Page 22 of Two for Charging

“What? Sometimes we want to see each other when she’s on call.”

“You are sleeping over already, hm?”

Mooney continued to stare out the window. “We’ve been dating for five months. Of course I sleep over sometimes.”

“Five months? Since last season?” Luca knew he was prickly, especially with other hockey players, but he thought he and Mooney were friends all the same. Five months seemed a long time not to tell your friend about a relationship.

“We kept it on the down-low for a while,” Mooney admitted. “Seemed safer.”

“Because she is bisexual.” Luca said it as blandly as he could, as if it had nothing to do with him. He was a terrible actor, but he had what his sister called “a very solid resting bitch face.”

Mooney exhaled loudly, a big puff of air, and shifted in his seat. “Because I’m a hockey player. Everyone I know is gonna be super weird about her job and, yeah, about her being bi.”

“You don’t care?”

“Of course I care.”

Luca’s heart sank.

“It’s a big part of who she is and her life experience. It would be super shitty not to care. I don’t think it’s bad, if that’s what you mean. I kinda like everything about her.”

Warmth suffused Luca, pleasure for his friend mixed with seething, boiling envy in equal parts. He wasn’t sure for whom: Mooney, for having the sentiments Luca couldn’t help but feel for Breezy returned, or Mara, for having all of herself seen and appreciated. He’d long since given up on the concept. All his past girlfriends had thought him straight, and he’d never bothered to correct them. It was irrelevant. If he wanted a career in hockey, his bisexuality would have to stay a secret forever. He could hook up with men during the off-season in Europe, but he couldn’t make more of it than a fling for a week or two. If his career continued to go well, even that would be off the table. Which was fine. Luca could live with dating women exclusively. It would be ridiculous to feel as though not telling the whole world his orientation was a deprivation on par with filling only one lung with oxygen.

He clapped Mooney on the shoulder, trying to find the right reply, both supportive and not out of character enough to give himself away.

Before he could, the deafening sound of a foghorn blasted through the cabin.

Luca cringed in his seat, looking for the source. Was there an emergency? Had something happened?

“Cool app, huh?” Lindy stood between the rows once more, holding up her phone. “Time’s up, boys. Any time any of you says something we all know isn’t a real compliment, I will be pressing the Play button.”

Sinking low in his seat, Luca hoped he wouldn’t be picked first.

“Anyone want to start?”

The plane was silent except for the drone of the motor.

“I can.”

A rush of debilitating fondness swept through Luca. Of course Breezy wanted to go first. He lived for this shit.

“Go for it,” Lindy said.

“Okay. Should I stand up?”

“Oh my God,” Mooney whispered. “Why did he ask that?”

Because he wanted to look people in the eye when he gave them compliments. Because he was tirelessly, fearlessly genuine.

“Because he’s the worst.”

Lindy smiled at Breezy encouragingly, and he stood, stepping out into the aisle to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling of the plane. In his hands, he clutched a sheet of paper, the lid of his green gel pen sticking out of the breast pocket of his loose-fitting shirt.

He had to take Breezy to his tailor one of these days.

His tailor! Going to see Leonora would be a perfect activity. It would get them out of the house, and the threat of public ridicule would keep Luca’s wayward libido in line. And Luca could spend some of his ridiculous NHL salary on Breezy without it seeming odd.

Breezy cleared his throat. “Okay, um… Tom, I appreciate how seriously you take me. You’ve never looked at me like I’m dumb even when I say, just, the stupidest shit. Jax, you never take yourself seriously when you’re doing amazing stuff, on the ice or off it. You keep it fun, and you’re a really good dude.”