Hat Trick (Fake Boyfriend 5)

Our debut album had tanked. Well, tanked isn’t really the correct term. We found minor success. Super minor. We’d done enough to do another album with the label but hadn’t hit any charts. We’d gained thousands of followers on social media and our YouTube channel. We had fans turning up to our shows. The small clubs we booked were selling out. The label was impressed enough with us to send us to Australia next month for a Joystar festival, but our stage time for that show was set for three a.m. on one of the side stages. Still, free trip overseas. We couldn’t wait, and Benji was excited to go back to his homeland to visit his family.

But we were over the seedy dive bar thing. We’d done that back in New York, and now we were getting the same benefits for more exhaustion. Being on the road was hard. Harder than I thought it would be.

Between band drama like my bass player and drummer being totally in love with each other but both too stubborn to admit it, sleeping in cheap-ass motels every night, not knowing what city I was in, and the encompassing feeling of being lost, I missed New York and the family I’d built.

My brother Matt. His husband, Noah, who I referred to as my brother. Ollie and Lennon. Heck, I even missed Matt’s weirdly overprotective friends. They all still treated me like I was a kid, but oddly, I missed it coming from them. I missed all of them.

I loved every minute of touring, but fuck, I was tired. My throat felt raw the majority of the time.

We had to pay our dues, I knew that, but the tour was putting me in a funk. I wondered if maybe I didn’t have it in me. Music had been my entire life, but when it became work, the love I had for it wasn’t there anymore.

I hadn’t written for about six months of the year we’d been away. No time, too tired, and no inspiration.

But as I took to the stage that fateful night in Tampa, the universe sent me a gift. A piece of home. A warm memory. No wait, not warm. Scorching hot.

I had no idea what Soren was doing in Florida—playing hockey I presumed—but even more, I had no idea what he was doing in this bar, waiting for my band to perform.

It was a fluke I picked him out of the crowd at all, and I wasn’t sure what gave him away. My eyes found him immediately upon taking my place in the spotlight. While a part of me thought my mind was playing tricks on me or the lighting made me imagine him—maybe it could’ve simply been a guy who looked a hell of a lot like my Soren wearing a baseball cap—but as soon as he broke out into a grin, I knew it was him.

The guy I’d had one night with almost a year ago and hadn’t seen since. Hadn’t even spoken to him.

Last I’d heard from everyone back home was Soren had gotten back together with his ex.

I’d like to say I wasn’t disappointed by that news, but I was. I wanted to act cool like I did the morning after we’d hooked up. Because I’d meant every word I said back then. I would’ve loved more of Soren, but it was only one night, and if he was still hung up on his ex, then he should’ve gone for it.

But after a year on the road, realizing how lonely this life was, how superficial and shallow the music industry could be, I wanted someone who was real. Not a groupie, not a sleazy tour manager, and not a musician—all of which I’d had the pleasure, or displeasure, of having this past year, and all of who had left me unsatisfied. Just like the hookups before Soren had.

“What’s up, Tampa?” I yelled into my mic.

The crowd went wild, but the object of my attention stayed cool as ever, still smiling at me with that blinding gorgeousness that was Soren.

Weren’t hockey players supposed to be roughed up, toothless, and, I dunno, grunty looking?

I wanted to talk to him. Forget the set and run into his arms. Instead, I turned to my bandmates.

“Changing it up, guys. Let’s open with ‘He’s Mine.’”

Benji looked confused for a second, but then he glanced out at the crowd and back to me. “Bloody hell, is the guy here?”

“The guy is here.”

Benji knew the whole story. So did Freya. She banged her drumsticks together, starting the count.

My eyes locked on Soren again as the song broke out, and I didn’t know it was possible, but his smile widened.

I might not have been able to call him out publicly and point and say, “Hey, everyone, Caleb Sorensen is in the house!” but I could still communicate with him. Well, technically, I could have announced an NHL hunk was here, but I didn’t want anyone to approach him. As soon as the gig was over, he was going to be all mine.