Pride and Pucks and Prejudice - 26. Chapter 26

Noah

I woke up at seven twelve. For a few seconds, I had no idea where I was. Then I remembered the hotel, the playoff series, the Bay Area, and the fact that Jackson Lemaire had slid into a whole new phase of our relationship a couple of nights before.

That last part was still taking some getting used to.

I lay there staring at the ceiling. We were together. Apparently.

I had spent months failing to notice that I was falling in love with my best friend, and now I was expected to know what people did the morning after they finally admitted it.

I had no idea. So I got out of bed. The shower helped. Slightly.

I pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, ran a hand through my hair and looked at myself in the mirror.

Nothing appeared different. That seemed unfair. I had expected at least some visible indication that my life had changed overnight. Perhaps a small glowing sign over my head.

NEW RELATIONSHIP.

HANDLE WITH CARE.

Instead, I looked exactly like I always did. I was brushing my teeth when there was a knock at the door.

I stopped. There was another knock.

I spat into the sink, wiped my mouth and opened it.

Jackson stood in the hallway holding two coffees. He was wearing grey sweatpants and a black T-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower.

He looked at me. I looked at him.

Neither of us said anything for a moment.

Then I looked at the coffees. “You brought coffee.”

He glanced down at them. “I did.”

“I can see that.”

“I didn't know if I was supposed to.”

That caught me off guard.

I leaned against the doorframe. “You usually do.”

“I know.”

“So?”

He gave me one of the cups. “I thought I'd continue.”

I took it. Our fingers touched briefly around the cup. Neither of us moved away.

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

He remained in the hallway.

I looked at him. He looked at me.

“So,” I said.

“So.”

“This is weird.”

“A little.”

“Good.”

His mouth twitched. “Good?”

“Means I'm not the only one.”

“No.” He took a sip of his coffee. "I don't think there are rules for this.”

“There are definitely rules.”

“Are there?”

“I assume there are.”

“Do you know any?”

“No.”

“Then I think we're safe.”

I laughed.

He smiled.

It was the same smile I'd seen hundreds of times before. It felt different now. That was the problem. Or maybe it wasn't a problem.

I stepped back and held the door open. “You coming in?”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “I wasn't sure if I was supposed to.”

“You're my boyfriend.”

The word came out before I had time to think about it.

Jackson went very still.

I felt my face heat. “Well,” I said. “Apparently.”

His smile grew. “Apparently.”

“Don't make it weird.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were.”

“I was smiling.”

“That's worse.”

He laughed quietly. Then he stepped inside. We stood there for another few seconds, which seemed ridiculous considering we'd spent most of the previous night talking in hotel hallways and kissing in doorways.

Eventually Jackson nodded towards the coffee. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah.”

We left the room together. The hallway looked exactly the same as it had yesterday. Beige carpet. Identical doors. Terrible hotel artwork.

Somehow it all felt different. We walked towards the elevators. Our shoulders touched once. Neither of us moved away.

Jackson held the elevator door.

I stepped inside. He followed. There was nobody else there. For a few seconds we stood beside each other in silence.

Then I looked at him. He was already looking at me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You're staring.”

“I wasn't.”

“You were.”

“I was looking.”

“At what?”

He considered that. “You.”

My stomach did something embarrassing. “Oh.”

He smiled.

The doors opened. We walked into the hotel restaurant. The team was already there.

Conversation continued for perhaps three seconds. Then it stopped. Every head turned.

I looked around the room.

Ben had a fork halfway to his mouth. Eddie was holding a piece of toast. Aleksander looked at us with the expression of a man who had just discovered a particularly interesting piece of evidence. Stellan glanced from me to Jackson.

Nobody said anything.

I looked at Jackson. He looked at me.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning.”

We walked to the buffet. Nobody followed. That was almost more unsettling.

I grabbed a plate. Jackson picked up another. We moved through the line together.

Eggs. Toast. Fruit. Coffee. At the end of the counter, I reached for the sugar. Jackson handed me two packets before I asked.

I stopped.

He stopped.

I looked at the sugar.

Then at him.

“You know how much I use?”

“You take two.”

“I used to take three.”

“Not anymore.”

I stared at him. “How do you know that?”

He shrugged. “You stopped putting the third one in about two months ago.”

Two months. I hadn't even noticed.

“You've been paying attention.”

“I pay attention.”

I smiled despite myself. “Apparently.”

We found two seats together. Nobody seemed willing to comment on that either.

