Chapter One
Rhett
The knock came a little after nine, just as I was deciding whether I hated my rehab exercises enough to skip the last set.
I looked toward the door.
There were only a handful of people who ever bothered coming by my room this late, and Nolan usually texted first because he valued his life. Brady knocked like the building was on fire. Coach definitely wasn’t showing up to my dorm unless I’d committed a felony.
Which left one person.
I got up from the edge of the bed and crossed the room, slower than I would’ve a month ago. The pain in my ribs had faded into something duller now, less sharp and more annoying. Most of the time I could forget about it. Then I’d twist wrong, reach too far, or breathe too deeply after pushing myself and my body would remind me that three weeks wasn’t actually that long ago.
The knock came again.
I stopped in front of the door.
“You have a key.”
There was a short pause.
Then Ezra’s voice came through the other side.
“Romance is dead.”
I smiled.
“Use the key.”
“I wanted you to answer the door.”
“Why?”
“Because normal people do that when their boyfriend comes over.”
That word still did something stupid to me.
Boyfriend.
It wasn’t new anymore. We had been using it for weeks. My parents knew it. Nolan knew it. Coach probably knew it despite neither of us ever actually saying it to him.
Still, hearing Ezra say it like it was the most obvious thing in the world made something settle in my chest.
I unlocked the door.
Ezra stood in the hallway with a paper takeout bag tucked under one arm and two drinks balanced in his other hand. His hair was a mess, which wasn’t unusual, and his glasses had slid slightly down his nose. He wore the same black Northpoint hoodie he’d had on at the rink earlier, except now the sleeves were pushed up and there was a faint strip of white athletic tape stuck to one wrist.
I leaned against the doorframe.
“You could’ve let yourself in.”
“And miss this warm welcome?”
“You’re holding food. That’s your welcome.”
“That is deeply romantic.”
I reached out, caught the front of his hoodie, and pulled him across the threshold.
His laugh barely had time to escape before I kissed him.
Not hard.
I wasn’t stupid.
Well.
I wasn’t stupid about this anymore.
Ezra shifted the drinks awkwardly in one hand and kissed me back, his free palm landing against the center of my chest. Even now, he automatically avoided my right side. He never made a big deal out of it. He just adjusted around me like he’d memorized every place that still hurt.
When I pulled back, he looked up at me.
“You’re clingy tonight.”
“I haven’t seen you since practice.”
“That was four hours ago.”
“Exactly.”
His mouth twitched.
“I was beginning to worry.”
“About?”
“You going soft.”
I grabbed one of the drinks from him.
“Get inside before I change my mind.”
He walked past me toward the desk, and I shut the door behind him.
Then I locked it.
The sound barely registered at first.
It was automatic.
Ezra set the food down and started pulling containers out of the bag.
“I got you the burger you like.”
“You mean the normal burger.”
“The one with no vegetables.”
“Perfect.”
“I also got vegetables.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because apparently your body requires nutrients to repair itself.”
“My body has been doing fine without broccoli.”
“Your body partially collapsed a lung.”
“That wasn’t dietary.”
“You don’t know that.”
I dropped into the desk chair.
Ezra looked at the way I sat down.
I caught it.
“Don’t.”
He blinked.
“Don’t what?”
“Do the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The checking thing.”
His expression immediately became innocent, which meant guilty.
“I wasn’t checking anything.”
“You watched me sit.”
“That is a normal thing to witness.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“So are you.”
He handed me the burger.
Fair.
I unwrapped it while he sat on the edge of my bed with his own food. There wasn’t much space between the desk and the mattress, so his knee bumped mine when he stretched his legs out.
Neither of us moved.
That was what had changed the most, I thought.
Not the sex.
Not even saying I love you, although that had definitely rearranged something in my brain.
It was how easy the little things had become.
Ezra leaving his charger plugged into my wall because apparently he lived here now.
His toothbrush beside mine.
Two shirts shoved into my dresser because he was tired of carrying clothes back and forth.
Him stealing my fries while claiming his tasted different.
Me knowing exactly how he took his coffee.
The normal shit.
