Page 34 of Coaching Prince Charming

In these turbulent weeks, Nate had been the only real constant in my life. He never walked back on his word after the time he’d tried lecturing me, and I felt his respect whenever we were together. That was often, but not nearly often enough for my appetite. I wanted to be near him all the time. It wasn’t enough to see him a few times a week or to have him accompany me to a live gig and hide in the shadows. That happened once because the gigs were harder to find than I’d hoped. Still, I was trying my best.

What my father didn’t know was that I had moved out of the team house two weeks ago. I’d found a small room in a shared apartment three blocks away from campus, where four music students lived and practiced. The place was a little shabby, but that only meant I could afford it without raising alarms. Dad could see my bank account if he bothered to, but he luckily forgot all about me as soon as things weren’t about hockey.

“We’re proud of you, Carter,” Dad said in the end. It was never “I love you,” but “We are proud of you.” And that pride depended on the lies I spun. It would be short-lived if he knew about the Titans.

Last weekend, something surprising had happened. I was on my way to surprise Nate when I passed the city rink. Some kind of longing unfolded in me so instantly that it caught me off guard. I missed the ice. I missed it until the next heartbeat when I remembered that the ice was all my father cared about.

I might still have loved it had he not made the entire idea of hockey a condition of his love and support.

Nate could see I was upset even when I tried to be casual. He kept asking until I told him, and then he hugged me in silence for what felt like a sweet eternity.

As I hung up, I drifted back into that hug in my mind. He didn’t know the extent to which he had improved my life. Cheering me on all the time, kissing me when I finished practicing, and even leaving the apartment twice to let me use the piano in case I wanted privacy — he acted like he had an important errand, but he would return an hour later with chocolate for me — were only a few things he did in such a short time to cement my adoration.

Tonight, Nate picked me up two streets away from my new place. He couldn’t see me last night because he had made arrangements with Beckett, but I was patient. I could always wait until tomorrow. I had waited for him even when he’d been nothing more than a fantasy.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted me in his deep purr when I dropped into the passenger seat of his car. “How are you?”

“Better now that I’m here,” I said right away. At a questioning look from him, I explained that Dad had called. “He has no clue yet,” I said, then reluctantly added, “It’s kind of sad.”

Nate let his silence last a little while. “I’m sorry, Carter.”

“Not your fault,” I said curtly. I was simply cursed with uncaring parents. “Does he ever call you?”

Nate shook his head.

“Did something happen between you?” I asked. It was a random thought, but it struck me as odd that they never spoke.

Nate rolled his shoulders. “We drifted apart a few years ago. He retired, and I kept playing, so we weren’t around each other as much. It happens in life.”

He wasn’t telling me everything. What could have gone down to cool their relationship so much? They spoke of each other with respect, but they didn’t speak to each other. That wasn’t entirely true, either, but it was especially noticeable now that Nate was supposedly my coach. I tried to form the right question to ask, but then something distracted me. “Where are we going?”

Nate chuckled. “It took you long enough.”

“This isn’t the way to your place,” I pointed out, confusion swirling around my head.

“You are correct, baby,” Nate said, mock patronizing me. It earned him a pout and a glare, especially because he was wearing a pleased smile instead of answering my questions. He drove us in the opposite direction of his building, toward the outskirts of the city.

“Alright,” I muttered. “Keep your secrets.”

“You keep surprising me,” he said. It was true. I visited him unannounced a few times already, and he was always happy. I could expect the same from him.

What I expected to be a quick ride to his apartment turned into forty-five minutes of Pink Floyd pouring from the speakers. I didn’t complain about the duration or his music choice, but it was messing with my plans for the evening. The thing was, I had been naughty this evening, and Nate had no idea.

His reluctance to take our bedroom fun to the next level was admirable, of course, except that it was driving me nuts. He was the sexiest man on the planet, and yet he kept postponing it as if I were a virgin who had no idea what sex was.

The other night, I’d told him so, and he just laughed it off. “Where’s the hurry?” he had asked.

It was hard to explain, but a sense of urgency was filling me more and more as time went by.

When we arrived at our mysterious destination, it only turned me on harder. And the fact that I had been naughty earlier made me more desperate for something serious. Positioned on the narrow path that directly looked over the endless body of water I identified as Lake Huron, the small Eagleton Bed and Breakfast house was the stuff dreams were made of. It was easily as charming as any vacation home I had ever seen, with pots overflowing with flowers and deep yellow lights pouring from the windows. The house was a quaint fantasy of small-town appeal with a little front yard dotted with bushes and decorated with healthy flowerbeds.

Nate got out of the car and paused by the short wooden stairs. He waited for me to join him. He didn’t know what made me squirm after spending an hour sitting here and simmering with desire, but he didn’t seem to mind waiting for me. As I slowly got out of the car, a mixture of pain and pleasure spread through my lower abdomen.

“What did you do?” I whispered, but it was impossible to keep the awe out of my voice.

Nate shrugged. “We never go out together,” he said as if it explained everything, then bent his arm for me to take.

It was true. We couldn’t be seen together in public. The performance he attended was an exception, and he wore a baseball cap and dark shades to hide his face while watching me perform on the stage. We couldn’t have dinner in a restaurant or drinks at a bar without people noticing him. And that would be a disaster for many reasons, least of which was the fact that Nate had never come out of the closet.

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