Ben sat opposite us. He lifted his coffee mug, just slightly, the same gesture as yesterday.

I looked at him.

Then at Jackson.

Jackson lifted his own mug in response. Ben nodded once and returned to his breakfast.

I started laughing.

“What?” Jackson asked.

“Nothing.”

“You're laughing.”

“It's been a strange twenty-four hours.”

“That it has.”

I took a sip of coffee.

Jackson did the same.

Our knees touched beneath the table.

Neither of us moved.

For once, I didn't feel the need to figure out what that meant.

I already knew.

It meant he was there.

And now, apparently, he was mine.

I wasn't entirely sure what came next.

But breakfast seemed like a reasonable place to start.

---------

The afternoon was supposed to be for recovery.

That was what Hayes had said. “Recover. Eat. Hydrate. Do something that doesn't involve hockey.”

I had nodded solemnly, as though this were a complicated tactical instruction. By two o'clock I was bored enough to consider watching film voluntarily.

Instead, I knocked on Jackson's door. He opened it almost immediately.

“You're here.”

“I was invited.”

“You weren't.”

“You said I could come over.”

“I said you could come over if you wanted to.”

“That sounds like an invitation.”

He looked at me for a moment. Then he stepped aside.

“Come in.”

I smiled.

His room looked almost exactly like mine. Same hotel furniture. Same bland artwork. Same view of the city through the window.

Somehow his room felt different.

Maybe because I knew I was allowed to be here now.

Jackson had ordered room service. There was a tray on the small table with two sandwiches, fries and enough coffee to keep a small town awake.

I pointed at it. “You ordered lunch without me?”

“I ordered lunch for both of us.”

“Oh.”

He looked amused.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You're smiling.”

“I like that you ordered me lunch.”

“I assumed you would be hungry.”

“I am.”

“I know.”

There was something about the way he said it that made my chest tighten.

He knew.

He knew when I was hungry. He knew how I took my coffee. He knew which side I preferred on the bus. He knew when I was tired, when I was irritated, when I was about to make a stupid pass before I made it.

Six months ago, I would have called that competitive awareness.

Now I wasn't sure what to call it.

I picked up half a sandwich. “What's on?”

“Nothing.”

“Excellent.”

“I was going to find a film.”

“You're terrible at picking films.”

“I have excellent taste.”

“You watched a three-hour documentary about bridge construction.”

“It was interesting.”

“It was about concrete.”

“There were engineering considerations.”

I stared at him. “You're proving my point.”

He laughed.

We eventually settled on a film neither of us particularly wanted to watch.

I took the bed.

Jackson took the chair.

That lasted perhaps four minutes.

“You're sitting in a chair.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you took the bed.”

“You could sit here.”

He looked at me. I patted the mattress beside me. There was a brief pause. Then he came over and sat down.

Our shoulders touched. Neither of us moved.

The film started.

For the first twenty minutes, I actually watched it. Then the plot became incomprehensible.

Then one of the characters made a decision so obviously stupid that I sat up.

“What the hell was that?”

Jackson didn't look away from the screen.

“He's emotionally compromised.”

“He's an idiot.”

“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”

I laughed.

He smiled.

The film continued. At some point I took one of his fries.

He looked down. “You're stealing my food.”

“You ordered it for both of us.”

“I did.”

“So it's our food.”

“That isn't how ownership works.”

“You're a lawyer now?”

“No.”

“Then eat your fries.”

“I was.”

“Good.”

A few minutes later he stole one of mine.

I looked at him.

He didn't even pretend innocence.

“You're a hypocrite.”

“I learned from you.”

“I'm a terrible influence.”

“I've noticed.”

I smiled at the television. The room went quiet again. Outside, traffic moved along the streets below. Somewhere down the corridor a door opened and shut. The air conditioning hummed.

Jackson shifted beside me. I shifted too. My shoulder settled against his. Then, without really deciding to, I leaned closer. My head came to rest against his shoulder.

Jackson went still, only for a second.

But I felt it.

I lifted my head. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

He turned towards me.

His face was close enough that I could see the small crease beside his eye when he smiled.

“You can stay.”

Something in me loosened.

So I did.

I settled back against him.

His shoulder was warm beneath my cheek. His arm rested along the headboard, close enough that I could feel the heat of it without quite touching.

The film carried on.

I had no idea what was happening anymore.

I didn't care.

For years, I had been careful around Jackson. Careful about what I said, how much I gave him, and how much I let him see. Even after we became friends, some part of me had kept score.

