“What look?”
“The one that means someone’s about to have a very bad time.”
I continue smile at the ceiling.
“Go to bed, Blake.”
????????
I wake up earlier than usual. I just lie there feeling it.
Light. Genuinely, light. Like the weight that’s been sitting on my chest since I enrolled here just got up and walked out the door along with Jamie Nash last night. Like the sun is shining on me.
I get up. I make breakfast. I flip bacon with the energy of a man who has been handed exactly what he deserves after a very long time of deserving it.
Because let’s review one more time, for funsies.
Jamie Nash has been on my case since day one. Rides me constantly. Benches me in the tunnel in front of the whole team. Puts his hands on me in a coffee shop. On my ass at every single turn. Ran away after we kissed. And this whole time — this entire time — I’ve been carrying around the idea that maybe he hated me for being gay. That I was the problem.
And that man was on Grindr.
He swiped right onme.
I flip the bacon and start laughing again, diabolically, like a crazy person.
Blake comes out of his room all sleepy and squinting and just stares at me. “Good morning, sunshine!” I point the spatula at him. “It’s a beautiful day. Do a twirl for me.”
“No.”
“Blake, come on.”
A very long pause. A lot of silence and glaring.
He finally does one slow defeated turn.
“YES! That paid for your breakfast right there.”
We eat fast because I’m in a genuine rush — me, Rhys Callahan, rushing to get to practice early — which has never happened once in my entire life and probably won’t happen again after today. But today, Jamie Nash is going to walk into that rink and see me there first. And he’s going to know that I know. And I’m going to give him the biggest smile he’s ever seen before.
There’s not a single thing he can do about it.
I know I sat at this same table yesterday feeling bad about what happened with Jamie. I know I meant it when I said it. But that was yesterday. Because immediately after, Jamie Nash drove almost an hour to my house after matching with me on Grindr, and I am only human.
Who am I to look a gift in the face? Or whatever the saying is.
Payback, as it turns out, is a really beautiful thing.
But also a bitch.
So fuck him.
Chapter 24
Jamie
I love morning practice.
I have loved morning practice every single day since I was old enough to lace up skates by myself. The early quiet. The empty rink. The feeling of being ahead of everything before the day starts. The ice was the first place my father ever took me to punish me. But then it became the only place I ever felt safe. I've never been able to explain that to anyone. Probably never will.
