“It’s not so much him. It’s hockey, it’s my uncertain future, it’s … everything. What if the team doesn’t want me anymore?”
“If New Jersey doesn’t offer you another contract, then they’re assholes, and you’ll sign with someone else.”
“That’s just it. Signing with another team is more daunting than retiring at this point.” It was an adjustment for everyone to get used to playing next to the gay guy. Ollie’s team appeared to accept him better than mine had accepted me, but what if the next team is worse?
“What’s your ultimate goal when it comes to hockey?” Ollie asks, and it’s such a loaded question that I don’t know how to answer.
“What’s yours?”
“The Cup, obviously, but that’s every player’s dream. If I get to your age—”
“You’re not that much younger, asshole.”
Ollie smirks. “As I was saying, if I get to your … level of experience—”
“Better.”
“I’d be happy with the type of career you’ve had. You’ve won a Selke Trophy.”
“I won that eight years ago.”
“And you were in the Stanley Cup final three years ago. I haven’t ever made it to a championship game.”
“There’s a major difference between us though. You still have time. I feel like mine’s running out.”
Ollie lets out a loud whistle. “That’s dark. No wonder you drank so much at dinner.”
Coconuts filled with liquor might be my downfall this trip. I sip more water. “They were good, but they were strong and sickly sweet. Now they’re sitting wrong.” I rub my stomach.
“Maybe go easy on them if your old body can’t handle it.”
I kick at the water and splash him all the way up to his shirt. I may be older but that doesn’t mean I’m more mature.
“Really? Is that how it’s gonna be?”
Before he gets a chance to retaliate, I run for the beach and away from the water so he can’t get me. My knees protest, but I tell them to shut the fuck up. Water goes everywhere, and I’m probably as wet as I would have been if I’d just let him splash me.
Ollie catches up as we hit the sand and tries to drag me back toward the water, but we’re both laughing so hard we don’t get far.
That’s when the sound of a helicopter hits our ears and makes us pause. The loud rhythmic thumping of propeller blades becomes louder, and a blinking red light in the sky gets brighter and lower to the ground.
“Paparazzi?” I ask.
“Matt and Noah say next to no one recognizes them in Fiji. It’s why they love coming here.”
We move back toward everyone else, who are now huddled by the entryway to the food hut, each of them as curious as we are.
“Then who—”
The idea of paparazzi crashes and burns when someone far worse steps out of the helicopter when it lands in the clearing close by.
I blink a few times to make sure I didn’t somehow wish him into an illusion.
He’s not supposed to be here. Matt said he couldn’t get out of his music tour.
There’s a reason I refer to Matt’s brother as the twinkish rock star, the random guy I had one night with a billion years ago. Because the reality is, he’s not some random guy, and it wasn’t some random hookup.
He’s forbidden fruit. Not only because he’s Matt Jackson’s little brother who’s ten years younger than me, but because he’s a famous rock star now.
No one knows what happened between us, and unless I want to get beaten up, I have no plans to let anyone here find out. Matt and Noah are overprotective, and the rest of the group all see Jet—sorry, Jay—as the little brother they never had.
Now, he’s here in front of me.
My heart pounds while memories of our past flash through my head.
His shaggy brown hair is unstyled, his ripped jeans are tight, and the cocky smirk that has haunted me for three years is still the same.
This vacation just became a whole lot more interesting.
As we lock eyes, I realize I’m wrong.
It’s awkward. The word I’m looking for is awkward.
Chapter Two
JET
THE HOOKUP
There should’ve been a tingle in my stomach. Or perhaps an alert in my subconsciousness that I was about to meet someone who’d change my life. There was nothing but the usual buzz of energy under my skin and the thousand thoughts per minute running through my head.
People always wondered why creative people were neurotic and a little batshit. All I had to say to those people was “You try living in my head for a day. You’ll understand.”
I entered the New Jersey locker room on a mission to invite Caleb “Soren” Sorensen to Fever with the rest of the group who I’d dubbed the gay brigade.
Lennon had given me his press pass after he was swamped by paparazzi. It was official. His and Ollie’s relationship was no longer on the down low.