Now none of it seemed important, and I was lying against him in a hotel room in California while some terrible movie played in the background.

I could be tired around him.

I could be quiet.

I could have nothing clever to say.

I could simply sit there.

Jackson didn't seem to need anything from me.

That might have been the strangest part.

I turned my head slightly. “What?”

He looked down at me. “Nothing.”

“You're staring.”

“I was looking.”

“At what?”

I smiled. “You.”

His expression softened. “Oh.”

There was no joke.

No comeback.

Just that.

I put my head back on his shoulder.

After a moment, his hand came down and rested lightly against my arm.

It was almost nothing, a few fingers, warmth through my T-shirt, but my heart gave one hard, ridiculous beat.

I closed my eyes.

Six months from now, this might feel ordinary. Maybe I'd steal his food without thinking about it. Maybe I'd fall asleep against him and he'd complain about my shoulder.

Maybe this would become one of those ordinary things that happened without either of us thinking about it.

For now, though, I noticed everything. The weight of his shoulder beneath my head. The warmth of his hand on my arm. The sound of him breathing. The fact that neither of us seemed to want to move.

On the screen, somebody shouted.

Jackson sighed. “This film is terrible.”

“It's awful.”

“Want to turn it off?”

I opened my eyes. “No.”

“Why?”

I smiled against his shoulder. “I've got somewhere better to be.”

------------

By the time we left for the rink, the hotel had settled into its usual playoff rhythm.

People moved through the lobby carrying garment bags, equipment cases and increasingly complicated coffees. Coaches stood near the entrance with clipboards. Someone from media was trying to find a player who had apparently gone to breakfast forty minutes earlier and never returned.

I had my phone in one hand and my coffee in the other.

Jackson walked beside me. We hadn't discussed walking together. We just were.

Outside, the team bus waited at the curb.

Ben was standing beside the luggage compartment arguing with Dave about whether a hockey bag could technically qualify as oversized baggage.

“It has wheels,” Ben said.

“It has three sticks sticking out of it,” Dave replied.

“That's a design feature.”

I walked past them.

Jackson followed.

Nothing happened.

Nobody looked at us.

That surprised me more than it should have.

A few days ago, the team would have noticed if Jackson and I had walked within six inches of each other.

Now we were simply two teammates getting on a bus.

Except we weren't.

I knew that.

He knew that.

Apparently that was enough.

I found my seat.

Jackson sat beside me.

Again, neither of us discussed it.

He put his headphones on. I opened my phone. The bus pulled away.

Ten minutes later I realized I'd left my gloves in the hotel room.

“Fuck!”

Jackson looked over. “What?”

“My gloves.”

“You left them?”

“Apparently.”

He sighed. “You're going to have to get another pair.”

“I know.”

The bus was already turning onto the main road.

Jackson reached into his bag. He pulled out a pair of gloves.

I stared at them. “Those are mine.”

“I know.”

“How did you get them?”

“You left them in the equipment room yesterday.”

“You took them?”

“I put them in my bag.”

“Why?”

“So you wouldn't forget them.”

I took the gloves. “Thanks.”

He nodded.

I smiled.

He looked at me for another second, then smiled back.

That was it.

No joke.

No comment.

He put his headphones back on.

I looked down at the gloves in my hands.

There had been a time when Jackson doing something like that would have annoyed me.

There had been a time when I would have wondered what he was trying to prove.

Now I just felt warm.

The bus rolled through the city. I leaned back in my seat. Our shoulders touched. Neither of us moved. I watched the streets slide past the window.

At some point, without thinking about it, I let my head fall against his shoulder. I realized what I'd done only after I was already there.

Jackson shifted slightly. For one ridiculous second, I thought he'd move away. Instead, he adjusted his position so I was more comfortable.

His shoulder settled beneath my head. His hand rested loosely against his thigh.

I closed my eyes. The bus hummed beneath us.

Around us, people talked quietly. Someone laughed near the front. A coach was giving last-minute instructions to nobody in particular.

Jackson said nothing. Neither did I. I could feel him breathing.

I thought about the rink. About six years of trying to know where he was so I could stop him. Then six months of learning where he would be because I trusted him to be there.

Somewhere along the way, the question had changed. I wasn't thinking about where Jackson would be anymore. I was thinking about where I wanted to be.

Beside him.

I opened my eyes for a moment.

Jackson was looking out the window. His expression was calm. His shoulder was warm beneath my cheek.

I closed my eyes again. He didn't wake me. He didn't move.

He simply stayed where he was.