Him (Him #1)(37)

At first he goes rigid. Then he makes an effort to relax. And when he shoots me a little glance over his shoulder, it’s grateful.

“I gotta go,” Wes is saying, his voice still grumpy. “I’ll think about it. But don’t you dare schedule anything without my permission.”

He ends the call and drops the phone on the desk. Then he drops his head and leans into my touch. “Thanks, man,” he says gruffly.

“What does he want from you?” I work my hands up onto the back of his neck. Would I have touched him this way yesterday? Maybe? Probably not. But it isn’t sexual. He feels good under my hands, though. Warm and alive.

Wes groans. “He’s got a buddy at Sports Illustrated. You know him—he’s got a buddy everywhere. My dad came out of the womb with business cards in his hands. He’s convinced the guy to interview me about my rookie season. Like—following the ups and downs.”

I’m horrified. “That’s a terrible idea.” In the first place, rookie seasons are wildly unpredictable. Wes could end up as a healthy scratch for two dozen games before suddenly seeing tons of play. And who wants the pressure of speaking to a reporter all the damn time? “You don’t want to be that rookie on the team—the one a reporter follows around all f*cking day.”

Wes sighs, his back rising and falling under my hands. “You think?”

I feel a rush of…something for him. Solidarity. Affection. Maybe it doesn’t need a title. But I wish his father hadn’t meddled. “What are you going to do?”

“Lie,” he says, his tone flat. “I’ll tell him I spoke to the Panthers’ PR team, and they vetoed the idea.”

“Will he believe you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Because you don’t want to piss off Sports Illustrated before you’ve even sharpened your skates in Toronto.”

Wes makes a frustrated sound as I work my hands down his spine. “My f*cking father, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong again. He thinks he’s helping, too. He wants his buddy to write an all-American-kid kind of story. Apple f*cking pie and all that. Like if it’s printed in a magazine, he can make it true.”

Wes turns around suddenly, interrupting the killer massage I’d been giving him. I’m oddly disappointed. I enjoyed having my hands on him. I know he enjoyed it too, but his expression is shuttered again, just like it was this morning.

I open my mouth. Then close it. Nope, I’m still not ready to have this conversation.

Neither is he, apparently. “Let’s grab some lunch,” he suggests.

I hesitate, then shake my head. “You go ahead. I think I’ll take a nap for a bit. I’m…tired after that game.”

It’s a lame-ass excuse, and I know he sees right through me. But he just nods. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll catch up with you later.”

A moment later, he’s gone.





18





Wes





I don’t end up grabbing lunch. Instead, I walk around aimlessly for almost an hour, then plant my ass on a park bench and do some people-watching.

Canning is freaking out. I don’t need to be a mind reader to know that. But f*ck, I wish I could read his mind. I want to know just how badly I screwed up our friendship again.

Or had I? I don’t even f*cking know. A part of me assumes that yes, I’ve lost him again. But another part keeps saying, dude, he just gave you a MASSAGE. That means we’re still friends, right? Except…do friends really give each other back rubs? The one time I had a kink in my neck and asked Cassel to knead it out for me, he nearly bust a gut laughing.

And speaking of Cassel, there are two text messages from him on my phone, both from earlier in the week. I’ve been too busy settling back into the Lake Placid routine to answer him.

I type a quick response: Camp’s good. Some real talent here. How’s ur sis? Make friends with any lobsters? I chuckle to myself. Cassel’s spending the summer with his older sister in Maine, busing tables at her seafood restaurant.

He responds faster than I expect: All good here. Sis says hi.

There’s a long delay, and then a second message pops up: Broke up with Em.

Sitting there on the bench, I let out a whoop of joy. About f*cking time. This is too important for texts, so I pull up his number and call him.

He answers on the second ring, his familiar voice sliding into my ear. “Yo.”

“So how’d she take it?” I demand.

“As expected.”

“Freaked out and slapped you, you mean?”

A heavy sigh echoes on the line. “Pretty much. She accused me of stringing her along for four years. I reminded her we were only going out for one, and then she called me an insensitive f*cktard and stormed out.”

“Shit. Sorry, man. You doing okay?”

“Oh yeah. Never realized how high maintenance that chick was until I set her loose. Just enjoying my freedom now, taking a page out of the Ryan Wesley playbook and screwing anything that walks.”

“Next year that won’t be my playbook.”

He’s silent for a second. “You going to try to keep your extracurriculars on the DL?”

“I think I have to keep it zipped up instead. A rookie can’t afford rumors. At school… That was just different. The stakes were lower.”