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What was wrong with him that he’d told Eli he had to work on the flight? He should’ve booted DeShawn to the back of the plane with Prinnie and spent the ninety minutes talking with Eli. He’d told Eli he wanted to sit next to him when they’d been on the phone. Had fully intended to, even. But in the moment, with his stomach jumping with grasshopper-like jitters at the feel of Eli’s skin on his and the attraction he felt pulling at him to . . . well, pull Eli to him and kiss his face off, a montage of the many times he’d tried to fit in at a new school had flashed through his head in barely a second, and he’d balked.
And he hadn’t liked the expression on Eli’s face. Eli had been flirting with him—Nolan had only realized it in hindsight—and Nolan had told him he had to work. Eli’s expression had gone as flat as a piece of cardboard.
If he’d been offended, he appeared to be over it now.
“Listen, about this morning—”
“Eli,” Dabbs said. “The jersey.”
“Yup.” Eli gave him a thumbs-up. “I’m going right now.” To Nolan, he said, “Duty calls. Catch you later?”
He walked away before Nolan could say anything more.
chapter
six
Nolan didn’t find the letter until he was back in Burlington the day after the Trailblazers game in New Jersey. In his townhouse, he dug through his jacket pocket for the receipts he knew were in there. Roman had walked him through the process of submitting his expense claims, and he had food expenses from the last few days that he wanted to be reimbursed for. He pulled everything out of the pocket and cataloged it. Two crumpled receipts, a few dollar bills, and a folded square of paper.
One of Freddie’s letters? How had that gotten there?
No, wait, the paper’s color and shape were all wrong. Freddie’s letters had yellowed with age and they’d been folded into thirds. This paper was crisp white folded in half and then in half again.
Was it some kind of receipt?
Frowning, he unfolded it . . .
And found a letter.
Addressed to him. But who . . . ?
There, at the bottom, in a slanted scrawl: From, Eli.
Confused now, Nolan sat on the couch and began to read.
Dear Nolan,
Do you remember the day we met?
The echo of Freddie’s first letter made Nolan smile. Excitement and anticipation had his heart jumping in his chest, and his palms went sweaty. What was Eli doing?
Dear Nolan,
Do you remember the day we met? You probably don’t because you were twenty-five and uber cool, and I was just one of your dad’s players. It was during the first few weeks that Madolora coached my junior team, and you dropped by the arena because . . . I don’t know. Reasons. Anyway, you introduced yourself to everyone, and I remember thinking, “Damn, I hope I’m that effortlessly sexy when I’m old.”
(Shut up, okay. Twenty-five is old to a fifteen-year-old. Not so old that you weren’t also sexy, but . . . whatever. You know what I mean.)
Later that day, I was sitting outside waiting for my sister to pick me up from practice, and you dropped down onto the bench next to me. We chatted for a bit (can’t remember about what), and then you asked me if I actually liked hockey or if I’d simply gotten too deep into a childhood hobby and didn’t know how to escape. I have no idea what my immediate reaction was, but I remember thinking two things:
1. How goddamn rude.
2. I want to keep talking to this guy.
I know! Those two things don’t go together, but it made sense to me. Like, what an asshole for even daring to ask me that. Hockey’s the best sport in the whole wide world. But also, fuck bro, that’s an insightful question. Got any more?
See? It makes sense.
Fast forward five minutes and Michelle arrived to pick me up (late, as always), and I basically turned invisible as you chatted her up, breaking my poor little gay heart in the process.
