.
I roll through another weekend of late nights behind the bar, and Scully takes a couple of well-deserved days off.
See? This is just how my life works. No time for a boyfriend. The boiler at Sportsballs breaks again, and I get tied up dealing with the emergency plumber even on my day off. Then Ruby flies off for a medical conference, which puts Charlie at my place for the rest of the week.
It’s good having him, and I make three healthy dinners in a row and bake chocolate-chip banana bread, which makes the whole house smell delicious. And I make sure he does his homework.
“You’re, like, super dad this week,” Charlie says on Thursday night.
“Glad you think so.” I’m tidying up the living room, keeping busy while Charlie plays a video game. My house is clean. My kid is well fed. Everything is great, right? This is what I was meant to do.
I glance at the TV and, in the corner of the screen where the player’s icons are displayed, I see an unfamiliar avatar. It’s a blue cat and my gaze freezes on the name beneath it, like my brain has been programmed to seek it out. Beckstopper.
“Charlie, are you playing a game with Beck?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Do you do that a lot?”
Charlie shakes his head. “I texted him and asked if he wanted to come over…”
My heart does a weird little flip, even though it shouldn’t.
“He said he couldn’t. He was super nice, though. He said he’d play with me online for an hour instead.” Charlie gives me a sideways glance. “It’s weird he couldn’t come over, right? He doesn’t even have a game tonight.”
“His team is all young hockey players, Charlie. They probably party together several nights a week.”
My son’s expression is dubious. “If he has time to play online, he has time to come over here.”
Shit. “Where did you even get his number?”