The kind of stuff I used to think relationships were supposed to be made of while having absolutely no idea whether I wanted any of it.
Apparently I did.
Just with him.
Ezra reached for one of my fries.
I slapped his hand away.
“You have your own.”
“They’re not as good.”
“They came out of the same container.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“It proves they’re the same fries.”
“You’ve been in business school too long.”
I stared at him.
“That insult doesn’t even make sense.”
“It didn’t have to.”
He stole the fry while I was distracted.
“Asshole.”
He smiled around it.
I should’ve been annoyed.
Instead, I watched him for a second longer than necessary.
The last few weeks had been strange.
Before the injury, everything had felt like it was accelerating. Ezra and me. Mom knowing. Dad not knowing. Nolan knowing too much. My single room. The road trip. Hockey.
Then one hit had stopped everything.
Now I was moving again, but not at the speed I wanted.
The trainer had cleared me for twenty minutes of light skating that afternoon.
Twenty.
I had spent fifteen of those minutes thinking about how fucking good it felt to have blades under me again and the last five trying to convince everyone I could keep going.
I hadn’t won.
Ezra opened his drink.
“How’d your side feel after skating?”
There it was.
I sighed.
“Fine.”
His eyes lifted.
“Actual fine?”
“Yes.”
“No sharp pain?”
“No.”
“Shortness of breath?”
“No.”
“Any—”
“Cooper.”
He stopped.
I leaned back in the chair.
“I would’ve told the trainer.”
“You tried to negotiate five extra minutes.”
“That is unrelated.”
“It is extremely related.”
“I felt good.”
“You’re supposed to stop while you still feel good.”
“That sounds fake.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot.”
I smiled.
“You love me.”
His expression changed immediately.
Not much.
Just enough.
The first time I’d said it had been on the ice, accidentally at first, then for real.
I still remembered the look on his face.
Now he rolled his eyes.
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I took another bite.
He watched me for a second before looking down at his food.
Then he said, quieter, “You’re getting close.”
I knew what he meant.
Didn’t need him to explain it.
My appetite faded a little.
“Yeah.”
The trainer had already mentioned moving me into portions of practice next week if everything continued improving. Still non-contact. Still restricted. But no longer skating alone with everyone watching me like a science experiment.
Closer.
To the team.
To normal.
To the promise I’d made Ezra.
When I’m cleared, I tell them.
I had meant it.
I still meant it.
That didn’t mean the idea of actually doing it had magically stopped terrifying me.
Ezra didn’t say anything else.
That was one thing I loved about him.
He knew when to push.
He also knew when not to.
I looked at him.
“You can ask.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe I was being mature.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Fuck off.”
I smiled.
Then I looked toward the door.
The lock.
That stupid little piece of metal I had been so excited about when I’d finally gotten this room.
Privacy had felt like freedom then.
No roommate.
No schedules.
No Toby demanding dinner and twenty dollars to disappear for three hours.
Just a place where Ezra could come over and we didn’t have to worry about anybody walking in.
I had wanted this room so badly.
Now the lock bothered me.
Not because I didn’t want privacy.
I did.
I liked having things that were ours.
What I hated was that the second Ezra crossed that doorway, something changed.
Inside here, he was my boyfriend.
Outside, he was Cooper.
The equipment manager.
The guy I could joke with and talk to, but not touch.
Not look at too long.
Not kiss.
Not reach for just because I wanted to.
It hadn’t bothered me this much before.
Or maybe it had and I’d just been better at pretending.
Ezra noticed where I was looking.
“What?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing.”
“Rhett.”
I looked back at him.
“I hate the lock.”
He frowned.
“The lock?”
“Yeah.”
“You fought housing for that lock.”
“I know.”
“I’m pretty sure you threatened to kill Brady because he sat on your bed the first night.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
He smiled.
I didn’t.
That made his expression change.
I nodded toward the door.
“I used to like that it meant nobody could come in.”
Ezra waited.
“Now it feels like we’re waiting for it to click before we can be us.”
He went very still.
I hadn’t planned to say that.
It sounded more dramatic out loud.
Also more true.
Ezra looked down at his hands.
“You don’t have to do anything before you’re ready.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He looked back at me.
“I don’t want you coming out because you think I’m sitting here counting days.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
“But I am counting them.”
His mouth opened.
I shook my head.
“Not because of you.”
I stood and crossed the small space between us.
Ezra tilted his head up.
I stopped in front of him.
“I told you I wanted it to be mine.”
“I remember.”
“And I still do.”
“Okay.”
“I just didn’t realize how much I’d hate the part between deciding and actually doing it.”
That earned a small smile.
“Anticipation.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“It generally is.”
I rested a hand against the back of his neck.
He leaned into it automatically.
“I’m scared,” I admitted.
The words came easier than they used to.
Not easy.
Just easier.
Ezra didn’t make a big deal out of them.
“About the team?”
“Everything after.”
He nodded.
That was the real part.
Not Nolan.
Not Brady.
Not even Coach.
It was the fact that once I told them, the secret stopped belonging completely to me.
People talked.
Even people who meant well.
A teammate’s girlfriend could know.
A friend.
A classmate.
Then campus.
Then someone online.
Then maybe scouts.
Dad had already told me what he thought about that.
If a scout cared more about me being gay than whether I could play, the scout was an idiot.
I believed him.
Mostly.
Believing something didn’t automatically kill fear.
Ezra reached up and rested his hands at my waist.
Careful.
Always careful.
“You don’t have to solve all of that the second you tell the team.”
“I know.”
“You tell them.”
“Yeah.”
“Then we deal with whatever comes next.”
We.
That word still got me too.
I looked down at him.
“Come here.”
“I’m already here.”
“Closer.”
He smiled and shifted forward.
I kissed him again.
Slower this time.
His fingers curled into my shirt.
Mine stayed at the back of his neck.
Nothing urgent.
Nothing we had to prove.
Just kissing my boyfriend in my room while the rest of campus existed on the other side of a locked door.
For a little while, I let that be enough.
Then someone knocked.
Ezra pulled away.
I stepped back.
It happened so fast neither of us thought about it.
His hands left my waist.
Mine dropped.
He moved toward the desk.
I turned toward the door.
Normal.
Automatic.
The knock came again.
“Slater?”
Nolan.
Of course.
I stared at the door.
Behind me, Ezra picked up his drink.
The whole room had changed in less than three seconds.
Nothing looked suspicious.
Nothing had even been happening.
Still, we’d separated like we’d been caught.
Something hot and ugly moved through my chest.
I hated it.
“Rhett?” Nolan called.
“Yeah.”
I walked to the door and unlocked it.
Nolan stood in the hallway wearing sweats and a Northpoint hoodie, one of my phone chargers dangling from his hand.
“You left this in medical.”
He held it out.
I took it.
“Thanks.”
His eyes moved past me.
Ezra lifted two fingers in greeting.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Nolan looked back at me.
He knew.
Not what we’d been doing.
He didn’t care about that.
He knew why I was standing in the doorway instead of letting him walk in.
Why Ezra was suddenly on the other side of the room.
Why I’d gone stiff.
His expression softened just slightly.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
He waited.
I glanced back at Ezra.
Then at Nolan.
“Soon.”
Nolan’s eyebrows lifted.
I didn’t need to explain.
He knew exactly what I meant.
After a second, he nodded.
“Okay.”
No joke.
No pressure.
Just okay.
He started down the hall.
“Night.”
“Night.”
I closed the door.
My hand rested on the lock.
I could hear Nolan’s footsteps fading toward the stairs.
Behind me, Ezra didn’t say anything.
I looked down at the small metal latch.
Then I left it unlocked.
For tonight, it didn’t change anything.
Nobody was going to walk in.
Nobody knew more than they had five minutes ago.
But when I turned back toward Ezra, he noticed.
His eyes moved from me to the door and back again.
He smiled.
I didn’t say anything.
Neither did he.
I crossed the room, sat beside him on the bed, and pulled him back against my left side.
Soon.
I had said it to Nolan.
I had promised it to Ezra.
Now I had to make sure it didn’t become another word I used when I was scared to say when.
